The Retirement goal shows whether the household's assigned assets and current savings can support its planned retirement spending through the end of the plan. Open a client and go to Planning → Goals, then select the Retirement goal. The page brings together the assumptions, current path, required targets, What If tools, and a year-by-year projection.

The rebuilt Retirement goal no longer uses the old 14-step withdrawal-rate calculation or Monte Carlo outcome card. It now models annual spending, income, taxes, contributions, portfolio withdrawals, and balances across the full retirement period. You can compare the plan as written with the spending level the portfolio can sustainably support.

If no Retirement goal exists, open Planning → Goals, choose Add Goal, select Retirement, and name the goal. Open the new goal, assign the relevant retirement accounts, and complete the assumptions below.

The result is only as useful as the source data feeding it. Review the following before changing goal assumptions.

Open Profile → Household and confirm each adult's birth year, retirement age, and life expectancy. The first household member to retire starts the retirement projection. The latest life expectancy supplies the default end of the plan.

If an adult is already retired, the projection begins in the current year. If the retirement year looks wrong, correct the household record instead of forcing an unrelated goal assumption.

Open Profile → Accounts and confirm the current balances, ownership, account tax treatment, and regular contributions. Then use the goal's Assigned Accounts view to choose which portions of those balances and savings fund retirement.

An account can be allocated by a fixed amount or by the remaining amount after other goal assignments. Current retirement assets and regular savings on the Retirement page are calculated from these assignments; they are not free-entry fields.

Open Profile → Cash Flow and review current spending, savings, and income. Add expected Social Security, pension, annuity, rental, or other future income as separate income records with the correct owner, amount, frequency, start, end, growth, and taxable status.

For Social Security, create a separate record for each household member receiving a benefit. The Retirement projection reads these records directly. If a benefit is entered as monthly, Kerdora handles the frequency; do not multiply it by 12 and then also label it monthly.

Linked account balances are read-only because the institution supplies them. Reconnect or refresh the institution when a balance is stale rather than creating a duplicate manual account.

The tabs at the top of the goal answer different questions:

Use the display controls to switch between Today's/Future dollars, Monthly/Yearly, and Pre-tax/After-tax. These controls change how the result is displayed. They do not change the saved assumptions. Tax-basis controls affect cash-flow figures, not portfolio balances.

The Plan view places the assumptions beside the results. Work through all four assumption groups before interpreting the headline numbers.

Retirement age is set separately for each adult. The earliest planned retirement year starts the household projection. Changing an age here updates the related Household record.

Plan horizon is the last year modeled. It derives from the highest household life expectancy and cannot end before retirement. Override it only when the planning conversation supports a different end year.

Legacy goal is the portfolio balance the client wants remaining at the end of the plan. Choose Today's $ when the amount should preserve today's purchasing power. Choose Future $ when the literal ending dollar amount is intended. Leave it at zero when the plan does not require a specific ending balance.

Retirement spending is annual, after-tax spending in today's dollars. By default, it derives from total household spending in Cash Flow. You can override the base amount for the retirement plan.

Choose Adjust spending to model a spending pattern that changes over time:

This matters because Sustainable does not solve one flat spending number. It scales the complete year-by-year spending pattern, preserving the shape of expenses that start and stop.

Expected inflation is the plan-wide inflation assumption. Editing it affects the purchasing-power treatment used by this goal and other parts of the plan that rely on global inflation.

Withdrawal order controls how the projection funds a positive gap after household income:

Required minimum distributions are applied when relevant. The withdrawal order only uses the actual account mix after accounts are assigned. When no accounts are assigned, the model uses a standard assumed mix and cannot apply account-specific required distributions.

There is no single expected-tax-rate input. Kerdora estimates taxes for each retirement year using the household's filing status, state, ages, income sources, and portfolio withdrawals.

The model treats Social Security through the applicable taxable-benefit calculation, applies the standard deduction, distinguishes ordinary income, taxable investment income, and tax-free income, and considers required minimum distributions. Review Profile when the tax result seems inconsistent: filing status, tax state, income type, taxable status, account tax treatment, and ownership all matter.

Investment income linked to an account assigned to the goal is generally treated as part of the portfolio return rather than separate cash. This avoids counting the same economic return twice. Unlinked income, or income linked to an account outside the goal, can count as a separate income source.

Set three return assumptions:

The investment allocation shown under Investments does not automatically set these return assumptions. Confirm that the assumptions are consistent with the planning scenario you intend to present.

Current retirement assets is the portion of assigned account balances allocated to this goal. It is read-only in the calculator.

Current savings is the regular monthly contribution amount assigned to the goal. Investment-account savings can include employer contributions and can have their own increase assumptions.

