The most common question from clients today is “When will I run out of money?”

There are several over-complicated and over-priced cashflow-type programs out there (isn’t that the truth) but this is the only one that is simple enough to be used live in front of your clients - without you having to go on a one-week training course and then spend 6 months practising.

CCL Plan-4-Life  is a quick-to-learn, easy-to-operate holistic planning tool that enables IFAs to forecast their clients’ future financial situation, by simply entering the money-in and money-out transactions that occur throughout their lifetime.

It’s prime purpose is to look at all elements of a client’s financial situation including income, expenditure, pensions, investments, savings, properties and mortgages plus their hopes, fears and aspirations to work out if (or more commonly, when) they will run out of money and to indicate what level of savings are required to redress the shortfall in income. In addition, there is an Outlook bar down the left of the screen offering the switch from the Plan to the Graph with three options available.

If you have the CCL Simplicity database, then the client information including all the major inputs can be downloaded automatically to avoid having to re-key information.

There is also the Target Funding option which turns the whole process around. You enter how much money the client aspires to have available and when it is required and the system will show you how much the client needs to save - level or indexed. You can even show the consequence of the devaluation of money and the effect on the level of savings required caused by entering existing investment values or planned future capital injections.

Plan Events This is where you detail the money-in/money-out transactions for your client. In most cases, this information can be imported from Simplicity with a couple of keystrokes.

By selecting or de-selecting the Active Event each event can be shown separately in the Plan or overlaid as below to show the total effect.

The plan then shows the value of the fund that will be available to a client, given the money-in and the money-out transactions shown in the Plan Events.

An 8-page report is available in Word, so it is fully editable, and additional reports can be added if you have the Simplicity software. These include Pension shortfalls, Life Assurance requirements, Health cover issues, concerns over the cover on a Mortgage plus CGT and IHT liability assessments.