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
You can download both the basic and advanced version as . exe files from this google drive link (no need to sign into Google) in zip format:
Download the Freefincal Robo Advisory Template
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. Mac users or open office users contact me using the form or email given below.
I am working on an Excel-independent .exe file a possible Google spreadsheet version and an online version.
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 zip 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.
MD5 Checksum of the basic version: f776c1a6b266d8c6ae51fb946489de06
M5 Checksum of the advanced version: 233bab56683aa9b3f818c69ce5998c16
You check the checksum of the downloaded file from your virus scanner or Kaspersky virusdesk to find out if the files are indeed the same if you are worried.
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.
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.
Open-source version of the freefincal robo template
If you do not wish to work with .exe files or if you wish to work in mac or if you wish to modify the internal settings, or if you wish to support the freefincal robo advisory project (take it online from Excel) you can do so for a nominal fee by mentioning your requirements in this form or by writing to freefincal [at] gmail.com.
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.
Download the Freefincal Robo Advisory Template
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")
______________________
Use this form to ask Questions ONLY (For comments/opinions, use the form at the bottom)
And I will respond to them in the next few days. I welcome tough questions. Please do not ask for investment advice. Before asking, please search the site if the issue has already been discussed. Thank you. PLEASE DO NOT POST COMMENTS WITH THIS FORM it is for questions only.
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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.