Download the freefincal robo advisory software template to plan from start to finish for retirement (early, normal, before and after), non-recurring financial goals (child education) and recurring financial goals (Holiday, appliances etc.). The template is free for personal and commercial use, but the user cannot modify the internal settings that decide the asset allocation based on risk-reward balance.
The template is presented in two versions – basic and advanced (the differences are explained below). The template would help anyone from ages 18 to 80 to plan for their retirement, six other non-recurring financial goals and four other recurring financial goals with a detailed cash flow summary.
Preview: Freefincal Robo Advisory Template
This is a preview published in the last post.
There are nine Sheets with the following steps. A two part detailed video guide is available below.
Robo Advisory Software: Read me First
This is the end user license agreement. The user will have to agree to this upon first use.
Step 1: Age of the user
For ages 18 to 25, a simple solution is provided with no further inputs. For older users, they will be asked if they are married or not and directed to the next sheet.
Step 2 Retirement Inputs
You can enter details relevant to creating your retirement plan here
You can include up to three post-retirement income streams
Step 3 Retirement Planning
This sheet tells you the investment strategy to be adopted before retirement (and up to retirement) with clear asset allocation break up and investment portfolio management suggestions.
If you are retired, you can obtain an opinion about the health of your retirement corpus.
and a detailed retirement bucket investment strategy in case the corpus is good enough.
You can play this simulation game to understand how the bucket strategy works: The Retirement Bucket Strategy Simulator
In the advanced version, you can create your own retirement buckets.
Step Four A: Non-recurring Goals
You can get a complete investment strategy for one-time goals like your children’s education, a business etc.
Step Four B: Recurring Goals
You can also plan for recurring goals like a holiday every other year, or a new car or iPhone every few years.
Step 5: Suggested Product Categories + “PlumbLine”
Investment suggestions for financial goals are listed here. In addition, PlumbLine offers a set of mutual funds to invest.
Step 6A: Independent portfolio vs Unified portfolio
The cash flow for two different portfolio models is available in the advanced version and only the independent portfolio in the basic version. You can see the video for more details.
This is a screenshot of step 6A.
Step 6B: Cash Flow
Independent portfolio
Unified portfolio
Robo Advisory Software: Presentation
Free version (proprietary and closed-source): This can be used for personal and commercial use, but the user cannot modify the internal settings that decide the asset allocation based on risk-reward balance. Available only in Exe format that will work on Windows Excel 2007 and upwards.
If you are an investor, the free version is fully featured and should suffice. The only downside is that you cannot change assumptions, check the math and need to wait for bug updates. If you an advisor, the free version is pretty realistic and your clients would run away if you assume only 10% return from equity. You could consider buying the open-source version so that you can change equity returns as 18% and inflation as 3%.
Mac users will have to either use the free version on a Windows machine or get the full version.
Paid version (proprietary and open-source) All settings can be freely changed. Can be used commercially proper credits. Those who have purchased the paid version will get all future updates (including this one) as well. This is an Excel file that will work on Windows and Mac.
Paid Version: Get the paid version by paying Rs. 5160. I shall send you the file after payment confirmation.
Please note: Freefincal is a non-profit operation. You can support the websites and its future plans (eg. setting up the robo template online or as an app) by spreading word about the website; disabling ad-blockers while you are here or buying one of the versions below.
A robo template, by definition and design, should not be freely modified. Else it will reduce to a calculator. Hence the need to prevent access.
Free Version:
You can download it as a .exe file from this google drive link (no need to sign into Google)
Download the Freefincal Robo Advisory Template (Version 3 Feb 20th 2018)
There is no need to worry about the .exe format. They are encrypted Excel files and will work in macro enabled Excel from 2007 version and above.
Before you download the .exe files to your computer, you can copy the above link and paste it at the Kaspersky VirusDesk and find out if the exe file is safe.
As a second check, you can then download the file, go to the folder, right click on the file and scan with your virus scanner. This is the result with Bitdefender in my computer.
So please be rest assured you can open .exe files without fear of viruses or malware. Of course, when you execute or before executing the file, you need to let the windows user access control, Windows defender screen control, your anti-virus, anti-malware, internet securityware or your firewall permission to run the file.
If your anti-virus claims it is a virus, then you can either trust me and treat it as a false positive or choose not to use the exe file.
Why .exe files instead of Excel? The free version of the freefincal robo advisory software is password protected. Excel password protection can easily be hacked so I had to look for an encrypted alternative.
Robo Advisory Software: User Guides
Part 1
Part 2
Beta Testing Team
The robo template was tested and enhanced by a team of friends and readers for over a month:
Anirban Ghosh, Anish Mohan, Dashrath Memane, Guru Rudagi, Lokesh Shah, Mahesh Bangadkar, Muthu Krishnan V, Niranjan Kaushik, Prajal Sutaria, @Prashanth_Krish (twitter handle follow him!!), Srinivasan S R, Sajo C Mathew, Prof. Shriram R, Srinivasan Sundararajan, Sumit Nisal, Vignesh Baskar, Balaji Swaminthan.
