Choose the correct account type and tax treatment

An account balance is not enough to describe retirement money

YARCalc needs to know where money is held because account type and ownership affect taxes, access, required distributions, contributions, medical or education restrictions, survivor treatment, and the order in which funds can support spending. Ten thousand dollars in cash, a brokerage account, a Traditional IRA, a Roth IRA, an HSA, and a 529 do not provide the same retirement flexibility.

The account record should correspond to a real statement or a defensible combined planning amount. Holdings explain what is inside an account; they do not replace the account’s tax character. Conversely, naming an account “Roth” does not make a taxable brokerage holding tax-free—the selected account type is what drives the model.

Separate accounts when a distinction can change the decision

Keep accounts separate when they have different owners, tax treatment, restrictions, inherited status, contribution schedules, beneficiaries, or planned uses. Combining those balances can hide the very issue a retirement comparison needs to reveal.

You may combine small accounts when they truly behave alike and the detail would not change any decision. Give the combined record a clear name and use one honest balance date. Convenience is not a good reason to combine a spouse’s IRA with your own, an inherited IRA with an owner IRA, or restricted HSA or 529 money with ordinary cash.

Add cost basis, contributions, and holdings when those facts affect taxes, saving, allocation, or later withdrawals. Do not invent details simply to make every field nonblank.

Translate each statement into a clear account record

Choose the account type shown by the custodian or plan document, assign the legal owner, and use a friendly name you will recognize in Projection. Enter the balance directly or record the underlying holdings, but reconcile the result so the same value is not counted twice.

For taxable brokerage holdings, cost basis and dividend assumptions answer questions that market value alone cannot answer. For retirement accounts, contributions and employer matching should reflect the working years in which they actually occur. For an HSA or 529, remember that the balance has a restricted purpose even if it appears in net worth.

Record an individual bond as a security holding using its face value and a market price quoted per $100 of face value. Its displayed market value is face value times price divided by 100, while the coupon rate determines the contractual interest cash flow. A bond fund is different: it remains a total-return holding with no single maturity or promised return of principal, even when its name contains “Treasury” or “bond.”

For TIPS, enter the exact CUSIP and original face value. YARCalc loads official terms and the date-matched official TreasuryDirect index ratio, then uses a fresh exact-CUSIP price or a clean real-price estimate from the published 5- to 30-year real curve. It does not extrapolate a TIPS price below that range; enter a current broker clean price when no exact price is available.

Use a consistent as-of date where practical. Mixing a current checking balance with an old investment statement can create a precise-looking total that never existed on any one date.

Reconcile account totals before judging a strategy

Return to Accounts & Holdings and compare totals by owner and account type with the source statements. Then open Projection and trace contributions, withdrawals, required distributions, taxes, and ending balances to the named account categories.

If the plan appears to spend restricted education or medical money on ordinary living costs, correct the account type or funding assumption. If a taxable withdrawal creates a larger-than-expected tax bill, inspect basis and withdrawal order rather than changing the balance to force a better result.

A TIPS holding value uses original face value × saved index ratio × clean real price divided by 100. Projection and Stochastic adjust principal and coupons with each modeled inflation path and preserve the original-principal maturity floor. In a taxable brokerage account, coupons and positive inflation adjustment are a federal ordinary-income planning estimate and are tagged as generally state/local exempt Treasury income.

A large net-worth total does not establish liquidity. Check which balances are actually available during the years in which the plan needs them.

Account labels do not reproduce every contract rule

YARCalc does not reproduce every employer-plan restriction, early-distribution exception, loan provision, individual tax lot, inherited-account rule, beneficiary arrangement, custodian practice, or transaction limitation.

The free Treasury real curve is a planning estimate rather than an executable quote, and it does not supply a price below five years. TIPS taxable OID is not tax-return preparation; acquisition date, premium, discount, prior inclusions, disposition, and broker reporting can change the actual result.

A mega-backdoor Roth depends on after-tax contribution eligibility, workplace-plan distribution or conversion rules, basis records, and coordinated transactions that are not fully modeled. Creating an ordinary Roth account, contribution, or conversion in YARCalc does not establish that the strategy is available or correctly executed.

Use the model to compare the financial effects of known account characteristics. Before an actual transfer, conversion, distribution, contribution, or sale, confirm the account’s legal and tax rules with current plan and custodian documents.