Use Additional contributions for amounts beyond regular account savings:

A contribution before retirement raises the projected balance at retirement. A contribution dated during retirement first helps fund that year's spending; any remainder is invested according to its tax treatment. Because the plan can count on that future money, it can reduce the balance required at retirement.

The results compare the current path with several different targets.

Current retirement assets is what is assigned now. Assets needed today to fund the plan is the amount that would have to be invested now, using the goal's account mix and planned additional contributions, to reach the retirement target without future regular savings.

This is a benchmark, not a request that the client write one check today.

Current is the regular monthly savings assigned to the goal, including employer contributions where applicable. Target is the total monthly contribution required by the model—not merely the additional amount above current savings.

If the target is below the current amount, the current savings path is ahead of this benchmark. If it is higher, the difference is the savings gap to discuss.

Projected is the balance reached using current assigned assets, regular savings, additional contributions, and the return path. Target is the balance required at the beginning of retirement to fund the modeled withdrawals and legacy goal through the plan horizon.

Target is the planned spending profile. Projected is the spending level the current path can sustainably support through the full horizon. The model scales the entire profile—including expenses that start or end—by one factor.

An overfunded plan can support more than 100% of planned spending. That is headroom, not an error.

Use What If when the client asks how a possible change would affect retirement. Presets can test retiring earlier or later, lower returns, higher spending, and a Social Security reduction when Social Security income exists. You can also type alternate retirement ages, investment and retirement returns, plan end year, legacy amount, base annual spending, and Social Security reduction.

Choose Run plan to compare the temporary scenario with the saved plan. The result compares required savings, target balance, projected balance, sustainable spending, and the percentage of spending supported. Choose Back to plan to clear the temporary result.

Use Find earliest retirement to search for the first retirement year funded at the current savings level. If the plan cannot become funded within the supported search range, change savings or spending and try again.

What If does not save changes to the underlying client data. If the client decides to adopt a scenario, update the relevant Household, Profile, account assignment, or Plan assumption deliberately.

The Projection view offers four subjects:

For any subject, choose Chart for a visual explanation or Table for year-by-year detail. Choose Present for a full-screen client-meeting view.

Planned follows the saved spending profile exactly. If the plan is underfunded, the portfolio can reach zero before the end of the horizon. Use this view to identify when the gap emerges and whether it comes from spending, income timing, taxes, or portfolio withdrawals.

Sustainable keeps the income sources, contribution timing, tax rules and household tax profile, withdrawal order, returns, plan horizon, and legacy goal unchanged. It scales every year of the planned spending profile by the largest factor the portfolio can fund through the end of the plan. Because spending and portfolio withdrawals change, the model recalculates the annual tax amounts.

Sustainable is not a probability of success. It answers a narrower question: Given these deterministic assumptions, what proportion of this spending pattern can the portfolio support?

Use Investments to review the allocation of assigned investment accounts and compare it with a target portfolio. This supports allocation and drift analysis; it does not automatically change the return assumptions in Plan.

Use Assigned Accounts to control the balances and regular savings included in retirement. Check this view first when current assets or savings look too low, too high, or missing. Avoid assigning the same dollars fully to multiple goals.

Use Client Summary when you need a cleaner explanation of where the household stands. A practical meeting sequence is:

The Retirement workspace—including Client Summary—is advisor-only. Clients cannot open Planning → Goals in the portal. To share retirement results, add the appropriate retirement component and explanation to a Guide, preview it, and deliver the Guide deliberately. Do not assume that opening Client Summary makes it visible to the client.

Open Assigned Accounts. Confirm the relevant accounts are assigned, the correct portions are allocated, and the Profile balances and contribution amounts are current.

Open Profile → Cash Flow → Income. Confirm the income type, owner, amount, frequency, start timing, end timing, growth, and taxable status. Use separate records for separate household members.

Check each adult's birth year and retirement age in Profile → Household. The earliest household retirement year starts the projection.

Review the base Retirement spending amount and choose Adjust spending. Check that an expense already included in current spending is classified as spending that ends—not added again as new spending—and confirm the start and end years of future costs.

Confirm filing status, state, household ages, income classifications, account tax treatments, contribution tax treatments, Assigned Accounts, and the selected withdrawal order. Required minimum distributions can create withdrawals even when other income already covers spending; unused after-tax cash is reinvested as taxable.

That is expected when the entered spending exceeds what the current path funds. Planned shows the shortfall. Sustainable shows the same spending pattern scaled to a level that lasts through the horizon. Use What If to test whether timing, savings, spending, or return changes close the gap.

The Retirement goal is a deterministic planning scenario. It does not model:

Use the projection to make assumptions, funding sources, taxes, and trade-offs visible. It is not a guarantee of future results and does not replace professional judgment.