Cashcalc thoughts please
EmmaMc
Member
Hi!!!
For those who subscribe to Cashcalc, can you please let me know what you think - both good and bad! Does it have limitations? How does it compare against other cashflow planning tools you have used?
Many thanks,
Emma
Comments
It's good. I recommend it. It's got many calculators besides the cashflow modeller (Carry Forward/Tapering, Bond Calcs etc etc).
The only limitation on the cashflow is that it doesn't calculate ongoing tax positions, which the other more expensive ones do.
I would make sure you buy it now - the prices are due to increase quite significantly soon
The change to the new pricing model is 1 Oct FYI
Great - thanks so much!!!
I agree with Aron. Its a good and reasonably priced cashflow tool and we do subscribe, but mainly for the other tools/calculators as we use Voyant which in my opinion is far superior as it calculates all taxes etc as well. We did use Truth but switched to Voyant and would never look back. Depending on how much we use Cashcalc (or not) we may even turn this off and turn on Timeline to compliment Voyant which I have tested and think its great for even more detail.
Another vote here for CashCalc. We use it daily - mainly the cashflow, gain calc and carry forward calculators. We're also Voyant users and find the ability to have access to two different cashflow systems works great as not all planning requires a full on Voyant cashflow.
One word of warning - with any calculators like this always remember you're ultimately responsible for your calculations so always sense check the output and do a manual calc everyone now and again. I've come across a few bugs and errors in CashCalc calculators, which whilst the developers sorted out super quick, were still there and could have impacted advice given.
Cashcalc is easy to use and quite intuitive. I signed up for a free trial of Voyant while Cashcalc was down for a big update, but I couldn't really get to grips with it. I didn't find Voyant intuitive at all and trying to add the state pension was a complete faff, whereas on Cashcalc you just press one button!
I know plenty of other people love Voyant but it's not something I could get on with - Cashcalc gets my vote.
Additionally, if Cashcalc's APTA and TVC are any good, we'll probably drop Selectapension as CC integrates with Intelliflo
Andy, i'm not sure what you mean by adding the state pension is a faff? You click on state pension, then type in the pension the client has. It already calculates the age, so you just click, type in value and press update? What particular element did you find an issue. Each to their own obviously (and we have both Voyant and Cashcalc) but was a bit confused what was the issue with the state pension section.
I would personally say its a lot more of a pain if the client gives you gross salaries, savings and investment income etc and then you have to work out the net position. Voyant does that all for you.
They are both cracking bits of kit though, hence why we have both
And to add, I agree the free trial is no where near enough time to get to grips with things. It requires a good bit of time (don't all systems) to get the best out of it. We also signed up to Andy Hart's the Voyantist black belt programme and this is more useful than Voyant own training IMO.
We use Cashcalc and really like it, although the price is creeping up... the biggest issue for us is the lack of tax calculations so you have to manually work out a deduction which can be very time consuming if testing numerous scenarios, income varies over time etc, plus adds risk of error. O&Ms new tool has the tax calcs, but can only work on a single life which rules out most of our clients. Adviser Asset also have a cashflow tool, but again this doesn't work out tax. It is lower cost though..