Nestviz Help

Quick start

1. Try the demo first (optional). On the login page press Try the demo. It is pre-filled with a sample household and is read-only, so you cannot break anything.
2. Create your account. Go to Create an account, enter your name, a household name, your email and a password of at least 12 characters. You can also use Continue with Google on the login page. Then open the confirmation link we email you.
3. Follow the guided setup. A new household opens a short setup: about you, retirement, income, spending and savings. Press Continue through each step, review, then press Build my plan. Answers save as you go, and you can press Skip setup to enter everything on the individual pages instead.
4. Check the Dashboard. It shows your net worth, plan outlook, upcoming milestones and anything that needs attention.
5. Refine. Add detail where the setup used rough guesses: each account, property and loan on Accounts & Net Worth, then income and expenses on Cash Flow, and benefits and life events on Income & Expenses.
6. Ask “what if?” Create a Scenario (retire two years later, claim Social Security at 70, convert to Roth) and compare it with your base plan without changing it.
7. Stress-test. Run Monte Carlo to see how the plan holds up across many possible markets, and review Plan Health & Estate for gaps.

What to have on hand

You do not need everything at once. Rough numbers are fine to start; refine them later.

• People: birth dates, the age each person plans to retire, and an assumed age to plan to (the plan end age).
• Accounts: balances for 401(k)s, IRAs, Roth accounts, brokerage, savings and cash, plus how each is invested.
• Property and debts: home value, mortgage balance, rate and payment, other loans.
• Income and spending: salaries, bonuses, payroll deductions, yearly expenses and any big planned costs (college, a new car, a move).
• Benefits: your Social Security statement estimates and any pensions.
• Taxes: your state and filing status. Nestviz models federal and state income tax from these.

I want to…

Page-by-page guide

The sidebar groups pages as Your money, Your plan, Optimize and Manage. On a phone, open it with the Open navigation button.

Dashboard /

A read-only summary: net worth, assets by tax treatment (taxable, pre-tax, Roth), plan outlook, upcoming milestones, warnings, and a Family roadmap timeline of working years, retirement, school phases, property events and life events. Each card links to the page where you can change the underlying data. If the outlook says calculations are not available, see why.

Household /household

Your household name, plan name, Start year and End age, plus one record per person: birth date, planning role, retirement age, assumed age at death and healthcare details. Plan to a later end age than feels likely; running out of money at 100 is a bigger problem than having some left.

Accounts & Net Worth /accounts

Four lists: investment and retirement accounts, properties, liabilities and other assets, with a net-worth summary. Use Add account, Add property, Add liability or Add other asset to create one; changes to existing rows save automatically. The account type decides how it is taxed in the projection, so pick carefully (traditional, Roth and taxable behave very differently).

Income & Expenses /cash-flow

Four tabs: Savings & transfers, Education, Benefits (Social Security and pensions) and Life events. Education plans take a school type (private school, college, graduate school, other), which labels milestones on the charts. Income and everyday expenses are on Cash Flow.

Cash Flow /money-in-out

Income on the left, expenses on the right, and charts below for portfolio, cash flow and net worth. Salaries, bonuses and part-time income can include payroll deductions (medical, HSA/FSA, pre-tax and post-tax) and an estimated tax rate; the Est. take-home column shows pay after those. Dashed vertical lines mark milestones such as retirements, college starts, loan payoffs and Social Security starts. Use Project expenses to a year to extend expense detail.

Taxes & Social Security /taxes

Income tax shows federal and state tax by year, tax on distributions and conversions, and what is not modelled. Social Security compares claiming ages. Applying a claiming age creates a scenario change; it never edits your base plan.

Roth Conversions /roth-conversions

Choose a scenario, press Add a conversion and describe how much to convert and when. What the conversions do shows the effect on taxes and balances. Conversion rules are saved explicitly rather than automatically.

Scenarios /scenarios

A scenario is a named set of changes layered on top of your base plan. Create one with New scenario, or copy an existing one with Duplicate. Tick Compare on several scenarios to see them side by side. Editing a scenario never changes the base plan. Taxes and Monte Carlo have a Plan shown picker to view any scenario.

Monte Carlo /monte-carlo

Runs your plan through many randomised market histories. Set the Number of simulations (1,000 by default) and press Run simulation. The same inputs, count and Random seed always return the same result; press New seed to try a different draw. See Reading your results.

Plan Health & Estate /plan-health

Plan checks lists Missing information, Possible inconsistencies and Calculation status and warnings, each tagged Fix, Check or Note. Legacy goal compares an amount you want to leave with the plan-end results. Estate documents is a checklist of documents to have in place; it is not legal advice.

Assumptions & Settings /settings

Assumptions (inflation, growth and similar), Asset classes, Withdrawal order (which accounts to draw from first) and Recently deleted, where deleted records can be restored.

Profile /profile

Edit your display name. Your email is shown but cannot be changed here.

