The Goals tab shows one card per goal you've added to the client. If it looks empty, you haven't added any goals yet. That's the most common reason, and the fix takes about 10 seconds.
Add your first goal
Click Add Goal in the top-right of the Goals tab. You'll see a dropdown with goal types:
Retirement — the default first goal for most clients. Pre-fills with a 4.5% withdrawal rate, 8% return, 3% inflation, and a 20% tax rate. Spending need and years until retirement default to DERIVED (pulled from your client's spending and age).
Education — funding college for a specific child. Pulls the child's age from the household and calculates based on start age, end age, and current cost of education.
Liquidity — emergency fund or cash reserves. Defaults to 6 months of expenses, with monthly expenses DERIVED from the client's spending data.
Other — a custom goal with a target date and interest rate.
Debt Payoff — pay down specific debts using avalanche or snowball strategy.
Pick a type, set any assumptions you want to override, and assign accounts. The card appears immediately.
If you added goals but the tab still looks sparse
A few things can make goals look incomplete even after you've added them:
No accounts assigned. Goals need accounts to track progress. Without them, you'll see the goal card but no balance progress or cash flow progress. Expand the goal row and use the account assignment section to tag relevant accounts (retirement accounts for the retirement goal, 529s for education, savings for liquidity).
Assumptions left blank. Most calculator fields default to DERIVED, which pulls from the client's existing data. If the client file is missing spending data, income, or ages, derived fields won't calculate and the goal looks empty. Either fill in the source data on the client, or switch the field to manual and enter a number.
Client file hasn't loaded. Rare, but if you just opened the client and the page looks blank, refresh the browser.
Tip
If you're building a plan from scratch, start with a Retirement goal. It covers the biggest question most clients have, and the DERIVED defaults mean you can get a usable first pass without touching any assumptions.