Scheduling Future Changes in Money Purchases
The Time panel, Event tab, New Event button can also be used to add events to the timeline to schedule future increases or decreases (steps) in employee and employer contributions, growth rates, as well as future changes to asset allocations (and hence, derived growth rates).
Future changes to money purchases can be scheduled to occur at events on the Money Purchase screen’s Advanced Settings > Step Up / Step Down panel. To be used in stepping, the event must fall within the money purchase’s timespan. The event must be positioned prior to crystallisation or annuitisation of the money purchase.
Enter the Full Stepped Amount: When entering a future steps in contributions, be sure to enter the full, edited amount and not merely the difference between the old contribution amount and new.
Present Value / Future Value and Stepping Contributions - There is one additional consideration when stepping contribution amounts. Expand the Advanced Settings > Growth panel. Here you can edit the growth rate applied to the money purchase. This rate can also be altered in the future, if necessary, using steps. Moreover, you will find on this panel Present Value / Future Value settings. These two options determine whether growth will be applied to the stepped contribution amount.
Present Value is selected by default. This means that the contribution amount entered on the Step Up / Step Down panel are in today's terms. For example, your client plans to contribute more to the money purchase in his late career, to £15,000 per annum in today’s value. Since the amount is considered to be a present value, in today's terms, inflation will be applied to the £15,000 from the start of the plan until the ”Increase Contributions” event, at age 60, when the stepped increase is scheduled to occur. So the increase to £15,000 will be an increase to an inflated £15,000, which will be a greater amount.
Future Value - If you want to take inflation out of these future steps, ensuring that the £15,000 will indeed be £15,000 at age 60, select instead the Future Value option.
The system default is Present Value because in most cases we believe it safe to assume that people are thinking of amounts in today's terms and the software works out the inflationary difference for you; however, you have the option to treat these future amounts differently.