In brief
A scenario combines your assets with life events and assumptions to produce a year-by-year projection — create multiple scenarios to compare different retirement dates, spending levels, or configurations side by side.
Before you start
You need at least one asset in your asset register before building a full scenario. For couple scenarios, you must have added a partner profile on the Profile page. If you want a quick first look before entering full details, use Quick Start instead — it generates a projection from five inputs in under a minute.
Steps
- Navigate to Scenarios from the main navigation and select New Scenario.
- Give the scenario a descriptive name — for example, "Retire at 62" or "Base case". The name is for your reference only and does not affect calculations.
- Choose Single or Couple. Couple mode requires a partner profile to have been added on the Profile page.
- Select which assets from your asset register to include. Assets you exclude will not appear in the simulation. You can also add hypothetical assets — assets that exist only in this scenario, useful for modelling future windfalls or additional pensions.
- Set the economic assumptions: Investment growth rate, Inflation rate, Cash growth rate, Property growth rate, and Dividend yield. These are scenario-specific and do not affect other scenarios.
- Add life events. At minimum you need a SPENDING event (your annual living costs) and a RETIREMENT event (the date you stop working). Add contribution events, one-off costs, or care costs as needed.
- Configure the withdrawal order — the sequence in which the engine draws from your accounts when spending exceeds income. In simple mode, drag the asset class cards into the order you want. In advanced mode, set conditions on each source. See Withdrawal Order and Surplus Sweep for how different sequences affect tax.
- Select Run to generate the projection. Results appear on the Results page.
What to check afterwards
After running, the Results page shows the year-by-year projection, KPI tiles, and charts. Confirm the projection period matches your expected lifetime. Check that each life event appears in the cashflow at the correct year. To edit the scenario, select it from the Scenarios list — changes take effect when you re-run. To compare scenarios, use the Dashboard, which shows a summary across all scenarios side by side.