Help Manual
How to use FutureClear
Task-oriented guides for every feature. Find what you need to build, run, and read your retirement scenarios.
Getting Started 3 pages
Quick Start Guide
Quick Start generates a retirement projection from five inputs in under a minute. Enter your age, retirement age, total pension value, annual spending, and expected growth rate to see whether your money is projected to last.
Read guideGetting Started
Set up your profile with your date of birth and key personal details, then create a scenario to see a year-by-year projection of whether your money is projected to last through retirement.
Read guideSetting Up Your Profile
Your profile captures your date of birth, nickname, and optional partner details. Retirement age and State Pension age are set per scenario — the profile holds only the personal details needed for age calculations.
Read guideBuilding Your Model 8 pages
Managing Assets in a Scenario
The scenario Assets panel lets you toggle which assets are included and override their growth rate and fee assumptions without changing the underlying asset register. Use this to stress-test assumptions or compare scenarios with different cost structures.
Read guideScenario Profiles: Life Expectancy and Retirement Age
Scenario profile settings let you set a different life expectancy and retirement age for each scenario. Life expectancy controls the projection end point; retirement age is set via RETIREMENT life events on the scenario timeline.
Read guideScenario Assumptions: Growth, Inflation, and Fees
Growth rate, inflation, and fees are the three core economic assumptions that drive your projection. This page explains what each means, typical UK reference ranges, and how small differences compound over a 20–30 year retirement.
Read guideAsset Transfers: Bed & ISA, Bed & Pension
Asset transfer events model Bed & ISA and Bed & Pension transactions on your scenario timeline. The engine calculates CGT on the disposal, enforces annual allowance limits, and projects the long-term effect of moving assets into a wrapper with different tax treatment.
Read guideTax Parameters
The Tax Parameters panel shows the UK income tax bands, CGT rates, and allowances used in the simulation. Values default to the current tax year and can be overridden per scenario to model future policy changes or Scottish income tax rates.
Read guideAdding Your Assets
The asset register holds all investment accounts, property, and income sources used in your scenarios. Enter current values and growth assumptions once — assets are shared across all scenarios you create.
Read guideCreating Scenarios
A scenario combines your assets with life events and economic assumptions to produce a year-by-year projection. Create multiple scenarios with different retirement dates or spending levels to compare outcomes side by side.
Read guideAdding and Editing Life Events
Life events define what happens on your scenario timeline — retirement dates, spending levels, contribution periods, one-off costs, and care expenses. Every scenario requires at minimum a spending event and a retirement marker.
Read guideReading Results 6 pages
Interpreting Your Results
The results page shows KPI tiles for headline figures, a projection chart of assets over time, and a detailed cashflow table with year-by-year breakdowns of income, spending, withdrawals, and tax. All values are shown in real terms.
Read guideUnderstanding Your Dashboard
The dashboard shows your pinned scenario chart, asset totals across all categories, and contextual next-step prompts that guide you through the setup process. Pin a scenario to keep its projection front and centre.
Read guideReal Terms and Nominal Figures
FutureClear shows every projected figure in real terms — today's purchasing power — rather than the nominal future cash values used on most pension provider illustrations. This page explains why, how to compare the two, and how the growth rate assumption relates to inflation.
Read guideHow the Projection Chart Works
The projection chart runs thousands of simulations with randomised investment returns and shows the range of possible outcomes as percentile bands. The model uses a log-normal return distribution, which is the industry standard for consumer retirement tools but understates extreme tail outcomes.
Read guideTax breakdown
The tax breakdown explains how FutureClear computes each year's tax total from income tax, capital gains tax, and dividend tax. It shows the mechanics behind the tax figures displayed in the cashflow table and results charts.
Read guideDrawdown tab
The Drawdown tab presents withdrawal activity for the scenario. It shows headline KPIs, a stacked bar chart of withdrawals by account, and a detailed year-by-year table. In couples mode a toggle switches between combined and by-partner views.
Read guideCharts 5 pages
The Asset Projection Chart
The asset projection chart plots total investment asset value year by year from today to your projected life expectancy. It is the primary view for answering whether your money is projected to last, and when assets peak and begin to decline.
Read guideThe Cashflow Table
The cashflow table shows a row for every simulated year with columns for income, spending, tax, asset withdrawals, and end-of-year balances. It is the detailed view for verifying the numbers behind the charts.
Read guideThe Income Sources Bridge Chart
The income bridge chart is a stacked area showing each income source year by year — employment, State Pension, DB pension, and asset withdrawals. It makes the retirement income transition visible, showing which sources fill the gap between employment ending and guaranteed income starting.
Read guideThe Monte Carlo Fan Chart
The Monte Carlo fan chart runs thousands of simulations with randomised return sequences and displays the range of outcomes as percentile bands (p10 to p90). It is the primary tool for understanding sequence-of-returns risk and the sensitivity of a projection to market variability.
Read guideThe Withdrawal Sequence Chart
The withdrawal sequence chart stacks your investment accounts — SIPP, ISA, GIA, cash — so you can see which are drawn down first and when each is exhausted. It directly reflects the withdrawal order configured in the scenario.
Read guideAdvanced Features 5 pages
Withdrawal Order and Surplus Sweep
The Withdrawal Order panel lets you arrange which accounts are drawn from first when spending exceeds income. Advanced mode adds per-source conditions such as drawing from SIPP only up to the personal allowance. Surplus sweep models what happens to unspent income in a chosen wrapper.
Read guideUsing What-If Analysis
What-if analysis means creating multiple scenarios with different key assumptions — retirement age, spending, growth rate — and comparing projected outcomes side by side. This helps identify which variables have the largest effect on whether your money lasts.
Read guideUsing Couples Mode
Couples mode runs a single projection for two people simultaneously, applying independent tax allowances for each partner and handling the transition when the first partner dies. Add a partner profile, assign assets to each owner, then create a couple scenario.
Read guideCrystallisation
Crystallisation is the point at which pension money moves from its pre-retirement state into drawdown. FutureClear separates each SIPP into uncrystallised and crystallised portions, applies the 25% tax-free lump sum at the crystallisation event, and then taxes subsequent withdrawals from the crystallised portion as income.
Read guideComparing Two Scenarios Side by Side
Scenario comparison lets you view exactly two scenarios side by side — their net-worth projections, income and asset breakdowns, Monte Carlo outcome ranges, and a parameter diff table. Use it to see the effect of changing one variable at a time across otherwise identical scenarios.
Read guide