If you're on the board of directors for a condo association, own rental property, or are simply planning for retirement, you face many of the same questions: How much is enough? How much needs to be added to a savings account every year to replace or maintain aging assets over the long haul? Capital Plan makes it easy to answer these question by exploring funding alternatives.

Capital expenses are one of the least well-understood parts of establishing a budget. Annual expenses, sometimes referred to as an operating budget, are fairly predictable and can be easily tracked with a spreadsheet or other straightforward tools. Where things get more complicated are long-lived assets that don't need replacement often - but when they do, they tend to be expensive. Ensuring that there are adequate funds to cover these costs is where Capital Plan comes in.

The Reserve Study process legally mandated in many places for associations that are responsible for managing collective assets is a great starting point, but visualizing that information and make it easy to explore "what if" scenarios makes it immediately accessible for newcomers to capital finance. Capital Plan addresses five major areas, each in a dedicated tab:

• The initial Expenses list is where you create and review assets or tasks, their schedule for replacement or completion, and their estimated cost. Quickly sort, search, and categorize your expenses.

• Forecast visualizes the expenses in each of the budgeted years, graphically illustrating the cost for each established expense category as well as their total cost for the year.

• Cash Flow provides a tabular look at each budgeted year below a graph that visualizes a key data point over time: percent funded. This view is perfect for experimenting with different funding levels.

• Funding illustrates what annual funding is required, not to cover the expenses of a specific year, but for the long haul. The total suggested amount is displayed and broken down by category.

• Lastly, assumptions configure the budget period, effective rates, and other pertinent information specific to your particular budget.

Capital Plan has been invaluable for making real-time adjustments to our Capital Reserves Fund Graham Richmond, Keonekai Villages AOAO Board

If you haven't already, familiarize yourself with the Capital Plan User Manual which covers a wide range of topics in depth. This manual is also available from the app's Help menu.

If you can't find what you need, bug reports and suggestions are welcomed at bugs@thinkersnacks.com. Not every suggestion can be accomodated but feedback on areas where the app doesn't meet your needs is definitely welcome.

Capital Plan is free to download and explore as a limited trial. Full use requires an annual subscription that determines which features are available. Complex documents created at higher subscription tiers will open in view-only mode when required features are not included in the current subscription.

ThinkerSnacks believes information about you and your work belongs to you and you alone. Capital Plan does not share information with ThinkerSnacks or anyone else about you or your asset planning. When downloaded from Apple's App Store, the system may gather anonymous logs to assist in improving Capital Plan, but you remain in control of whether this occurs through Apple's standard settings.