Direct surplus into accounts

1. Open Income allocation and, under After spending, choose Add allocation.
2. Pick the Destination account. Any account except a 401(k) can receive surplus; 401(k)s are funded from pay (see Contributions, employer match and limits).
3. Choose how much in Allocate: Percentage of surplus, Cash amount per year or Remaining surplus.
4. Optionally set Annual maximum ($; optional) and Stop at account balance ($; optional).
5. Order the rules with Move up and Move down, then choose Save allocation. The projection recalculates.

• Percentage of surplus is a share of the year’s whole surplus, before any rule runs. Two rules at 60% and 40% split the same amount. Percentages over 100% in total are allowed; earlier rules are filled first.
• Cash amount per year is a fixed dollar amount, prorated in a partial first year.
• Remaining surplus is everything still unallocated when the rule is reached.

A rule deposits the smallest of: what it asks for, the surplus still available, its annual maximum, the owner’s remaining legal contribution room, and the gap to its balance target. Money a limit blocks stays available to the next rule.

With at least one loan in the plan, Add debt payment creates a rule that sends surplus to that loan. Choose the Loan to pay down. The rule pays up to the loan’s remaining principal, after the rules above it, and never more than the balance. An Annual maximum or a percentage still limits it.

• The payment comes out of cash and lowers principal once. It is in addition to the loan’s scheduled payment, and interest keeps accruing on what remains.
• Once the loan is paid off, the rule reports that it is already paid off and passes the surplus on.
• The extra payment is not tax-deductible. Mortgage and other interest deductions follow the lower balance in later years.

Contribution, payroll and debt payment rules use only surplus by default, as described above. With Withdraw if surplus is short ticked, the rule runs before every other rule after spending, in list order among the withdraw-if-short rules, and keeps it funded when the surplus falls short.

• The rule first takes surplus. Whatever it still needs is withdrawn through your withdrawal order, after the year’s spending shortfall has been covered, so a goal never takes money your spending needs.
• It never withdraws from its own destination, or from the same person’s accounts that share its contribution limit, such as a traditional IRA to fund a Roth IRA. Locked accounts are skipped and a cash reserve’s protected balance is left alone; early-withdrawal penalties and Roth ordering apply as they do to any withdrawal.
• Tax on the withdrawal is settled in the same year and, like any tax bill, paid from your withdrawal order.
• With Remaining surplus, a withdraw-if-short rule asks for its tightest limit: annual maximum, contribution limit, balance target or loan balance. Without any of these it takes only the surplus left.

Withdraw if surplus is short removes only the need for surplus. Contribution limits, the earned-income requirement for IRAs, the Roth IRA income phase-out, plan limits, annual maximums, balance targets and milestone windows still apply. An IRA rule for someone with no earned income still contributes nothing.

Withdrawals can raise your modified AGI, so the Roth IRA income limit is checked again after the year’s spending withdrawals and after the withdrawal for the rule itself. If that withdrawal lowers the limit, only the part still allowed goes into the Roth IRA and the rest of the cash stays in your cash account. CoastMath checks once rather than searching for the smaller withdrawal that might have allowed a little more.

What neither the surplus nor your accounts can cover is reported as the year’s Rule funding shortfall in the year details and the annual report, and the rule’s entry says it could not be fully funded. A shortfall is not unfunded spending: it doesn’t reduce net worth and doesn’t count as a plan failure, in a single projection or in Monte Carlo.

Payroll rules already come out of pay before spending, so their deferrals are funded either way; pay and contribution limits still cap them, and a shortfall in spending is then withdrawn from your accounts.

A Payroll percent of income rule that doesn’t withdraw if surplus is short and uses a flat employer rate can set Prorate employer contribution if the deferral is cut. When rules above it leave too little pay for the deferral you elected, the employer amount is cut in the same proportion as the deferral. A deferral cut by a contribution limit does not cut the employer amount. A matching formula already follows the actual deferral, so the option changes nothing there.

A transfer rule moves money from one account to another instead of spending it. It can take money from checking, savings, brokerage or crypto, or from a retirement account, into checking, savings or brokerage. Selling taxable holdings realizes the gain. A retirement account distribution counts as income, and the 10% early-withdrawal penalty applies where it does. Any withholding is subtracted, and the destination receives the net amount.

• A traditional retirement account can roll over to another traditional account with the same owner. A rollover is not taxed and not penalized.
• Moving traditional money into a Roth account is a conversion; use Roth conversions.
• Money cannot be transferred into a Roth IRA, HSA or 529 account. Those accounts take contributions, which keep their yearly limits.
• Inherited accounts cannot be rolled over, and a Roth account can distribute only to cash or brokerage.

Combinations that are not allowed are explained in the editor and are not saved.

Transfer timing is Once a year by default: the year’s amount moves after the year’s growth. Monthly moves one-twelfth of the annual maximum at the end of each month the rule is active, counting only the months after a start milestone and before an end milestone in the years they are reached. Money moved earlier in the year stops growing in the source and grows in the destination for the rest of the year. A monthly rule without a maximum moves the whole balance at the end of its first active month.

Without a final Remaining surplus rule, leftover money goes to the first Checking account, else the first Savings account, else the first Taxable Brokerage account. With none of these, CoastMath keeps it as Unallocated cash, which is spent first in a later shortfall. The editor names the current destination and the first year’s leftover amount.

If the year’s tax settles as a refund, the refund goes back through your Cash amount per year and Remaining surplus rules that still have room, then to the default destination.

Surplus sent to a Traditional IRA or an HSA is deducted from that year’s taxable income. Deposits to a taxable brokerage account add cost basis. Roth IRA rules respect the income phase-out and earned-income limit, and a Roth IRA rule can be marked Backdoor Roth (see Backdoor Roth contributions). How each account treats the money later is in How each account type grows and is taxed.

The cash-flow view’s Surplus allocation list shows what each rule received that year, what limited it, and why a rule got nothing: no surplus, earlier rules used it all, the contribution limit or income eligibility, no earned income, the account’s ownership, or its balance target. A withdraw-if-short rule that ran short says so even when it got part of its amount. Review rule opens that rule. See Trace a year of money in and out.

Saving replaces the whole list, including rules added from the tax tools. If the list was saved elsewhere since you started editing, for example in another tab, Save is blocked and Review the latest saved rules lists them. Choose Keep my draft after reviewing these rules or Use latest rules and discard my draft, then save. An unsaved draft survives a reload in the same browser tab.