Read the Dashboard and retirement readiness

What the Dashboard is for

The Dashboard is the front page of one retirement scenario. It brings together the assumptions you chose, the latest saved account values, one deterministic projection, the latest stochastic result, and a small number of planning reminders. Its job is to help you orient yourself before you open a detailed report.

The Dashboard does not produce a separate retirement answer. Every number comes from information or analysis available elsewhere in the same scenario. If a result looks surprising, the right response is to open the supporting page and understand the years, accounts, income, spending, taxes, or assumptions behind it.

Begin by confirming which plan you are viewing

Before interpreting the charts or readiness label, read the planning context at the top of the page. It identifies the scenario, saved version, selected strategy, and balance date. Those four facts tell you which question the Dashboard is answering.

Home is the plan you maintain over time. A What-if is an alternative used to explore a change. A Dashboard can look better or worse simply because you opened a different scenario, selected a different strategy, or are viewing an older saved version. Confirming the context first prevents that difference from being mistaken for a new financial development.

The balance date matters just as much. A projection based on balances from several months ago may still be useful for understanding the structure of the plan, but it should not be treated as a current measurement of your position. Update or refine balances before relying on a result that is sensitive to the size or mix of the portfolio.

When a Home balance snapshot is missing or at least 30 days old, the Dashboard recommends a balance review after sign-in. This is non-blocking: YARCalc does not fetch or save prices automatically. Compare values with current sources and decide whether the change is material rather than reacting to ordinary market movement.

Use Scenario Highlights as a reasonableness check

Scenario Highlights shows a few assumptions with unusually large influence on a retirement projection: each person’s retirement timing, baseline annual spending, and the return method used for the deterministic projection. These are not a complete summary of the plan. They are a quick test of whether the Dashboard is describing the retirement you meant to model.

Pause if a retirement age is wrong, annual spending is implausibly low or high, or the return assumption is not the one you intended. Correcting a foundational assumption is more important than interpreting a favorable chart built from the wrong premise. Use Edit assumptions to review the complete saved information; do not assume that the three highlights are the only inputs affecting the result.

Use a Dashboard question to open the analysis that answers it

Questions YARCalc can help answer shows no more than four questions that fit the saved plan, such as retirement timing, sustainable spending, a phased transition, Social Security timing, early market losses, or resources for heirs. The choices come from facts already loaded for this scenario. They are not generated advice, and opening one does not run a calculation or change the plan.

Each main action opens the reviewed YARCalc workflow that can produce evidence for the question. A retirement-age or spending question opens the matching Variable Sweep; a phased-retirement or early-loss question opens a What-if starting point; an heir question opens Projection’s after-tax financial-account estimate. Property, liabilities, and excluded estate components remain visibly separate.

What the Wealth Projection shows

The Wealth Projection joins recorded account-balance history to the annual ending balances from the deterministic projection. The Actual line comes from dated balance snapshots you have saved. When more than one snapshot exists in a calendar year, the chart uses the latest one for that year. The Projected line begins from the current plan and follows the single return path named beneath the chart title.

On Home, the Projected line begins at the final Actual balance. A What-if keeps the recorded series labeled Home actual because the history belongs to Home. If the What-if changes its starting balance, an amber starting-adjustment bridge connects the last Home actual to the What-if start and makes the difference explicit; if the starting balance is unchanged, the lines connect directly.

A fixed-return projection applies the saved deterministic return assumption. A historical projection follows the selected historical period. Neither line is a forecast of the path markets will actually take. The chart is most useful for seeing the shape of the plan: when accumulation becomes withdrawal, whether a major event changes the direction, and whether modeled account balances approach or cross zero.

The retirement marker shows the primary person’s retirement year. The horizontal zero-dollar line is a solvency reference, not a comfort target. A line that remains above zero can still conceal an uncomfortable tax bill, an early spending reduction, heavy dependence on one account, or very little margin for poor markets. A line that falls sharply is a reason to open Projection and find the first year in which income, spending, taxes, or withdrawals change.

Future values on this chart are nominal dollars for their future years. Inflation may be reflected in expenses and other assumptions, but that does not turn the plotted balances into today’s purchasing power.

How to interpret Retirement Readiness

Retirement Readiness summarizes the latest saved stochastic analysis for this scenario. Stochastic analysis runs the plan through many generated market and inflation paths. The displayed success percentage is the share of those paths that avoid modeled portfolio depletion under the selected spending policy and planning horizon. It is conditional on the saved assumptions; it is not the probability that real life will unfold exactly as modeled.

