Trust · FAQ
Short, direct answers — the same standard as the rest of this site: no claim without something behind it.
Advice & accuracy
No. FinPlanTools is a calculation engine, not an advisor: it computes projections, taxes, and Social Security estimates from the numbers you and your assistant give it, but it never recommends what you should do. Read its output the way you'd read a spreadsheet, not the way you'd read a licensed advisor's opinion — the math is only as good as the inputs, and every decision stays yours.
No. FinPlanTools has no view on whether any stock or fund is a good investment — it can't tell you which will do better, and it never will. Allocation is modeled at the asset-class level (stocks, bonds, cash, and a few similar categories), so you can see how a different mix or glide path changes your projection. What it will do is the tax math on what you already hold: if you're weighing which of two positions to sell, it can tell you which realizes less in capital-gains tax, based on cost basis and how long you've held it. The tax question it can answer; which one is the better investment it cannot.
The engine itself computes correctly from whatever inputs it's given — that part is tested against IRS tables and thousands of test cases. What can go wrong is the assistant mis-entering an input on your behalf, which is why every result traces back to the exact inputs used in a snapshot you can check against what you actually told it.
Federal income tax — both ordinary and capital-gains — is modeled, and resident state income tax is covered in all 50 states + DC, each on its own bracket schedule with its major retirement exclusions, every rate cited to the government that levies it. The local layers that materially change a resident's bill are modeled too: New York City, Yonkers, every Maryland county, Philadelphia, Detroit, the four major Ohio cities, St. Louis, Kansas City, and more. For the fine print — tax years, the credits that aren't modeled, and the full local list — see Methodology for the complete breakdown of what is and isn't modeled.
Your data & privacy
Your conversation runs through whichever AI provider you're using — Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, or another MCP client — and that provider sees everything you type. FinPlanTools itself only receives the structured tool calls your assistant makes: numbers in, numbers out, no chat transcript. In local mode, our own servers never enter the picture at all — see Where your data lives for the full local-vs-hosted breakdown.
Never. Balance sync reads a plain machine-readable file you export yourself — any source that lets you export your data works, since your assistant maps it into the shape FinPlanTools expects. There's no account-aggregator connection, no bank login, and no live feed to break. Monarch Money is an easy example because its own MCP server can hand that export straight to your assistant, but nothing about the sync is tied to it. If you don't provide an export, there's simply nothing to sync.
In local mode, your data is a JSON file on your own disk — delete the file and it's gone, with no copy anywhere else. In hosted mode there's no delete button to press: every uploaded state document expires and stops resolving within the hour on its own. More detail in Where your data lives.
Access & cost
Free during early access. If fees are introduced later, they'll come with advance notice — nothing changes on an existing setup without warning first.
Yes, today, with a plain JSON state file per client — there's no multi-client dashboard yet, so you're managing separate files by hand. A dedicated professionals workflow is in progress; see For professionals for where that's headed.
Any assistant that speaks MCP (Model Context Protocol) can connect — Claude, ChatGPT, and other MCP-compatible clients. See the setup guide for how to connect yours.
Answered? The setup guide walks through connecting your assistant, start to finish.