Why do we exclude payroll income from goals-based plans?

inStream’s goal based module provides clarity around your client's long term financial objectives by proactively monitoring goals against savings to ensure they remain on track.

We do this by focusing on the client's accumulation, i.e. how much are they saving, - not budgeting day to day expenses. As such, we do not recommend including accumulation phase income or living expense goals in a Goals Based Plan. If this accumulation phase income is added to your goal-based plan, inStream will assume that income is available to fund the plan goals. (i.e. It will assume you are saving 100% of payroll income). If you do add this type of income, remember to add offsetting goals to account for the client's day to day living expenses.

To model your client’s planned savings, we recommend using the contribution feature in the Accounts section. The planned contributions can be captured within the specific account that is receiving the contribution. This provides a more accurate representation of what is actually being saved and whether those savings are enough to meet your client's desired probability of success.  

If you'd like more information on how to set up account contributions, please click here.