Not analyzed means there is no saved stochastic result to summarize. Out of date means the latest result was run for a different saved version or balance date. In either case, the Dashboard is not making a current readiness judgment.

On track means the saved success percentage meets or exceeds the success target in your planning policy. Needs review means it is below the target by no more than ten percentage points. Plan changes needed means the gap is larger. These labels compare one modeled result with your own policy target; they do not declare that you may or may not retire.

When a current result is below target, the Dashboard explains the gap and may show a P10 ending balance or a typical depletion year. P10 is a downside percentile: ten percent of the generated paths ended below that value and ninety percent ended above it. It is not the worst possible result, and it is not the same as P95. Open Stochastic Analysis to see the full distribution, spending effects, first-shortfall information, and assumptions behind the summary.

How to read the portfolio and net-worth figures

The portfolio card totals the accounts saved in the scenario and separates taxable or cash accounts from tax-advantaged accounts. It then shows property and other owned assets, subtracts modeled liabilities, and reports estimated net worth. This gives useful context, but the categories are not interchangeable.

Net worth can include a home that you intend to keep, while retirement spending normally requires liquid account balances or an explicit plan to sell or access an asset. Tax-advantaged accounts can also have different tax consequences, and restricted HSA or 529 money is not ordinary spending cash. For that reason, the largest number on the card is not automatically the amount available to fund retirement.

If the total looks wrong, reconcile the accounts and balance date before changing a strategy. If the total looks right but the projection is weak, inspect the timing, tax treatment, spending, and withdrawal policy rather than assuming the problem is the account total alone.

Action Items, Quick Tasks, and Your Planning Journey serve different purposes

Action Items calls attention to a few current matters, such as missing or old balances, a due reminder, or a required or warning item from the annual guidance. It intentionally does not reproduce the entire Annual Action Plan. “No urgent action items” means no current required or warning item is being surfaced here; it does not mean every assumption is complete or every possible improvement has been considered.

Quick Tasks are simply shortcuts to common work. They are not recommendations and their presence does not imply that you need to run every report.

Your Planning Journey tracks whether you have explored useful parts of YARCalc, such as saving balances, running an analysis, creating a What-if, or building history across dates. It can suggest a sensible next activity, but it is not a readiness score. Optional advanced activities do not need to be completed merely to make the plan valid.

Why Home and What-if Dashboards differ

Home is the ongoing plan, so its Dashboard includes monitoring work such as balance updates, quarterly check-ins, action decisions, and the planning journey. A What-if Dashboard stays focused on the alternative being tested. Changes and analyses remain in that scenario, while dated balance snapshots, check-ins, and adopted action decisions remain attached to Home.

Ideas to test create a separate What-if so you can explore a later retirement date, different spending, another claiming age, or a different allocation without overwriting the current scenario. Creating the What-if does not adopt the idea. Review exactly what changed, compare the results with Home, and keep the tradeoff visible.

A practical way to review the Dashboard

Start with the scenario, version, strategy, and balance date. Next, confirm that the retirement dates, spending, and return assumption in Scenario Highlights are plausible. Then read the Wealth Projection for its broad shape and note the first major change or decline.

After that, read Retirement Readiness and check whether its analysis is current. If the result is below target, open the full stochastic report rather than trying to diagnose the plan from one percentage. Reconcile the portfolio and net-worth figures, then review any Action Item whose reason is clear and relevant.

When something looks wrong, follow the evidence to the detailed page. Use Projection for a year-by-year cash-flow question, Stochastic Analysis for uncertainty and percentiles, Scenario Editor for an input, Update Balances for account values, and Annual Action Plan for dated or account-specific guidance. Change the plan only after you understand which assumption or event produced the result.

What the Dashboard cannot decide for you

The Dashboard cannot tell whether the retirement described by the inputs is personally acceptable, whether an assumption will prove accurate, or whether a strategy is appropriate for you. It does not show every tax detail, account restriction, year-by-year withdrawal, spending cut, market path, or legal consideration.

Treat it as a navigation and screening page. A favorable summary is a reason to inspect the important details with confidence, not a reason to stop reviewing them. An unfavorable summary is a reason to find the source of the result and test realistic alternatives, not a verdict that retirement is impossible.