Solve For Max takes those capabilities a step further, said Pine.
“The calculations we’re using aren’t a secret, they’re not proprietary for any company, all of us get them from the IRS,” said Pine. “Technically, anyone with a spreadsheet is a competing product. Ultimately, we have to differentiate on our design decisions and ease of use. Solve For Max eliminates the trial and error of planning around with numbers.”
Holistiplan has also moved quickly to keep up with changing laws and strategies involved in the passage of the CARES Act in response to the economic disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
“It’s our job to read through the CARES Act and update the software to handle that above-the-line $300 deduction for charitable giving and tweak the model on AGI limitations on charity,” said Lozer. “Not only are the laws changing, but the strategies advisors are deploying are changing as well, and we have had to listen carefully to our clients to make sure we’re delivering what they need.”
Pine and Lozer both come from financial planning backgrounds, which they claim has helped them build out a product easier for advisors to use than their competitors.
“We built something we saw a need for in our own practices,” said Pine. “It’s typical for advisors to read a client’s tax return and do a tax return review, it’s a bread-and-butter thing they do this time of year. Our software can do it for them in 30 seconds.”
Holistiplan is offered on a tiered subscription basis, pegged to the number of returns an advisor desires to analyze within a given year.