I noticed most of the guideline answers are pretty straight forward about the time horizon for individual IPS and would not mention the cash flow changes for each stage and sometimes, not even the number of years. Some of the readings suggest that we should mention the number of years and cash flow changes for each stage. Any thoughts on this?
Simply :Long or short ? Single stage or Multis stage ? How many stages and when they start and end ?
No need to say the exact years unless stated like education expenses for 4 years .
How about describing the changes during the stage? I remembered some past years papers give long answers on Time Horizon part…Not sure that is helping us to understand or as required?
If you write the begining of a stage and ending then you have already answered the implicit question about why it is considered a stage .
For example : If the client needs to pay for college fees then it is a begining of a new stage , if the fees will be paid by work or excempted then you will negelect it .
Exactly. I think the hardest thing was to get that you only care about the portfolio. If the client is building a house in 5 years, a library in 10, and sending 20 kids to school in 12 then retiring in 15 years and all of those expenses other than retirement are covered by salary its just one stage.