Which statement best describes the relationship between Goal Metric and Plan Metric in Foundational Planning?

• A. Plan Metric tracks individual goals while Goal Metric tracks overall cash flow.
• B. Goal Metric focuses on all goals; Plan Metric focuses on a single goal.
• C. Goal Metric focuses on the selected goal; Plan Metric accounts for all goals.
• D. Both metrics ignore overall plan outcomes.

Answer: (C)

In Foundational Planning, you have two ways to measure how your plan is doing: one that looks at a specific goal and another that evaluates the plan as a whole. The Goal Metric is focused on the selected goal, showing how close you are to funding or achieving that particular objective—how much you still need, by when, and whether current savings and investments are on track for that target. The Plan Metric, by contrast, aggregates across all goals to gauge the overall viability of the plan. It considers how resources are allocated among multiple goals, highlighting whether the combined plan can realistically meet every objective or where trade-offs and shortfalls exist.

This distinction matters because you can tune a plan to ensure a single goal is funded (using the Goal Metric) while still assessing whether the entire slate of goals can be met without compromising others (using the Plan Metric). The option that says the Goal Metric focuses on all goals or that both metrics ignore the overall plan would misrepresent how these tools are designed to work, since the holistic view is captured by the Plan Metric.