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You plan for the same kinds of clients again and again. Create a persona for one of them, so every plan Hazel builds for that client type starts from your firm’s thinking about it. Personas live in Settings → Planning, under Client persona in the left nav, and New persona adds one. Planning settings are the firm owner’s surface.

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Before you start

Have a real client in mind, not an abstraction: “the Okonkwos, and the four households like them”. Settle your base template first, since a persona is defined by how it differs from the base.

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Create it

The New persona dialog has four fields.
1

Choose a starting template

  • Base template, the default, copies your firm’s Hazel instructions in and leaves the plan design following the base.
  • A Hazel preset copies that archetype’s instructions, the planning figures it sets and its own plan design, and fills in the name, description and age range for you to review. It brings none of your house instructions, so add back any you rely on after creating.
  • Copy from an existing persona takes everything that persona has, as an independent copy. Editing either one afterwards leaves the other alone.
A preset appears here only when no persona of that name exists, so with Hazel’s three installed the presets group is usually empty.
2

Name it

Short and recognizable, in your firm’s own language: Business Owner, Physician Household. Up to 80 characters, with a counter as you approach it. Base and Base template are refused, and so is a name close to one you already have: Pre Retiree alongside an existing Pre-Retiree is refused as too close.
3

Write the description

This is what Hazel matches households against, as the field says underneath it.
4

Set the age range, if it helps

Age min and Age max are optional and take anything from 0 to 120, with the minimum no higher than the maximum. Hazel will not refuse a better match on age alone. The persona’s own pane carries no age field, so “typically late fifties” goes in the description instead.
Select Create. The persona saves right away and its pane opens.

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Then finish it

1

Hazel instructions

The ordered list of guidance Hazel follows for this client type. It stands alone rather than adding to the base template’s, so edit it down to what this type needs. See Instructions.
2

Plan design

A new persona follows the base design until you change something here, and the card says which state it is in. The strictness control sits on the same card. See Plan design, Strictness and Inheritance and re-syncing.
3

Build a plan and read it

Read the finished plan for the household you had in mind, and check the persona named in the Applied settings block of its Appendix. Adjust, then read again.
Edits here save as you make them, with “Saving…” then “Saved” beside the Plan templates heading. Delete removes a persona immediately and cannot be undone, though deleting one of Hazel’s three returns it to the Starting template list.

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Writing a description that matches well

Write a situation, not a label. Include the stage of life or career, the largest asset, the central planning question, and what sets this type apart from your others.

Weak

“Business owners.”Nothing to match on: every self-employed household fits equally well.

Strong

“Owner-operator of a closely held business, five to fifteen years from an exit. The business is the largest asset, so liquidity, concentration and the pre-exit tax picture lead.”

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Numbers, and where they are set

A persona’s pane carries no number fields. The planning figures are firm-wide, on two screens under Assumptions: Solver assumptions for the success threshold, the cash reserve, fees and the default Roth conversion strategy, and Market assumptions for returns, volatility, inflation and tax rates. A persona can still carry values of its own, and Hazel’s three do, from HENRY’s 85% success threshold to Retiree / Decumulator’s seven-year cash reserve. See Default templates. A copy of one of those personas keeps its values, and Applied settings shows them attributed to Persona. The advisory fee, the terminal heir tax rate and the number of Monte Carlo simulations never vary by persona. For one household rather than a whole client type, change the figure on the plan itself: select it, edit the assumption behind it, and recalculate. See Editing a plan directly. For a whole client type, set the firm-wide figure to what most of your book should use and handle the exceptions on the plan. The never-do rules live on the base template, apply to every plan Hazel builds, and nothing on a persona loosens them. See Guardrails.

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Common mistakes

  • A persona that does not differ from the base. Base list unchanged, plan design still following the base: give it real differences, or delete it.
  • Two personas that overlap. If both descriptions fit the same household, sharpen what separates them or merge them.
  • A plan design forked before the base is settled. A persona with a design of its own stops picking up base improvements. See Inheritance and re-syncing.