The Innovation Leader in Bankruptcy Software

BkAssist Supports Chapter 13

BkAssist includes—at no extra charge— a complete Chapter 13 plan calculator. Check out the Chapter 13 Storyboard to see an example of the worksheet.

Every District

When you install the BkAssist support module for a state, you get customized support for all district plans within that state.

We read your local rules

We thoroughly reviewed the local rules for all the districts in a state when we built the support module. So we know whether you have a form plan, whether it's mandatory, what constraints there are on the plan, and so on.

Generic plan

In districts that don't mandate a particular plan, we offer a generic plan that closely mimics the current Rules Committee proposal for a uniform national plan.

Customizing the plan

You can customize a plan within whatever constraints your trustees and judges have imposed. The standard Chapter 13 Worksheet contains several tabs for you to use, and we'll add other tabs as needed for local options.

The standard tabs include these:

  • Summary - A read-only summary of the highlights of the current plan. A magenta pop-up alerts you when the plan isn't feasible.
  • Assets - A list of assets, amounts, and dates that will be sold pursuant to § 1322(b)(8) to fund the plan.
  • Separate - A list of separately classified claims
  • Provisions - A list of non-standard provisions
  • Administrative - A schedule of administrative claims, other than your fees
  • Lump Sums - A list of additional funding sources, along with amounts and dates
  • Adequate Protection - A schedule of § 1326(a)(1)(C) adequate protection payments
  • Disbursement Order - The order in which you want the Trustee to pay claims
  • Amendments - Receipt and disbursement information for calculating a post-confirmation amended plan
  • Options - District-specific options (when a single tab suffices to contain them)

How It Works

The details of the BkAssist plan calculator are a trade secret, but we can give you a brief overview.

We begin with all of the liability information you entered on liability screens, most especially including an indication of how you want each liability treated in the plan.

We also begin with a detailed projection of the debtor's income for the next five years. We factor in known dates, such as maturity dates for retirement plan loans and short-term secured debts. You can also tell us about other increases and decreases in income, about asset sales, and about lump sums the debtor expects to receive.

We then determine how long the plan has to last based on all relevant factors, such as whether the debtor is above or below median, what secured debts are being cured, what priority debts are being paid, what the liquidation value of the estate would be in Chapter 7, etc., and we make a detailed forecast of the Trustee's cash flow.

Use the Explain button on the Summary Tab to get a printed report of how BkAssist calculated the plan and what we think the cash flow will be.