How to use the tools, step by step
Practical, illustrated walkthroughs of every input and output in the ODOpt retirement planner and tax tools — what each setting actually does, why it matters, and how to read the results.
Your first retirement plan in 5 minutes
You don't need to understand everything to get a meaningful result. This guide walks you through the minimum inputs — demographics, a simple portfolio, basic spending — and shows you how to read the result.
Demographics and horizon
Three numbers — current age, retire age and planning horizon — define the entire timeline of your simulation. They are the most powerful levers in the tool.
Portfolio: vehicles and opening balances
Your portfolio is split across Pension, Cash ISA, Stocks & Shares ISA and GIA — each with different tax treatment. The split matters as much as the total.
Asset allocation and glidepath
How your portfolio is invested drives both its growth and its vulnerability to crashes. The glidepath shifts that mix as you approach and enter retirement.
Contributions
Amounts flowing into your portfolio before retirement. They compound alongside investment returns — and the earlier they start, the more powerful their effect.
Spending and expenses
Your spending plan is what the portfolio exists to fund. How you model it — regular vs one-off, inflation-linked vs fixed — directly shapes every outcome metric.
Withdrawal strategies
Controls how much is drawn each period. One of the most consequential inputs — the same portfolio with a rigid strategy can fail where a flexible one survives.
Guaranteed income
State Pension, DB pensions and annuities — the most valuable asset in a retirement plan. Offsets expenses before the portfolio is touched.
Bed & ISA
A strategy for moving GIA assets into ISA shelter — at the cost of a CGT event. Done right, it permanently reduces the tax drag on your portfolio.
Crisis stress testing
The hardest question in retirement planning: what happens if markets crash early in retirement? Not on average — but in that specific bad sequence.
Reading the fan chart and key metrics
The MC Outcomes tab tells the story of your plan across 5,000 possible futures. Here is how to read the charts and KPI cards.
Cash buffer, drawdown and tax
How your spending reserves behave across percentile paths. The most practical chart for day-to-day retirement sustainability — separate from overall portfolio survival.
The what-if comparison
Where the planner becomes a decision tool. Save a baseline, change something, run again — and see the exact cost or benefit in probability terms.
Tax-efficient pay in 5 minutes
You don't need to understand every input to get a meaningful result. The minimum — company profit, desired take-home, one click — and how to read the optimal salary/dividend split.
Owner-Director Optimiser
Finds the salary, dividend and pension combination that maximises your combined net wealth for a given tax year and target income.
Explorer — scenario comparison
Compare two manual salary/dividend scenarios side-by-side, each with independent pension settings and optionally different tax years.
Day-Rate Simulator
Calculates your company's revenue and pre-tax profit across four leave scenarios. Bridges the gap between day rate and the profit figure the Optimiser needs.