18th Sept AMA: I’m Lana Graham, Xtools+ product manager, Ask Me Anything!

Hi everyone ?

I’m Lana Graham, Xtools+ product manager.

The way you use Xtools+ is always evolving and, understandably, can come a stack of “what’s the best way to do this?” questions.

That’s why I'll be live here in the Advisely AMA forum to answer your best practice questions, hear your feedback and clear up any curly ones.

To spark ideas, you might want to ask about – or share your feedback on – modelling across multiple scenarios, best practice for setting up complex strategies or smarter way to handle rollovers and lump sums without messy workarounds.

Drop your questions below – whether it’s something specific you’d like answered, or feedback on what would make modelling better for your advice process.

I’ll be here live on Thursday, 18 September at 3 pm AEST to respond.

Looking forward to the conversation!

? This AMA is text-based, so I’ll answer your pre-submitted questions in the scheduled time.

? Click here to save the date in your calendar.

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?️ Let us know what you thought of the AMA and what topics you would like to see next here.

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Comments

rainier.reyes

Welcome everyone to this AMA thread!

Please ensure you read the instructions on the right-hand side of this page.

Submit your Xtools+ questions, queries and feedback now by hitting the 'Reply' button on the post above and @lana.graham will respond during the scheduled time.

Not sure what to ask? I highly recommend checking out the update about reinvented super & pension modelling here.

Please keep in mind:

This is a forum for sharing best practices and product feedback – this is not a support channel. For support queries, please contact your Xplan site admin or Iress Connect here.
Advisely is a public platform, so please be mindful about what data and information you choose to share.

If you have any issues, please don't hesitate to send me a message.

Looking forward to seeing all your questions!

annette.buultjens

Hi Lana, when doing a pension refresh for a client who is under their TBC, with pension earnings the client's TBA would need to go into negative. How do we model this effectively in CALM without triggering an (incorrect) TBC excess?

shani.horder

Hi Lana, it would be great to get your thoughts on best practice for debt recycling strategies including any tips and traps. Thank you!

john.hall

It would be good if the link to ask a question actually worked!!!!

rainier.reyes

Hi @john.hall , thanks for letting me know. I apologise if the button didn't work as expected. It looks like you were able to post your reply, which is how you can submit your question, but are you able to tell me what happened on your end? Did you get an error message, or was something else not working correctly?

chloe.dinh

Changing Loan Interest Rate (Fixed to Variable):
It appears that Xtools+ allows for only one interest rate change during the loan term. Could you please confirm whether it is possible to model a transition from a fixed rate to a variable rate within the same loan structure? If not, what is the recommended approach to reflect such a change?
Loan Structure Conversion (Principal & Interest to Interest-Only):
If a loan is initially structured as principal and interest, how should it be restructured in Xtools+ to reflect a conversion to interest-only repayments? Are there specific input fields or transaction tabs that need to be adjusted?
Cash Flow Surplus/Deficit Allocation Across Periods:
How does Xtools+ allocate surplus or deficit cash flow across multiple periods? Is there a way to manually override or direct surplus funds to specific uses (e.g., debt repayment, contributions) rather than default allocation?
Concessional and Non-Concessional Contributions Within Cap Limits:
Xtools+ currently allocates all surplus cash flow to both concessional and non-concessional contributions for the client and partner, often exceeding the annual caps. Is there a way to restrict contributions to remain within the ATO-defined limits (e.g., $30,000 concessional and $120,000 non-concessional for FY2025–26). If not, what is the best practice to ensure compliance while still utilising available surplus?
Home Equity Cash-Out for Investment Property Loan:
What is the correct method to model a cash-out refinance or equity release from a primary residence to fund the purchase of an investment property? Should this be entered as a new loan transaction, or is there a specific cash-out/refinance function within Xtools+ to reflect this strategy accurately?

ramandeep-singh.johar

@lana.graham We are manually uploading the CSV's for some of our Insurers into XPLAN. Primarily we upload the insurance details under the Insurer, but we also need Policy Owners name along with the Insurer which we are unable to achieve and we need to know how we can achieve that. We asked IRESS but they came back to say that is not possible while doing the Manual Upload. Please help.

ramandeep-singh.johar

@lana.graham We have a coded word document on which we generate the client SOA. The SOA shows all the client insurances with details like Sum Insured, Premium etc. The issue is, when the SOA is generated it comes out as non aligned i.e the columns and rows are not alligned. What could be the reason for that.