I am indebted to their time, effort, consideration and dedication. Without their help, this release would not be possible.
Your Feedback & Feature Enhancements
I eagerly await your feedback about the template. Please report any bugs so that I can immediately release an update. Also, mention any additional features that you have in mind.
Thanks to Amarnath Reddy for pointing out that Step 2, B24 refers to annual income and minor incorrect cell references. Both are corrected.
Alea iacta est (“The die is cast”)
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Mac user here, pls share the excel
HI Pattu,
Please add md5 file for the exe.
Thanks,
Manoj
I have done this in the post for now. BUt there maybe small bug fixes required. SO will do so once it becomes stable.
Excellent work Pattu. I can see the humongous effort behind this and I appreciate the fact that this is non profit.
I assume one way of paying back is by directing friends to your blog. This Robo Advisory Software Template will only make it easy sell for me. This is one of your best templates and very easily understandable.
I have been asked many times by my friends and family about where should they input their investments like gold and real estate. I understand gold and real estate may not be great investment options but they already hold a considerable amount towards goals like wedding and retirement. Kindly share your thoughts or redirect if you have already addressed this.
Thank you.
Thank you so much. They can enter a notional value for gold and real estate in the current assets. Maybe gold along with fixed income and real estate along with equity (or fixed income!) as per their return perception.
A bug in the Robo advisory – in Step 2 sheet.B24 column, ‘Annual pay’ is to be mentioned. The same value is taken as ‘Monthly pay’ in Step 6B.K8 column.
Yes. Both refer to only pay only. Corrected yesterday. Thank you.
Dear Prof. Pattu,
Thank you for this tremendous piece of work. I can only imagine the amount of hard work you had put into this. Hats off to your dedication and motivation.
Just my observation, i was under the impression that due to Plumbline , there would be an evaluation of risk profile as part of robo advisory. Is it beyond the scope of robo advisory template? IMO, The combination of Risk Profile+Robo Advisory+Plumbline would have been a complete package. Just my 2 cents.
Once Again, Thank you for helping and guiding a novice like me.
Thank you very much and also a fantastic question. Yes a risk profiler is missing. For two reasons: 1) I am not impressed by them as imo they can mislead the planner. 2) I am trying to make one and see if I can solve existing issues but it is a big challenge 🙂
Hi Pattu, It is an excellent product and very comprehensive and detailed. I have a few suggestions/points to make:
1. Since this template is designed for people from 18 to 80, I feel that the focus is more on the accumulation phase of retirement corpus. For people approaching retirement or retired, income generation strategies from the corpus will be very helpful. Why can’t the retirement bucket strategy be incorporated into the template. This will be especially useful for DIY investors.
2. Fixing the retirement phase till the age of the younger spouse is 90 makes it rigid (Worksheet Step 3 cell B3). This should be open to modification by users.
3. In the worksheet “Step 2 Retirement Inputs” Cell B19, monthly EPF contribution is taken which is debt portion. I suggest, monthly equity contribution (SIPs) should also be taken input.
4. Also notional value of any Real Estate asset that is owned can be taken as an input as I have seen retired people selling/buying property either to be near their adult married kids or in a retirement home
Thank you Madam.The retirement bucket strategy is implemented for all ages but not shown unless you are ready to retire.
Age is fixed at 90 by design. Cannot be too flexible with a robo template.
Equity sips need be an input. Since equity investment is shown, you can compare that with what you already invest.
NOtional value of RE for now can be added as lump sum benefit after tax upon retirement in Step 2.
Dear Prof. Pattu,
Great work in building the tool.
I tried the basic version of the tool ,although it looked daunting at first glance, I was able to navigate through it and fill the required numbers and and was able to come up with the final numbers in less then one hour time.
Happy to say that my current planned investments matches the number suggested by the tool :).
One small feedback , it will be good to have a column in the sheet “Step 6B Cash Flow” which to show the Total Monthly investment required (sum of column M and O). It will give a one final number on how much to invest.
Thanks
Debashish
Thank you. For most people, I expect the total investment amount to be too large. Hence did not add that.
Can you add a feature to export the plan to a PDF file?
it will not be available in the free version
Win 10 EMET is blocking this exe file from opening with a message that it is trying to make simexecflow which I understand is expected but WIN treats this is danger due to exe form. I don’t know about everyone but whoever uses genuine latest OS and genuine Microsoft Office versions could have problem as Win blocks this exe due to EMET! Can’t the excel file be locked not to make changes to it and release excel format? Exe will cause one or the other problems for latest WIN users.
Can’t the excel file be locked not to make changes to it and release excel format? If only it was as simple as that! There are only three choices : 1) allow the file to run (many have); 2) purchase either the locked excel file or the open source file or 3) ignore the whole thing.
