Fees, if applicable, are deducted from capital growth. This is why we break fees out into a separate setting in Preferences, on the Investment Fees panel, and on the Growth (Growth & Yield) panels found on the Savings, Investments, and Pensions > Money Purchase and Drawdown Pension screens.
The default Investment Fees that you see on the Preferences > Investment Fees panel are just that, defaults, which will be applied initially based on account type unless you edit fees at the account level on the Growth / Growth Yield panels mentioned previously.
Note: Account level settings always take precedence over plan defaults and once edited will remain so, even if you make further changes in Preferences. For example, if my default fee for taxable accounts is set to 0.5% (per annum) in Preferences, but I have a particular unwrapped investment that has fees that exceed this default, at 1% pa, I would simply go to the Investments screen, select the unwrapped investment, expand the Growth and Yield panel and change the Fees on the account to 1%. This 1% pa in fees will remain so for this account even if I make changes to the plan defaults.
What types of accounts are in each asset category?
The general asset categories are as follows.
Savings include all of the account types found on the Savings screen including Cash/Junior ISAs.
Tax Free assets include:
- Stock Market ISAs
- VC Trusts
- Enterprise Investment Schemes
- Charitable Trusts
Tax Deferred assets include:
- Pensions
- Life Funds (Onshore, Offshore)
Taxable assets include:
- Unwrapped Investments
- Other Trusts
- Offshore Taxable investments
Life Insurance Expense Rate
The Life Insurance Expense Rate setting does nothing at the moment. I think this was put in place for future development.
Why haven't the changes I have made to the Plan Preferences Saving Growth Rates and Fees updated on the actual plan?
It may be that you've edited these at the account level which, once edited, will remain changed.
However, if you want to revert the account to use the defaults from Plan Preferences, try selecting the account and then under Advanced Settings > Growth, select and clear the entries, leaving them null.
Once you click save it should revert to the defaults from plan preferences or if you are in a what-if plan, it will first revert to the default values from the base plan.
If you are working in a what-if scenario and the account in the base plan uses a value different from those in your preferences, you may need to clear and update the account twice in order to get settings from the plan preferences.
Plan Preferences vs. System Preferences
Changes to this setting on the mirror Fees panel in System Preferences, on the left side of the screen, will be used only going forward, as you create new client cases. System Preferences are used as a template only for new client cases. Changes to System Preferences will not retroactively affect your existing client cases.
If you want to change this preference in any existing client cases, you will need to open and edit them individually, in each case's Plan Preferences.