FAQ: Why Did Reversing Changes to Discovery Assets Not Restore Previous Results?

When the model has the same inputs it will always produce the same output. But when an input changes it can affect overrides made in Projections. These overrides may get "bounded" or "capped" to a different number based on the new input. When the input goes back to the old value these overrides will remain at the previously "bounded" or "capped" value which will result in a different output for what is seemingly the same input (but in fact the inputs have changed because the override is now different).

As an example, lets say I have an old G-RRSP with $20,000 in it. In the first year of retirement I want to draw out the entire balance and close the account. I enter a manual override in Planning > Projections to do this. The override is me telling the platform to do a specific thing, it shows up in Red versus the automatic calculations in Blue.

When I change Discovery > Assets to have a G-RRSP balance of $10,000 that will permanently change the override when recalculated.

Now the platform has "bounded" the override based on the reduced balance of the account. Its had to change the override to a lower amount.

If I now go back to Discovery > Assets and change the balance back to $20,000 and recalculate the Projections the new override will remain the same and this results in a fundamentally different projection than the first one, even though the balance is back to $20,000.

This is how changes in Discovery can impact overrides in Projections and how playing around with the inputs and then going back to the exact same inputs can result in different output if an override has been adjusted.

But if there are no overrides then the model will produce the exact same output with the same inputevery time.

In situations like this, instead of changing Discovery, we would recommend making a Copy of your scenario in Planning > Projections and then using Planning > Projections > Advanced Options to only change the beginning balances in one scenario.