About WealthProbe by Cache Smart
Version: 3.x
System Requirements: Memory: 2 GB RAM, hard drive space: 200 MB, Operating System: Any Microsoft version of Windows 10 or higher.
History of WealthProbe: Hi, I’m Dean Larson, and I thought you might be interested in a short history of WealthProbe, and why I created it.
In the past, I used an Excel spreadsheet to give me a crude idea of how I was doing with my retirement plan. As I got more interested in tracking how I was doing with my planning, though, I realized I needed something more flexible, powerful, and easier to use.
I decided to look at what other retirement planning tools were out there. I found a few possible options, but they all came with limitations. The tools were generally not very flexible or sophisticated— most depended on simple assumptions and generic rules-of-thumb. The programs that were more sophisticated were only available to users who allowed the software provider to manage their investments—and that came at a price. One percent of your total portfolio value per year adds up fast!
Plus, some of these providers wanted access to my account numbers and passwords before I could access their so-called “free tools”. Providing “the keys” to all my investment accounts for storage in a single place in the cloud made me very uncomfortable.
Well, I have programming experience in a handful of computer languages (acquired mostly to support obtaining my Ph.D. in physics and in my subsequent work), so I decided to develop a retirement planning tool of my own, written in a language much more powerful than Excel, for me and my family to use.
Shortly after I started building it, I realized this whole thing would probably be useful to more people than just my family. I founded Cache Smart in early 2021 and formed a team to continue development of the tool that we call WealthProbe.
The basic idea of WealthProbe was to give users an easy-to-use tool that fits everyone’s unique financial situation. As we kept building we made WealthProbe fit a growing list of requirements.
Here are some examples:
1) We wanted the ability to do ‘what-if’ analysis— to change things on-the-fly in a scenario that was either being created or previously completed by the user. We wanted to be able to go backwards and forwards, jump between data sections; basically change anything, anywhere, and at any time.
2) We wanted a detailed and thorough treatment of IRAs (both inherited and not) in all their glorious permutations, combinations, and conditions – adjusted for the recent SECURE Acts. There are a lot of questions to answer about IRAs, but we wanted to ensure users only see the questions that actually fit their specific situations.
3) We wanted to include tools that would deal with different types of real estate and how that affected retirement planning.
4) We wanted to make data entry and results visualization easy and intuitive so you can see the effects of changes you make and easily understand how they affect your retirement plans.
5) We wanted the tool to be secure. We decided to keep WealthProbe downloadable, so once you activate the license, you can unplug your computer from the internet and even store your encrypted data files on a storage device detached from your computer for enhanced privacy and security. I think you will find WealthProbe allows you to examine your unique situation in a secure environment, in as much (or as little) detail as you care to provide.
The result of all this activity is today’s WealthProbe: a highly accurate, easy-to-use tool capable of analyzing most plans and situations.
If you have any questions or issues pertaining to WealthProbe itself, please send them to us via the WealthProbe Contact form on this website. All questions and issues of a corporate nature should be sent using the contact form on CacheSmart-us.com.