Product updates and important notices

Future lump sums are now supported in the Retirement Planner

We have released a significant update to the Planiva Retirement Planner, focused on making retirement scenarios clearer, more realistic and easier to review.

The main change is support for future lump sums received.

This means you can now add expected one-off future receipts directly into your retirement scenario instead of working around them as current savings or recurring income.

Examples include:

• property sale proceeds;
• inheritance;
• DB pension lump sums;
• other expected one-off future receipts.

These amounts are added once at the selected age and are treated as future money received. They are not treated as current savings and they are not treated as recurring income.

Why this matters

Many retirement plans depend on events that happen later.

For example, someone may expect to sell a property, receive an inheritance, take a pension lump sum, or receive another one-off payment after retirement has already started.

Previously, these events were harder to model cleanly. Users could end up entering future money as today’s savings or as annual income, which could distort the projection.

The Retirement Planner now gives future lump sums their own place in the plan.

How future lump sums work

When adding a future lump sum, you can enter:

• the type of lump sum;
• the amount;
• the age it is expected to be received;
• the owner, where relevant.

Planiva then adds the lump sum once at the selected age.

Future lump sums are added to taxable savings and investments from that point in the projection.

They are assumed to be the amount available after any tax, fees, debt repayment or transaction costs. Planiva does not calculate those costs for you.

Available in the guided wizard

Future lump sums received are now also available in the guided Retirement Planner setup.

This helps you include important future receipts when first building your plan, rather than needing to add them later.

Clearer pension and asset inputs

This update also improves the way key retirement inputs are described.

We have clarified wording around:

• pension pot values;
• other annual retirement income;
• State Pension;
• ISA savings and investments;
• taxable savings and investments;
• future annuity income from a pension pot.

The aim is to reduce confusion between current balances, annual income amounts and future income streams.

Review checks

The Retirement Planner now includes clearer review checks.

These are non-blocking prompts that highlight assumptions or outputs that may deserve a second look.

For example, Planiva may remind you to review whether:

• a pension has been counted both as a pot and as annual income;
• State Pension has also been included in other annual retirement income;
• taxable savings and investments are being modelled using simplified assumptions;
• a future lump sum materially affects the projection.

These checks do not mean the scenario is wrong. They are there to help you review the assumptions behind the projection.

How the projection is calculated

The Retirement Planner now gives a clearer explanation of how each projection has been calculated.

The explanation covers areas such as:

• starting retirement resources;
• income included;
• spending assumptions;
• withdrawals and tax treatment;
• future lump sums;
• annuity conversion where relevant;
• the main assumptions driving the result.

This helps make the projection easier to understand without changing the underlying calculation.

Better reports

We have improved the Retirement Planner PDF report so it works better as a standalone planning document.

The report now includes:

• a clearer first-page summary;
• improved spacing and layout;
• clearer assumptions sections;
• review checks;
• a dedicated calculation explanation section;
• clearer planning notes and advice-boundary wording.

The report remains a planning output, not financial advice, but it should now be easier to save, review and compare.

Improved scenario comparison

Scenario comparison has also been improved.

The comparison keeps its existing layout, but now handles several items more clearly:

• identical values now show as “No change”;
• small non-zero movements may show as “Broadly unchanged”;
• Total Tax Paid remains a key comparison metric;
• average flexible withdrawals are treated as neutral by default;
• future lump sums received now appear in the existing comparison sections where relevant.

This helps you compare scenarios without turning the comparison into a recommendation.

What has not changed

Planiva remains a planning and modelling tool.

Planiva helps you test scenarios based on the assumptions you enter. It does not tell you what financial decision to make.

In summary

This update makes the Retirement Planner more practical for real-world retirement scenarios.

You can now include future lump sums received, review how they affect your projection, understand how the calculation has been built, and compare scenarios more clearly.

We’ve added a major update to the Cashflow Planner: Plan vs actual.

This new area is designed as a lightweight month-end balance check-in, not a budgeting tool. You can now record what actually happened by entering your real account closing balances for completed months and compare those with your saved cashflow plan.

What’s new:

• Plan vs actual tab for month-end balance check-ins
• balance-based Actuals insight to show how reality compares with plan
• Actuals projection to show how the plan may now evolve from your latest completed balances
• Actions section for missing or incomplete balance check-ins
• exports now include Plan vs actual in the main cashflow plan report
• scenario comparisons now include a Reality check section
• separate export reports for main cashflow plans and scenario comparisons

How it works:

• you enter month-end closing balances for your live accounts
• completed balance check-ins are compared with the saved plan
• the planner then builds an Actuals projection from the latest usable completed balances
• recent balance gaps versus plan are used to refine that projection
• clearly unusual completed months may be reduced internally so one broken check-in does not dominate the result

This release is intended to make cashflow planning easier to keep grounded in reality, while keeping the experience simple and focused on the balances that matter most.

Overview

This update strengthens how saved planning data is protected and reflects an important change in our data policy.

Planiva is being built as a private financial planning workspace. Your financial data is your data. It is not for sale.

What has changed

Stronger protection for saved planning data

Saved planning data now uses stronger application-level encryption.

This includes protection for saved scenario payloads and profile baseline data. In plain English, this means sensitive saved planning details are no longer treated as ordinary readable database content.

Standard Protected Mode remains the default. It protects saved planning data with strong, recoverable encryption while keeping Planiva practical to use day to day.

For most users, Standard Protected Mode is the right choice.

Enhanced Privacy for selected plans

We have also introduced Enhanced Privacy for users who want the strongest level of control over selected saved plans.

