IFA Tools: latest updates on development
Home20 May 2020: Note: the site is about to undergo an overhaul.
13 Aug 2015: minor bug fixes
10 Jul 2015: report now nearly finished.
07 Jul 2015: more work on the report. Pagination improved and new sections with details of current employments, annuities, guaranteed annuities, DB pensions (current and deferred and accruing), personal pensions and DC funds, and strategy options chosen. More to come.
01 Jul 2015: Further work on the report. This is now output directly to a Word (DOCX) file, rather than to rich text (rtf). About half the tables and charts for Scenario 2 now added to the report.
24 Jun 2015: Allowed for a warning (rather than an error message) if the personal contribution limit looks likely to be breached in the first year of drawdown
18 Jun 2015: completed adding of current INPUT tables to Excel Appendix (and by the same token to the Differences tab in the calculation results page).
16 Jun 2015: replaced the "Show report" facility on the calculation page by a "Download report and appendix" button which downloads a zip file containing a draft report (editable in Word) and an Excel appendix with the input parameters used. The calculation page also includes a Differences tab which (not quite complete yet) shows differences in inputs between scenario 1 and 2. The list of differences is also shown as a worksheet in the Appendix.
03 Jun 2015: consolidated various parameters into 6 different pension drawdown options (allowing a choice of drawdown according to disinvestment priorities, or to fill up each investor's basic tax rate band as far as possible, or to take specified amounts. In each case, a specified amount of lump sum can be taken at the specified drawdown age and at the end of each tax year funds are used as far as posisble to fill up each investor's Persosal Allowance.
30 May 2015: Added Risk Profile tab to Illustration Record page, and linked this to the text produced in the Report, which also has more changes to look and feel.
26 May 2015: Report progressed further.
25 May 2015: several new tables and sections added to the Report. More to come later this week.
17 May 2015: detailed expenditure, gross income v expenditure, and client and partner pension contribution charts added to report.
16 May 2015: Added Events chart to report.
15 May 2015: Net Income and Gross Capital charts added to report. More still to do on this, but the time spent learning how to do the first two charts means that others (and tables) can be added very soon.
6 May 2015: Amended so that the tax charts show the adjusted basic and higher rate tax bands adjusted by any allowable pension contributions. Also, drawdown strategy 2 has been altered (from the previous "maximise contributions", for which please now use the Pension Allocation strategies). It now uses personal pension (or DC funds, in each case from the specified drawdown age) to try and fill the basic rate tax band.
28 Apr 2015 to 5 May 2015: Amended to show a breakdown by personal allowance, basic rate, higher rate and higher rate 2 of personal pension/DC fund shortfall fill. Also split by Chrystallised pension, UFPLUS etc. Also amended gross charts to show shortfall fill for consistency with net charts.
23 to 27 Apr 2015: various improvements, including changing the colour for Tax Free Lump Sums to white so that they stand out, adding a Pensions Contributions chart to annual output. Also, the website now stores your settings with regard to which panels are expanded on the annual and monthly charts pages.
22 Apr 2015: Added Tax charts to annual and monthly chart pages. These show whether how income (including personal pensions or DC fund shortfall fill) compares with the personal allowance, basic and higher rate bands etc. There are separate charts for client and partner.
21 Apr 2015: Monthly charts progressed, showing 5 years of detail from the selected start age.
20 Apr 2015: yearly charts now also have the facility to change the starting age for the charts. Monthly charts also now being tested.
17 Apr 2015: net income charts now show personal pensions shortfall split by client and partner, and by PA (Personal Allowance), BR (Basic rate of tax), HR (higher rate of tax) and HR2 (highest rate of tax). Surplus Income has been replaced by Total Income as we can now show non stacked lines alongside stacked columns in the same chart.
12 Apr 2015: net income charts now show income for client and partner separately, and also show a black SurplusSavings line above the TotalExpenditure line. The height of the SurplusSavings line shows the total joint net income.
11 Apr 2015: added the facility for users to create one or more regular expense templates. When creating regular expenses for a client, the user can now select one of their templates and add standard regular expense records from that template. Also, the system now saves your desired setting of the gap between columns in the charts.
08 and 09 Apr 2015: Home and Add Client pages simplified/clarified, also added PanelBar with Tips and Related Videos to each key page. New, updated videos explain the process step by step of adding a new client and partner, adding an illustration record, entering detailed information for client and partner, then viewing charts of results.
07 Apr 2015: Added Capital Event charts.
Early 06 Apr 2015: Added the facility (at click of a button) to add a list of standard regular expenditure items from a template set for the organisation.
End 05 Apr 2015: Amended to produce new charts of detailed expenditure with colours chosen by the user for different Date Specific Expenditure items.
05 Apr 2015: Footer added with links to new Facebook, YouTube, Twitter etc accounts. Several pages now have relevant training videos embedded within them so that the user can receive training without even leaving the page.
04 Apr 2015: Added a "find client" facility to home page. Also capital charts now show separate series (albeit with the same colour, and need to add a separation bar to make clearer, but you can see a the 2 different series as you move the mouse over one of them) for client and partner.
03 Apr 2015: new improved home page. Also creation of illustration records simplified (default values of various parameters set automatically which can then be edited if desired via extra tabs on the detailed view for an illustration record).
02 Apr 2015: some more training videos added - please click on the "Help Videos" menu buttons on each page. (We will be adding videos regularly).
01 Apr 2015: annuities speeded up (but still need to - and will - do more on this), also simpler client landing page and added Help Videos menu buttons. (At the moment they all go to the same videos page, but will amend today/tomorrow to go to separate pages of relevant videos).
26 Mar 2015: annuities now implemented (although calcs for scenarios with them in are noticeably slower at the moment, due to reading in 40,000 mortality improvement factors from a remote database - will work on speeding this up).
20 Mar 2015: site upgraded to allow for some changes requested by BB; Report progressing and annuities are next.
17 Mar 2015: site just upgraded to allow a pension allocation strategy, scheduled funding of capital expense items from pension lump sums, and pensions only v untouched pensions.