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CCH ENTERACT™ Enhancements Include Monte Carlo Simulation

(RIVERWOODS, ILL., May 7, 2002) – Financial planners whose clients live in the real world need planning software that takes that fact into account, says CCH INCORPORATED (CCH), a leading provider of financial and estate planning information and software. To help professionals contend with a host of uncertainties – markets and interest rates that go up and down, people who live longer than an actuarial table predicts, colleges that raise their tuition more than anticipated – CCH has incorporated powerful Monte Carlo simulation capabilities into the latest release of its CCH Enteract^TM financial planning software. (For more information or to order CCH Enteract, contact CCH at 800-449-8114 or visit the CCH Online Store at onlinestore.cch.com.)

"Monte Carlo simulation plugs in many possible values for the variables in a plan and runs hundreds or thousands of scenarios, using the power of personal computers to model real-world outcomes," said Gail Fink, marketing manager of financial and estate planning for CCH’s Federal and State Tax Group. "It’s a powerful tool that can show the likelihood of a given plan reaching a given financial goal, and also show how a change in the plan can improve the odds for success."

The Monte Carlo simulation tool used in CCH Enteract is Crystal Ball^®, by Decisioneering, one of the best known and most trusted software tools for performing Monte Carlo simulation. Decisioneering products are used by over 85 percent of the Fortune 500 for forecasting financial outcomes.

"Although it has extremely powerful capabilities, Crystal Ball is also very easy to learn and easy to use," Fink noted.

CCH Enteract is a CD-ROM-based integrated planning system designed to allow planners to see how changes in client data affect planning scenarios immediately and interactively. It models financial scenarios based on client data and produces compelling charts and graphs to illustrate and support recommendations. CCH Enteract supports integrated retirement planning, asset allocation, investment performance analysis, income tax analysis, cash flow analysis, education funding and more. It can produce integrated plans involving several types of goals, such as planning for retirement and funding a college education while simultaneously determining the need for life insurance.

"Enteract’s design allows planners to apply Monte Carlo simulation to questions such as life insurance, long term care and college funding planning, not just to retirement planning," Fink said.

What’s more, extensive customization options make it possible for a planner to "tweak" client data and immediately see the effect of the change on an entire plan in real time, allowing "what-if" scenarios to be presented interactively.

In addition to Monte Carlo simulation, the latest release of CCH Enteract offers enhanced abilities for creating scenarios and reports while it streamlines data input.

With the powerful Scenario Manager, planners can adjust more than 80 financial variables to develop virtually unlimited "what-if" scenarios, then calculate and graphically display the results immediately. Fine-tuning adjustments result in immediate updates to sophisticated charts and graphs that demonstrate clients’ needs and goals clearly and persuasively. One enhanced reporting function allows planners to show clients how money flows through hypothetical estate plans, using flow charts and pie charts to demonstrate where leaks and hazards lie in a way that clients can readily understand.

With the latest release, the data input process is also easier and more secure than ever. Because the planning software is fully integrated, the data gathering and input process is streamlined. Features such as intelligent client data forms that are matched to the input screens, organized by logic driven tabs, all work together to enhance efficiency. Users get a higher level of accuracy because the unique Input Checker highlights potential errors and omissions, alerting them to any possible oversights.

For users of other CCH products, such as CCH ViewPlan™ estate planning software or CCH ProSystem fx^® Tax, the premier tax compliance software, data entry with Enteract gets even easier. CCH Client DataXchange eliminates the need to rekey data that has already been entered in any one of these three programs. This means that a ProSystem fx Tax user who purchases CCH Enteract does not need to re-enter the names, addresses, Social Security numbers and so on of his or her current tax clients. They can all be transferred effortlessly from the existing tax files.

For more information or to order CCH Enteract, contact CCH at 800-449-8114 or visit the CCH Online Store at onlinestore.cch.com. A one-year subscription is $1,045 plus applicable tax, shipping and handling.

CCH INCORPORATED, headquartered in Riverwoods, Ill., was founded in 1913 and has served four generations of business professionals and their clients. The company produces more than 700 electronic and print products for the tax, legal, securities, insurance, human resources, health care and small business markets. CCH is a wholly owned subsidiary of Wolters Kluwer U.S. The CCH web site can be accessed cch.com. The CCH federal and state tax web site can be accessed at tax.cchgroup.com.

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