Enhanced Privacy lets you protect the saved scenario contents of a selected plan with your own privacy passphrase. Once enabled, Planiva cannot decrypt those protected contents unless you unlock the plan.

This extra protection comes with extra responsibility. You must keep your privacy passphrase safe and save your recovery key somewhere secure.

If you lose both your privacy passphrase and recovery key, Planiva may not be able to recover the protected plan.

Enhanced Privacy currently applies to selected saved plan scenario contents. Downloaded exports are not protected by Planiva after download.

Privacy and Security settings

You can review and manage your privacy settings from the Planiva menu.

Open the Menu, then choose Privacy & Security.

From there you can:

• see how Standard Protected Mode and Enhanced Privacy work;
• set up your Enhanced Privacy passphrase and recovery key;
• review the responsibilities that come with Enhanced Privacy;
• return later if you want to protect selected saved plans with Enhanced Privacy.

You do not have to enable Enhanced Privacy to use Planiva. Standard Protected Mode remains the recommended default for most users.

Privacy-safe product telemetry

We have also changed how we think about product usage data.

Planiva does not sell your personal financial data.

Detailed planning inputs, such as pension values, savings, income, spending assumptions, tax details and estate planning information, are not used to create commercial datasets for sale or third-party sharing.

We may still use privacy-safe operational telemetry, such as feature usage, save/load activity, export usage, error categories and broad usage counts, to operate and improve the service.

This helps us make Planiva better without treating your financial life as something to package or sell.

Ask Planiva audit data has been minimised

Where AI-assisted features are used, we have reduced what is retained.

Ask Planiva audit records are designed to store privacy-safe operational information, such as status, duration, broad categories and error types, rather than raw prompts, raw model responses, detailed financial values or full planner payloads.

Browser draft storage has been reduced

Sensitive wizard and handoff drafts now use short-lived browser session storage only.

Long-lived local browser storage is no longer used for sensitive planner handoff drafts. Drafts expire and are cleared after use.

Updated Privacy Policy

We have updated our Privacy Policy to reflect these changes.

The updated policy explains:

• how saved planning data is protected;
• the difference between Standard Protected Mode and Enhanced Privacy;
• how to configure privacy and security settings;
• what Enhanced Privacy does and does not protect;
• what operational telemetry Planiva may use;
• that Planiva does not sell personal financial data;
• that detailed planning inputs are not used to create commercial datasets for sale or third-party sharing.

Please read the updated Privacy Policy before continuing to use Planiva.

By continuing, you confirm that you have read the updated Privacy Policy.

The retirement planner now gives you more flexible and easier-to-understand control over how retirement spending is set and how it changes over time.

This update replaces the earlier single taper-based spending setup with a clearer model built around Starting spending level and Spending pattern.

It includes the following improvements:

You can now choose how starting retirement spending is set

• Choose Automatic, sustainable to let the planner find the highest sustainable starting spend.
• Choose Set annual amount to enter your own starting annual spending target.
• Choose Percentage of retirement assets to anchor starting spending using a percentage of retirement assets at retirement start.
• This makes it easier to compare planner-led and user-led spending assumptions.

You can now choose a retirement spending pattern

• Use Front-loaded if you expect higher spending earlier in retirement, tapering later.
• Use Flat in real terms if you want spending to stay broadly level over time.
• Use Retirement smile if you want spending to ease in mid-retirement and rise modestly later.
• Smile settings remain intentionally simple, with preset-driven controls rather than a complex custom model.

Maximum annual spend is now handled more clearly

• Maximum starting annual spend now sits within the starting spending section.
• It is only used when Automatic, sustainable is selected.
• This avoids overlap and makes the spending controls easier to understand.

Retirement outputs now explain spending assumptions more clearly

• Summary, comparison, report view, PDF export, and Excel export now reflect the selected starting spending level and spending pattern.
• Export wording has been updated so spending assumptions are clearer and more consistent.
• Excel spending summaries now use actual projected spending-band values instead of older fixed shortcuts.

This update is designed to improve clarity without breaking existing saved scenarios.

Existing retirement scenarios remain backward-compatible. Legacy scenarios continue to load with the existing automatic front-loaded behaviour unless different settings are explicitly chosen in the planner.

The retirement planner now supports a simple annuity path so you can model using part of a pension pot to buy guaranteed income.

This update adds annuity support in a consumer-friendly way inside Guaranteed income and annuities.

It includes the following improvements:

You can now add a simple annuity for each person

• Add one annuity per person if needed.
• Keep annuities optional, you can still use the planner without them.
• Enter an annuity start age.
• Enter the amount converted as either a currency amount or a percentage of the pension pot.
• Enter an expected annual annuity income.
• Choose whether the annuity is level or increases each year.

Annuity income is now modelled separately from other retirement income

• Annuities are no longer treated as generic other income.
• The converted amount is removed from the pension pot at the chosen annuity start age.
• Annuity income is projected separately from State Pension and flexible withdrawals.
• This makes it easier to see the trade-off between guaranteed income and remaining flexible pension capital.

Retirement outputs now explain annuity trade-offs more clearly

• Results now show annuity income separately from State Pension.
• Summary outputs highlight guaranteed income before and after State Pension starts.
• Comparison now makes it easier to see changes in guaranteed income, withdrawal reliance, and remaining flexible pension assets.
• Retirement exports and report views now include annuity details more clearly.

This annuity support is intentionally simple. It does not include provider quotes, enhanced annuities, guarantee periods, value protection, survivor continuation, or multiple visible annuities per person.

Existing saved retirement scenarios remain backward-compatible. Plans without annuities continue to work as before, and annuity settings are only applied where they are explicitly present in the saved data.