Rebase a Scenario in New Year

Scenarios can only be edited if they start in the current or next year. If your scenario starts in a previous year it must be rebased to the current year before you can make changes. Rebasing a scenario does not replace or delete the original scenario.

When you open a client's scenario with a Start Year before the current calendar year (for example in 2025 you open a scenario with the Start Year of 2024), the Run Scenario button will be replaced with the Rebase Scenario button at the top of the Planning page.

When you click the Rebase Scenario button the following dialogue box will appear.

Click Rebase.

Once the Rebase is complete, the new scenario that starts in the current year will be displayed and you can rename it.

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The existing scenario is copied and the Start Year is changed to the current year. End-of-year projected values from the previous year's scenario are automatically entered as the start-of-year values in the rebased scenario. You have a new, up-to-date scenario for your clients, created in minutes.

NOTE: If you are trying to rebase scenarios created more than one year in the past, please additionally review and update the RRSP and TFSA contribution room to make sure these values are current.

It is important to review the scenario as there will be areas automatically adjusted for you based on the inflation settings and updated new year financial and tax data. These areas include but aren't limited to income and expense amounts, asset values and costs, RESP grants, debt balances, government benefits, past contribution room, tax settings (e.g. additional amounts), charitable donations, etc.

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Case 1: If a client wasn't yet receiving government benefits in the original projections

• Snap will take the original CPP/QPP percent of maximum (at age 65) and in the rebased version, apply this percent of maximum to the new CPP/QPP maximum value for this individual to calculate the Annual Retirement Pension amount. The same calculation is performed for the rebased OAS Annual Pension amount.

Case 2: If a client was already receiving government benefits in the original projections

• Snap will use the original value for the CPP/QPP Annual Retirement Pension, and then index this amount based on the inflation rate for CPP/QPP in the scenario. The same calculation is performed for the rebased OAS Annual Pension amount.

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For illustration purposes, let's work with a scenario where the first year of the projections was last year.

Financial Assets

Here is the Planning page for the scenario that needs to be rebased, with asset columns displaying the end-of-the-year projected values under the Value column.

After clicking Rebase Scenario, a copy of the scenario that starts in the current year is created.

The original scenario will remain accessible as long as you don't manually delete it, and the new scenario will have the same name with the addition of (rebased) at the end of it.  

The rebase takes the end-of-year projected values from the original scenario and uses those as the starting point for income, assets, and debt. You can see these values under Scenario Setup -> Incomes, Assets, and Debts. Here are the Financial Assets in the rebased scenario and they match the projected values from last year's scenario.

You can update the values based on actual current-year data.

Base Expenses

The nominal dollar Base Expense value will remain constant between the original and rebased scenarios. In this example, in last year's scenario, the $54K of Base Expenses (in real dollars) in 2029 equalled $61,171 in nominal dollars. After rebasing the scenario, in 2029 the nominal dollar amount remains the same so that calculations can stay consistent. It is the real dollar Base Expense amounts that are automatically adjusted. You can change the real dollar amounts directly on the Planning page if you wish.

Debts

The starting Balance for the debts in the rebased version will come from the projected end-of-year debt balance in the original scenario. You can edit the Balance in the rebased version based on actual events from the past year.

Remember to review the entire scenario and update the inputs as necessary.

As you work with clients over multiple years, you may want to let them know how they're progressing relative to their previous projections. We ran a webinar on this topic to help explain ways to compare the original and new scenarios and position the changes to your client: (WEBINAR) 🧬 Updating projections with the latest Snap features (February 28, 2024)

The first half of the webinar is focused on creating a financial projection and reviewing the newest features that had been released at the time (e.g., FHSA).

The second half is focused on rebasing a projection and comparing it to previous plans to track progress.

In addition to the options in the webinar, we've also since released the Scenario Comparison feature which helps compare scenarios to one another over time. Once you Rebase and update the projection for current information, you can then compare the previous plan and the new plan together using the new Compare Scenario feature.

You can use the Summaries table to compare the projected Net Worth and Estate information from the original projection and the new projection. You can change the to year to the current calendar year to see how the two projections differ at the end of the current year.

Alternatively, you can leave the to year as the final year of the projection and use the Trends charts to compare where they were previously projected to be and where they are projected to be going forward.

On January 31, 2025, the effective date for the new capital gains inclusion rate changes was deferred from June 25, 2024, to January 1, 2026. Additional details on the announcement can be found in the Department of Finance Canada's News release.

As the proposed changes aren't yet law, we consulted with users and learned that the majority are now assuming as a base case that the capital gains inclusion rate changes will not be implemented as currently structured. As a result, the default setting for new scenarios will be Never, with the option to change the assumption to 2026 to apply the new rates.

If your original scenario had selected to Apply proposed capital gain rules starting from 2024 or 2025, your rebased scenario will start applying the rules in 2026. This functionality will change based on the whether the proposed changes become law.

You can update your preferred setting under Scenario Setup -> Settings -> Income Taxes -> Experimental.

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