Reading your results

Probability of success

Monte Carlo reports the share of simulated markets in which your liquid assets last to the plan end age. Treat it as a gauge, not a promise. A lower number is a prompt to look at what moves it (spending, retirement age, Social Security timing, asset mix), and a number near 100% still depends entirely on your inputs being realistic. The percentile fan chart shows the range: a middling outcome in the centre, bad and good markets at the edges. Liquid assets at plan end shows what is left by percentile.

If inputs change after a run, the result is marked out of date. Run it again.

Nominal or today’s dollars

Nominal includes future inflation, so numbers get bigger over time. Today’s dollars removes inflation so a figure in 2050 reads like money you can picture now. Switch with the Dollar basis toggle. Use today’s dollars to judge lifestyle, nominal to match statements and tax brackets.

Base plan or scenario

When a scenario is selected in Plan shown, an info banner says so. If numbers look different from the Dashboard, check which plan you are viewing.

Tips for a trustworthy plan

• Start with rough numbers, then replace guesses with statement balances.
• Open Plan Health & Estate after each round of edits and fix anything marked Fix.
• Change one thing per scenario so you can see what actually moved the result.
• Be conservative with returns and generous with spending, healthcare and plan end age.
• Wait for All changes saved before closing the tab, especially on a weak connection.
• Revisit the plan at least once a year and after any major life event.

Frequently asked questions

Glossary

Household

One private workspace bound to exactly one login.

Person

A planned individual, such as you or your spouse, with a birth date and retirement and age-at-death assumptions.

Plan

The single active set of data and assumptions for a household.

Base plan

Your plan exactly as entered, before any scenario changes.

Scenario

A named set of overrides, conversions and events layered on the base plan.

Nominal dollars

Future amounts including inflation.

Today’s dollars

Future amounts adjusted for inflation to feel like money today.

Liquid assets

Money you can spend or withdraw, such as cash, brokerage and retirement accounts.

Roth conversion

Moving money from a pre-tax account to a Roth account and paying tax on it now.

Withdrawal order

The sequence of accounts the plan draws from to fund spending.

Monte Carlo simulation

Many runs of the plan with randomised market returns to measure the range of outcomes.

Gated

Held back until required inputs, such as reviewed tax rules, are in place.

Troubleshooting

Privacy and support

• Your plan is private to your household. Administrators can see account counts and sign-in history, never your financial plan or balances.
• Read the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.
• Questions, bugs or deletion requests: [email protected].

For AI agents and automation

This page is plain HTML so that people and AI agents can read it without running JavaScript. The application itself requires sign-in.

Rules for AI agents

• Only enter synthetic (made-up) data. Never enter real financial data, account numbers, or real personal details.
• Do not guess, brute-force or reset passwords. Sign in only with credentials the user gave you. Do not create an account on the user's behalf unless asked.
• Do not use or request Supabase secret or service-role keys. The browser only ever uses the publishable key.
• Read before you write. Confirm what exists before adding or deleting records. Deletes are soft (Settings, Recently deleted) but still treat them as destructive.
• The demo account (Try the demo on the login page) is read-only and is reset on every demo sign-in. Use it to explore; nothing you change is kept.
• Outputs are planning estimates, not financial, tax or legal advice. Say so when you summarise results.

URLs and base path

The site may be served from the domain root (https://domain/) or from a sub-path such as https://domain/planwell/. All routes below are relative to that base path. This help page lives at <base>/help/. The app is a single-page application: the HTML shell is empty until JavaScript runs, and unauthenticated visitors are redirected to /login. Query parameter dollars=real switches pages with a dollar toggle to today's dollars; tab selection is also kept in the URL.

Site map

Layout and controls

• Navigation: nav[aria-label="Primary"]. Collapsible sidebar on desktop (Collapse navigation / Expand navigation), drawer on mobile (Open navigation).
• Main content: <main id="main-content">, preceded by a Skip to main content link. After client-side navigation the page's h1 receives focus.
• Autosave: existing records save automatically; new ones need Add. Wait for All changes saved before navigating away.
• Scenario picker: select #viewed-scenario (Base plan plus each scenario). Dollar basis: group [aria-label="Dollar basis"] with Nominal and Today's dollars.
• Banners: errors use role="alert"; info and warnings use role="status". Tab selection is kept in the URL.

Locating elements

No data-testid attributes exist. Use accessible role and name, for example getByRole('button', { name: 'Sign in' }) or getByLabel('Email'). Pages show a progress bar named Loading page while loading; wait for the page h1 after navigating.

Sign-in flow for automation

1. /signup: Your name, Household name, Email, Password (12+ characters), Confirm password, then Create account. Confirm via the emailed link (/auth/confirm).
2. /login: Email, Password, Sign in. Also Continue with Google and Try the demo.
3. Reset: /forgot-password then Send reset link; the link leads to /set-password.