The Retirement goal answers two practical questions: Can the client's current path support the retirement they are planning, and what would need to change if it cannot? Open a client, go to Planning → Goals, and select the Retirement goal. Kerdora combines household timing, spending, future income, assigned accounts, savings, taxes, and return assumptions in a year-by-year projection.
The current Retirement goal is not the older withdrawal-rate calculator. It models the plan through the end of the selected horizon and lets you compare the plan as written with the spending level the portfolio can sustainably support.
If the client does not have a Retirement goal, open Planning → Goals, choose Add Goal, select Retirement, and name the goal. Then open it and complete the setup below.
Before you begin
Check these source records before interpreting the result:
Profile → Household: Add each adult's birth year, retirement age, and life expectancy. The earliest household retirement year starts the projection, and the latest life expectancy helps set the plan horizon.
Profile → Accounts: Confirm current balances, account tax treatment, ownership, and regular savings. Linked balances are read-only and should be refreshed through the institution when stale.
Profile → Cash Flow: Confirm current spending and future income sources. Add Social Security as a separate income record for each person receiving it, with the correct amount, frequency, Starts timing, and Growth. New incomes default to Inflation (the current plan rate) except Pension and Annuity, which default to None.
Assigned Accounts: Assign the account balances and savings that belong to this goal. Kerdora cannot describe the client's retirement path accurately when the relevant accounts are missing or counted in another goal.
Set the plan assumptions
The Plan view organizes the assumptions into four sections.
Timing & legacy
Enter each adult's retirement age. Kerdora begins the household projection when the first person retires. Review the Plan horizon, which is derived from household life expectancy unless you override it. Add a Legacy goal only when the client wants a specific balance left at the end of the plan; choose whether it is stated in Today's dollars or Future dollars.
Spending, taxes & inflation
Retirement spending is annual, after-tax spending in today's dollars. It can derive from the household's current spending or be overridden for the retirement plan. Choose Adjust spending when current expenses will end later—such as a mortgage—or new expenses will begin, such as travel or care costs.
Expected inflation is a plan-wide assumption. Withdrawal order controls how Kerdora draws from assigned accounts when income does not cover the annual cash need:
Sequential uses taxable accounts first, then tax-deferred accounts, and Roth accounts last.
Proportional draws from the tax buckets in proportion to their balances.
Kerdora estimates taxes year by year using the household's filing status, state, ages, income, withdrawals, and required minimum distributions. There is no single retirement tax-rate input.
Returns
Set the Pre-retirement return, Retirement return, and the number of years used to glide between them. These are plan assumptions; the investment allocation shown on the Investments tab does not automatically set them.
Savings & contributions
Current retirement assets comes from the portions of accounts assigned to the goal and cannot be edited in the calculator. Regular savings and employer contributions come from the assigned accounts. Add one-time or recurring contributions for planned amounts beyond those regular savings, including their timing and tax treatment.
Read the six Retirement views
Plan shows the assumptions and headline results.
What If tests temporary scenarios such as retiring earlier or later, changing returns, increasing spending, or reducing Social Security. Use Find earliest retirement to test when the plan first works at the current savings level. These tests do not change the saved plan.
Projection walks through Portfolio, Income, Spending, and Gap Analysis by year.
Investments reviews the allocation and drift of the investments assigned to the goal.
Assigned Accounts controls which balances and savings count toward retirement and how much of each account is allocated.
Client Summary provides a cleaner explanation for a client conversation.
When the Retirement goal first opens, the display starts with Today’s dollars, Monthly, and After tax. Use the controls to switch to Future dollars, Yearly amounts, or Before-tax cash flow. These controls change presentation, not the underlying assumptions.
Interpret the headline results
The Plan view compares the current path with four useful benchmarks:
Today's funding benchmark compares current assigned retirement assets with the amount that would need to be invested today to fund the plan without future regular savings.
Monthly contributions compares the regular savings currently assigned to retirement with the total monthly contribution the model requires. The target is the full required amount, not only the increase above current savings.
Balance at retirement compares the projected balance from current assets and savings with the balance required to fund the modeled retirement and legacy goal.
Retirement spending shows how much of the planned spending profile the current path can sustainably support. A result above 100% means the plan has modeled headroom.
Do not use one result alone. A client can have strong balance progress but an ongoing savings gap, or a current savings rate that meets the target while the projected balance still depends on timing, spending, contribution, and return assumptions that need review.
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 content and explanation to a Guide, preview it, and deliver the Guide deliberately.
Planned and Sustainable
In the Projection view, Planned spends the plan exactly as entered. The portfolio can run out before the end of the plan if the assumptions are not supportable.
Sustainable keeps the same income sources, contributions, tax rules and household tax profile, returns, and timing, but scales the entire year-by-year spending pattern to the highest level the portfolio can support through the plan horizon and legacy goal. Because spending and portfolio withdrawals change, the annual tax amounts are recalculated. An overfunded plan can show more than 100% of planned spending supported.
Switch between Chart and Table without changing the scenario. Use Present for a full-screen meeting view.
What to check when the result looks wrong
Missing or zero assets: review Assigned Accounts and account balances.
Social Security starts in the wrong year: check the income owner, start timing, amount, and frequency in Profile.
Retirement begins too early or late: check each adult's birth year and retirement age.
Spending is unexpectedly high: review the derived Cash Flow amount and the spending items that end or begin later.
Taxes look unusual: confirm filing status, state, account tax treatment, income types, and withdrawal order.
The plan shows a large gap: compare Planned with Sustainable, then use What If to test timing, spending, returns, or savings before editing the saved plan.
The Retirement projection is a deterministic planning scenario. It does not provide a Monte Carlo probability of success, model market volatility or sequence-of-returns risk, or guarantee an outcome. Use it to make the assumptions and trade-offs visible, then apply professional judgment.