EMET doesn’t allow any such individual exceptions for unverified publishers. EMET already whitelists excel, wordpad etc. It blocks exes which try to execute on a computer and if that comes from an unverified publisher. Only option is to uninstall EMET and give up security of a computer but that may be concern due to security obviously and be worry of Ransomware etc. I was curious to see the ideas and suggestions behind the Robo. But though I don’t like I’m chosing the 3rd option.
Okay.
after filling data in “Step 4A Other goals’ Goal 1 and clicking the Investment Requirred button the tool throws following error.
Run-time error ‘1004’.
The password you supplied is not correct. Verify that the CAPS LOCK key is off and be sure to use the correct capitalisation.
I tried by downloading multiple time but same error.
Sorry. That is not possible. In any case, I checked and I cannot reproduce the error.
Hi. I have been an ardent follower of your site since last 1 year. I am really excited for this software, however I would like to know can it suggest mutual funds, and track my portfolio growth based on live data like most financial sites do? Also it would be great if it can show the exposure overlap etc.
No.
it should be possible (as done in the excel utilities for ITR forms released by the IT department)
What issue are you facing? Exe blocked by anti-virus? Are you referring to password protecting Excel files like ITR utility? That can be cracked in under 3 seconds.
Hello Sir, Is there a direct Excel version and not .exe version available? like a simple excel that can be downloaded?
Read the post again reg how to get that. It is not available for free.
I have checked the download link with Kaspersky virus desk as mentioned and it says the link is clean. However, my antivirus software ( Quick heal ) always detects the trojan viruses in both the files in the compressed format and immediately it quarantines it. Any help?
I am afraid you will have to add this as an exception
Not clear Mr. Pattu sir. Please clarify.
Meaning, you will have to tell your anti-virus software to treat this as valid file. If you dont want to do this, you can buy the Excel sheet.
i am unable to download it boss. I have got Norton anti-virus system. Its not allowing the download. Its just summarily deleting. not even asking permission.
Sir, without adding it as an exemption, it is not possible. Will mail you.
I would like to buy the excel. What is the process and how to buy the excel. What is the price?
Sent you a mail.
I am getting this error while resizing the sheets in the tool from 160% to 100% in few sheets.
That is because of the protection. Will correct it.
Adding even a small annual income amount of Rs.20,000/- with yearly increase of 5% in the post-retirement income cells (Step 2, cells B32 to B41) makes a dramatic difference in the figures generated in step 3. Considering the annual income of Rs.20,000/-, I can retire now without any further corpus required but when I consider the annual income as zero I will need an additional corpus of Rs.1.6 crores for inflation protection income after first 15 years in retirement. Why is this so? Are the current annual income figures in cells B32, B36 & B40 in step 2 calculated as annual figures or monthly figures?
It is annual income everywhere. And yes, it makes a huge difference – 20K annual income with 5% yoy increase is a big sum, but donr expect it to be equal the difference in corpus needed.
What a stroke of luck! I may be receiving a large chunk of money soon (no, no one is dying and no, I didn’t win a lottery!) and wondering how best to invest it when I read this article and another article on fee-only planners.
Thank you for both!
Excited to try this software and see the results.
P.S. Is it possible for you to have a ‘Donate’ option on your website and as soon as you get enough money there (and I’m sure you will) please remove these ads on your website. There are so many download buttons of varying sizes, it is confusing. I’ve given up on quite a few articles beacuse of this.
Good to know. Tried the “donate” thing. Does not work. Since my traffic has increased the ads are necessary to pay for server costs.
I’m getting the same error in Step 4A in basic version. Advanced version works fine.
Hi Pattu, I’m interested in obtaining the paid version of the file but could not find details about the price.
Hi Pattu,
I wanted to express my sincere thanks for this outstanding template. I can very well imagine the amount of effort and dedication that this work must have taken. You have made financial planning accessible and empowered many DIY investors. Hats off!
I have been maintaining a very basic Financial Statement template of my own since FY08. I have been tinkering with it over the years to add some simple features. Right now, it contains a balance sheet (assets vs liabilities), financial journey chart, budget tracking, simple calculators and financial ratios (solvency ratio, debt-to-asset, etc). I can send you the template if you like.
One input – it would be good to track the current value of goals against the plan. Essentially, a financial goal tracker. This could even be a separate simple Excel. It is immensely satisfying to see the line graph of assets and liabilities over time and confirm that we are on track for the goals. I am speaking from personal experience 🙂
This template came at the right time for my annual review and filled a major gap of “correct” financial goal planning.
I have loved all your MF calculators. But, this is your master piece. Once again, thank you!
Regards,
Anand
PS:
The only way I contribute back is buy your books and point my friends to the website and articles. This is a very very small return for the service. For yours is service in its true sense.
Thank you so much. You made my week! I have other sheets to track assets. It will be unwieldy to include that here.
Is there a way to save the file with the input I have entered?
Right now when I try to save it says “This file cannot be saved in any other format” (even though I am not trying to change the format)
This would be very helpful for updating the plan in case of income change etc