The Step option allows you to alter the amount of an expense, income, savings contribution, growth rate etc. at a specified event during the time span of that item. The event must fall within the time span.
Let's use Employment income as an example. When an income is added, the timing is automatically assumed to be the start of the plan to the retirement event.
In this example Johnny's income will stop at his retirement event, age 65. Let's assume that Johnny wants to reduce his hours and go part time when he is 60 years old.
To do this you would add an event at age 60. Note that when adding a step the event must always be positioned in a year following the start of the income and prior to the end of employment.
Steps can be used to increase/decrease savings/pensions contributions, expenses, growth rate, interest rates on debts and many other items. Whilst examples of how to do each individual one is not shown here, the principles remain the same.
Select Steps from the menu on the left hand side
Click on Add Step.
In Basics enter the reduced, part time income details.
When stepping an income you will see that you can also step Bonuses/Commissions, Dividends and Benefits in Kind by selecting the toggle button and then entering the figures.
The software now needs to know when you would like this to happen, you would do this by clicking on Timing and selecting/creating an Event for the Step to occur.
If you haven't already created an Event for the Step you can create an Event here by double clicking on a bar in the chart to create your Event. Name your Event and select 'Set as Step Timing'. Alternatively, if you have already set up an Event you can drag and drop it in the Step Occurs field. This article will explain more about setting up Events; About Events
Set the Event as the Step Occurs and Johnny's income will now step down at age 60 and continue to age 65. Now click Done.
You will now see the separate Step shown under your Timeline. To amend this Step you can click into the actual step and amend the details as shown above;
Click Done again to revert back to the Dashboard.
To see the affects of the Step if you click on Year View>Income and scroll to where the Step occurs you will see the figures change in the Year View.
This is an example of the year before the Step occurs when the income remains the same;
This is an example of the year when the Step occurs and the income reduces by £5,000 per annum;
You can see in these screen shots that the income was originally £47,000 per annum and at age 60, the client has taken a reduction in salary and now receives £42,000 per annum. The income will remain at this level until the client retires at age 65.