If the concept of MasterPlan and its reports had to be reduced to their simplest level, it is this: No matter what investment strategy or product you recommend to your client, if his income or net worth doesn't go up as a result of these recommendations, you haven't done a good job. Of course, there are some exceptions. Charitable giving and insurance planning are a few. But fundamentally, all you and your clients are interested in is building their net worth and/or increasing cash income.
With most of the other "planning" packages, it is nearly impossible to determine the actual combined effects of several investments and/or strategies due to the enormous amounts of interrelated data. This is why most financial planning software programs produce their reports as "stand alones." In effect, you're forced to do your financial planning in a vacuum.
With MasterPlan, all this has changed. With total integration, the combined effects of all financial transactions can now be scrutinized for their impact on every aspect of your client's finances.
We've made MasterPlan "smart" enough to take the drudgery out of number crunching, so it can distill the essence of your recommendations to the bottom line. Now it is up to you to find the best investments and develop the best strategies.
Most planners use the Baseline reports to predict what the clients' situation will be if they proceed on their current course. If you enter everything that a client owns, owes, and earns, MasterPlan will project all this data out to the clients' life expectancy (up to 99 years).
Each asset can have a different rate of return. You can reinvest the dividends and capital gains of some assets up to whatever age you wish (and this age can be different on each asset), and not reinvest others. Each retirement asset can pay out whenever you specify, either before or after the age of retirement. MasterPlan properly amortizes loans, even negatively amortized loans.
In short, given the assumptions that you entered, you can see the results of the current planning strategy. To graph these results, you can select Reports | Graphs, and select any options listed there.
As you view the Baseline reports, you may be able to spot the weaknesses in the clients' situations.
Perhaps they need to reallocate their mix of assets?
Or perhaps you can maximize an investment strategy and minimize taxes.
Perhaps they are not saving anything for retirement?
Perhaps they are renting and want to explore what would happen if they purchased a home.
Or should they pull some money out of the market and purchase a rental?
Or should they refinance their home and invest in the market with the cash freed up by the refinance?
You can illustrate these alternatives and countless others by entering instructions to sell, buy, refinance existing loans, and/or to create new loans.
Then you can run the What-If Scenario reports, followed by the Comparison of Scenario Reports. And, of course, you can graph the differences.