chelsea.ellerton8

@Lana.Graham Hi Lana, we often have strategies where a client's deficit cashflow will be funded from a family trust or a company. It would be great if the deficit cashflow function included the option to fund from entities. The manual workaround we use is to add a capital withdrawal each year, but we need to go year by year and then play around with the figures to also allow for the tax that results.

john.hall

Button did not work. My question is around "how do I add a mortgage offset account to a loan please?"

julie.pearsons

Hi Lana, could you please a spouse super contribution, and a super contribution splitting strategy where the client (husband) is a high-income earning doctor and his wife is a homemaker? Thanks, Julie

yonit

I have tried to model a cashflow comparison, current and proposed for a few years from now, say when the client retires. Whenever I try to choose a start date in the future it doesn't seem to work and doesn't seem to give me say two years in the table if I ask for it.

lana.graham

Hi @annette.buultjens,

Xtools+ automatically models the transfer balance debit and calculates the the negative transfer balance account when you commute the account based pension.

Here's an example of a n ABP that was commenced with $100,000 and later commuted at $312,916.

So I'm not sure how you might trigger an incorrect TBC excess - please let me know if I've missed anything.

lana.graham

Hi John,

You need to Associate the Loan with the Bank Account that you are using as an Offset Account.

In the following example I have a $100,000 loan with interest only at 10% and an Offset account of $10,000.

Once you've entered the LIability and the Offset Account, go to Associate and link them up under Mortgage Offset.

The result is that when calculating interest on the loan, the balance is reduced to $90,000 and interest reduces from $10,000 to $9,000.

Please let me know if that helps you.

lana.graham

Hi @chloe.dinh,

1 & 2. Xtools+ doesn't currently allow for you to adjust a single liability for an interest rate change or Intrerest only to P&I conversion. Please see this Iress Community article for the process to model them. Xtools+ CALM: Modelling a Loan with changing interest rate or repayment type I'll note down your feedback as I want to consider adding this functionality.

3.You can use the Custom Cashflow settings if you want more control over the Deficit or Surplus. Just change the To date for Period 1 if you want to have different settings for different periods. You can do up to 3 periods for Deficit.

I think you might already know about the Custom Surplus options, since Q4 queries the allocation to super contributions.

4. The Surplus allocation settings don't currently contain an option to limit contributions to the caps - this is another feature request I will note down as feedback for consideration. The best way to model these contributions is from the SOP transactions screen as you can see the NCC Cap, The Cashflow Suplus or Deficit and enter contributions on the same screen.

Here's an example below - I'm thinking it could be helpful if we also showed the Concessional Cap info on this screen - do you agree?

5. There isnt a specific cashout/refinance function. For a quick response I'm going to write the steps for your home equity conversion strategy. Please reply to let me know if you need more detail:
a. Enter a loan for the home. Ensure the balance is Nil but the credit limit is at least as high as the amount you need to draw down to fund the property. Set it to 100% tax deductible, since we are going to use the funds for the investment property.
b. Go to the Display screen for the Liability and enter a Start of Period Drawdown for the amount you need to pay for the Property.
c. Now go and model the purchase of the Investment Property

I hope that helps, Chloe. I'm looking forward to reading your reply.

lana.graham

Hi @raman.singh ,

Both of your queries refer to Xplan modules other than Xtools or Xtools+ so I don't have the expertise to help. Could you please lodge a support query to have these addressed?

lana.graham

Hi @chelsea.ellerton8 ,

I'll note this feedback down in case we can add it to our roadmap.

lana.graham

HI @yonit.udis3 ,

It sounds like you are trying to change the settings for an Xmerge table.

I've found this Iress Community article that shows you how to Xmerge a comparison table for 2 different Xtools scenarios: Xmerge Syntax – Comparison Displays XTOOLS/XTOOLS+ Scenarios within One Table

It contains the following example code:
<:=$uda('xtools/output/client %clientid%/CALM/cmptable/scenario %Scenario_1%/scenario %Scenario_2%/Display|Individual|Cashflow|Taxation|Client', View_All=1, Hide_Nulls=2, Start=1, End=1, Frequency=1):>

I believe that if you change the Start and End number to the period you are wanting to compare, the values in the table should merge accordingly.

Please give that a try and let us know how you go.

lana.graham

Hi @shani.horder ,

That's a huge question!
I'm going to ponder and come back to you next week.

primrose.foster

Thanks again to everyone who participated in our AMA discussion last week! Your questions and insights made it a great conversation. And a big thank you to @lana.graham for sharing her time and deep knowledge with you all. ?

If you have any further feedback or questions, please share it here. ?