Calculating the future value of a present single sum Your client has $500,000 in an IRA and has asked you to estimate its value when the client reaches retirement age in eight years, assuming a 6% return each year. Use the FV function to calculate that the client's IRA would grow to $796,924 by the end of eight years, assuming a 6% return per year. Note that sometimes the variables in time value functions are entered as negative numbers, such as the negative $500,000 in this scenario because it represents an investment, equivalent to an outflow of cash. FV(rate,nper,pmt, [pv],[type])