What are Goals in AdviserGo?
Goals are trackable expenses in Voyant. You can set Pre-Retirement, Retirement, Milestone, Education, Net Worth, Gifting and Property Goals and your client can see whether they can meet these lifestyle objectives.
What is the Difference Between a Goal and an Expense?
A key feature of AdviserGo is the ability to differentiate between expenses and goals. A goal is a trackable expense, designed to demonstrate visually whether you are on track to achieve your goal. Goals are typically used to highlight standout, often aspirational expenditures – things that may require special planning, such as additional savings – whereas expenses are used to account for one’s regular planned expenditures.
No firm rules govern what should be classified as either a goal or an expense or whether these should be prioritsed as essentials (basics), leisure spending, or luxuries. This is up to you and how your client thinks of these expenditures. The decision as to what to model as a goal should be driven by the conversation you have with your client when establishing what is key to them.
The most important distinction between expenses and goals is that goals offer unique features in the software, which are intended to help spotlight them during presentations, whereas expenses are at work mostly in the background as the software calculates the future cashflow. Consider the following special features as you choose what is a goal and what is an expense in your client cases.
Retirement Goal
A retirement goal is a good way to demonstrate to clients the likelihood of them meeting their income requirement in retirement. The goal amount should be the amount the client wishes to be able to spend after tax.
You create a retirement goal from Dashboard or Timeline. Again, click on the + button at the bottom right of the screen, select the goal tile and then Retirement Goal.
Complete the mandatory information of owner, name of the goal and amount in the Basics screen. Optionally you can indicate whether the goal is tax deductible (e.g. rental property expenses), prioritise the goal and and indicate whether the amount is a present or future value. Then select Timing.
You can see here that this retirement goal is automatically scheduled to start at the retirement event and end at the mortality event. You can edit the start and end events by dragging and dropping different events into the Expense Start and End boxes or clicking on the alternative event you want to use, then clicking Set as Start/End event.
Don't forget to click Done (top right).
You can view the progress of the goal by viewing the Dashboard.
Pre- Retirement Goal
You would model this as above but select Pre- Retirement rather than Retirement Goal.
Milestone Goal
This is a one off goal, for example buying a new car, or remodelling the kitchen. First of all you should create an event on the Timeline. This article explains how to do that: About Events.
In this example, an event has been created to remodel the kitchen in the future. You can create a goal from Dashboard or Timeline. To create a goal click on the + button at the bottom right of the screen, select the goal tile and then Milestone Goal.
Complete the mandatory information of owner, name of the goal and amount in the Basics screen. Optionally you can indicate whether the goal is tax deductible (e.g. rental property expenses), prioritise the goal and and indicate whether the amount is a present or future value. Then select Timing.
Now we can link this milestone goal to the event created. To do this you drag and drop the 'New Kitchen' event, in this example, into the Milestone Timing Event box.
Save the event by clicking Done in the top right.
Tip: If you haven't already created an event in Timeline, you can double click on the timeline in the ‘timing’ screen when adding the goal to add one.
You can view the progress of the goal by viewing the Dashboard.
Education Goal
This is a great way to for your clients to track whether they can meet the education expenses they are planning for.
You create an Education Goal from DashBoard or Timeline. Again, click on the + button at the bottom right of the screen, select the goal tile and then Education Goal.
Please refer to this short video on how to enter an Education Goal within the software; Entering Education Goals Video - UK
Net Worth Goal
The Net Worth Goal works differently from other goals in that it tracks progress towards a target Net Worth amount.
Its uses Net Worth which includes; Property, Liquid Assets and Debts.
Please refer to this short video and article on how to enter a Net Worth Goal within the software;
Gifting Goal
Gifts and charitable donations can be modelled either as Gifting Goals or Gifting Expenses (previously known as Legacy Expenses) in the software. This special category of expense/goal ensures that, if applicable, gifts are taken into account when Inheritance Tax is calculated and tax credits are calculated on gifts to charity.
Please refer to this article on how to enter a Gift or Charity Expense Goal within the software;
How to model a gift or charitable donation - UK
Buy Property Goal
The Property Goal in the software will allow you to set a future Goal to purchase a Property. It is set up as a one-off Goal. Unlike other goals, using this goal does not only create an expense in the plan, it also creates an asset for the new property. The software will assume that the Property Asset, when set by the Property Goal, will be purchased at the Event selected for that goal.
Please refer to this article on how to enter a Property Goal within the software;
Reports
A few reports can be generated which display the progress of the goals. Goals show in the Events & Goals, Fact Find, Financial Summary, and Plan Facts & Assumptions reports (note the the latter report only shows the details of the goal, not the goal progress). In addition, Retirement goals show on the Retirement Summary report and Education goals show on the Education Summmary report.
To generate a report, select Reports on the top menu and then select the required reports, click on Add to Report and then click Generate Report.
Further reading
You may also find these articles helpful: