Best Practices for Models in Retirement Plans

Adding Models

After you've added your plan's participants, you'll need to add at least one model. These models will be available for your participants to choose from during the participant on-boarding process. Click the Models tab, enter a name for your model, and click ADD.

Be sure to give your model a Retirement Plans specific name to differentiate it from your other models, as it will display in your Model Portfolios folder in Nitrogen.

You can develop the model by entering the holdings manually, copying an existing model, or importing a group of holdings from an Excel spreadsheet. 

Enter Manually

If you chose ‘Enter Manually’, add holdings one at a time by clicking Add Investment and searching by ticker symbol or investment name. 

Copy a Model

Choosing this option will give you the opportunity to copy one of your existing model portfolios as a Retirement Plan model.   

To eliminate confusing duplication, a best practice for renaming Retirement Plan model is to either rename the model or add something like (Retirement Plan) in parenthesis.  

Import a File

This option will bring up a box like the one shown below.

First, you'll want to select what type of custodian the portfolio is hosted in (i.e. Charles Schwab, LPL, etc.). Note that after you've imported your first portfolio, Nitrogen will remember your custodian and default to that for the next time. Also, if your custodian is not in the list, email us at  care@nitrogenwealth.com and we'd be glad to get that set up for you.

Next, you'll have the option of either dragging and dropping your import file into the box, or click the " choose file" button and select the file you'd like to import.

Managing Models with Group Tags

1. Models can be grouped, allowing you to easily sort and categorize models. To add a model to a group, click + ADD TAG and either select an existing tag 
2. or select Create Tag to create a new group:
3. Adding multiple tags to a model can help you to further filter your models. For example, tag a model as `Tax Efficient` and `ACME Retirement Plan` to make this model searchable by those terms.

PRO TIP:  Your Retirement Plan models should consist of varying combinations of the 401(k) funds (typically between 3-10 models) representing a spectrum of Risk Numbers.  For ideas on how to use the Optimizer to construct these models, check out our article HERE.  When setting up the models, make sure to use a return mode that suits your style.  Many advisors will choose Average Return.

We’ve worked hard to make our Model Portfolio building tools as flexible as you are!  Be sure to check out our KB articles discussing the  Optimizer, Heatmap, and Stress Tests for more tools to help you craft the perfect models.