J&L Financial Planning Software

"A must for the planner's toolbox", by Dave McClure. Accounting Today June 7, 2010

The J&L Retirement Planner is a specialized version of the company's financial planner, expanded to include reverse mortgages, asset allocation withdrawals, minimum distributions and scenario event groups

The output is displayed in a text format that shows the yearly effects on up to 50 accounts, including investment, tax-free, retirement, asset and equity accounts. The program can create a scenario based on mortgage, loan, credit-card debt, withdrawal, deposit, and transfer events. And it incorporates minimum required distributions and Revenue Code Section 529 (college investment savings) into the scenarios. The program incorporates up to five separate budgets and the ability to track individual budget items. Each event has an option to be adjusted yearly for inflation or a separate yearly adjustment rate. There are many screen and printed reports.

Though this is the retirement-specific version, most accountants prefer the capabilities of the Professional Version, which offers more advanced planning and portfolio management capabilities, including the ability to handle unlimited budgets, real estate investments, Monte Carlo simulations, historical return analysis and asset allocation. It also allows the planner to define groups of accounts and maintain a constant asset allocation within each group. This feature allows the user to rebalance each group yearly or periodically. There is also a feature that allows the user to rebalance a group when funds are transferred into an account within that group.

The J&L Retirement Planner is designed to be a low-cost package available from a variety of software download sites. Most accountants will benefit, though, from the Professional Version of the J&L Financial Planner for its expanded capabilities.