Individual Retirement Accounts - Request

Please see the Legend to understand the conventions used to document each element and attribute. Note that for requests, the XML elements are documented in alphabetical order by parent element.

🟥 <inIRA>

Attributes: 🔹CalcType, 🔹Compounding

This is the root element of the request, and is required. This element contains child elements which specify the particulars of the requested IRA, as well as calculation results. The following attributes of the <inIRA> element are defined:

🔹 CalcType

The CalcType attribute informs the SCE which of the IRA calculations is to be performed. If solving for the future value, the <FutureValue> element may be omitted from the request. When solving for the deposit, the <Deposit> element may be omitted, so long as the default deposit frequency of annual is intended.

🔹 Compounding

The Compounding attribute defines the periodicity at which interest is computed. The specified compounding period affects the allowable values for the DepositFrequency attribute of the <Deposit> element - please see its description below.

🟦 <BeginBalance>

The beginning balance is the amount which is currently present in the IRA account. Interest accrues on this initial amount (plus the periodic deposit amounts), much like interest accrues on the principal balance of a loan.

Attributes: None

🟥 <CurrentAge>

The current age of the individual.

Attributes: None

🟦 <Deposit>

The deposit element specifies the periodic deposit amount to be made to the IRA account. The periodicity of the deposit is dictated by the DepositFrequency attribute, detailed below.

If you are computing the periodic deposit amount necessary to generate a specified future value (e.g. CalcType="getDepositGivenFuture"), then leave this element empty.

Attributes: 🔹DepositFrequency

🔹 DepositFrequency

This attribute specifies the periodicity of the deposit amount. Thus, if you wanted to make monthly deposits to an IRA account, the attribute value should be specified as 12 or ‘monthly`. The frequency of deposits limits the allowable compounding frequencies.

Note that when computing the periodic deposit amount, the deposit frequency may be specified (e.g. <Deposit DepositFrequency="annual" />).

🟦 <Format>

The <Format> element is one of the first elements parsed from a request, as the attributes of this empty element affect how date and numeric values are parsed and validated.

Attributes: 🔹CurrencyDecimals, 🔹DateFormat, 🔹DateSeparator, 🔹DecimalSeparator, 🔹StrictDP, 🔹ThousandSeparator

🔹 CurrencyDecimals

When displaying and parsing Currency values, the value of this attribute determines the maximum number of decimal places allowed after the DecimalSeparator.

🔹 DateFormat

When displaying and parsing Date values, this field determines the expected format for all Date fields. The following DateFormat options are allowed:

• YMD - All dates should be formatted as YYYY-MM-DD.
• MDY - All dates should be formatted as MM-DD-YYYY.
• DMY - All dates should be formatted as DD-MM-YYYY.

Note that the character which separates the individual month, day, and year portions of the date is configurable via the DateSeparator attribute.

🔹 DateSeparator

When displaying and parsing Date values, this attribute determines the character used to separate the individual month, day, and year portions of a date.

🔹 DecimalSeparator

When displaying and parsing Currency or Decimal numeric values, this attribute determines the character used to separate the fractional part from the whole.

🔹 StrictDP

If the value of this attribute is true, then the SCE will strictly verify the number of decimal places allowed for currency input values. Thus, if the calling application sends in a request with a currency amount of 1000.005, the SCE will return an error code.

If the value of this attribute is false, then currency values sent in with an invalid number of decimal places will be rounded to the correct number of decimal places by the SCE (using five/four rounding), and a warning message with this information will be returned with the response.

🔹 ThousandSeparator

When displaying numeric values, this attribute determines the character used to separate the thousands places from the hundreds. Note that when parsing numeric values, the value of this attribute is ignored.

🟦 <FutureValue>

The future value is the balance of the IRA account at the investor's specified retirement age. The future value is equal to the present value plus all periodic deposits plus all interest accrued during the IRA's term. If you are computing the future value (e.g. CalcType="getFutureValue"), then leave this element empty or omit it all together.

Attributes: None

🟥 <IntRate>

This element dictates the rate at which interest accrues throughout the term of the IRA.

Attributes: None

🟥 <RetireAge>

The desired retirement age of the individual. This value must be greater than that found in the <CurrentAge> element. By subtracting the current age from the retirement age, the SCE determines the number of years the IRA account will be allowed to grow.

Attributes: None