What is the difference between a Withdrawal Limit and a Planned Withdrawals?
- Withdrawal Limits are the restrictions you can place on the software's ability to take ad hoc withdrawals from a given investment in order to fulfill expenses after other income sources have been exhausted in the plan.
- Planned Withdrawals can be modelled for set amounts to be taken annually from the account (all amounts are annual amounts) whether they are needed to fulfill expenses or not.
Planned withdrawals will appear in the Let's See > Cash Flow chart> Detailed view in the yellow "Planned Withdrawals" category. Ad hoc withdrawals made by the software (as well as transfers between accounts) will be shown on the chart in the light blue.
Liquid Assets are used to supplement income in the Cash Flow
The software will top-up income from liquid assets automatically, if assets are available, in order to prevent potential shortfalls in the cash flow, provided that you place no liquidation limits on these accounts. Liquid assets include cash accounts (savings and current accounts), ISAs, unwrapped investments, offshore taxable accounts and in some cases even tangible assets, provided it is not one’s primary residence and that the Liquidation of the asset is set to “when needed”.
Controlling Asset Liquidation Using Withdrawal Limits and Planned Withdrawals
Automatic withdrawals from savings and investments - taken by the software only when needed to prevent cash flow shortfalls - can be controlled, if necessary, using withdrawal limits and/or planned withdrawals.
You can limit or prevent ad hoc withdrawals using Withdrawal limits or schedule withdrawals to be made from one or more investments or savings accounts at any given point in the timeline by using Planned Withdrawals.
Withdrawal limits can be edited from from the individual Savings/Investments/Pensions
Planned Withdrawals can be added from Dashboard>'+' button>Planned Withdrawals
Or from the individual Savings/Investment/Pensions
Further information on Planned Withdrawals can be found here
Types of Investments that are Not Subject to Ad Hoc Withdrawals
Withdrawals are never made automatically from money purchases, trusts, Venture Capital Trusts, and Enterprise Investment Schemes in order to meet shortfalls. A withdrawal strategy or planned withdrawal must be set to make withdrawals from these account types.
One exception to this rule are child trust funds, which may be used as the source of ad hoc withdrawals but only for expenses owned by the child (e.g. education expenses), as set on the People panel of the Expenses screen.
Transfers are not Subject to Withdrawal Limits
Transfers between accounts are not subject to liquidation limits. Even if set a withdrawal limit on an account (using the options in Withdrawal Limits), preventing the software from taking any ad hoc withdrawals to fulfill expenses, you could still schedule one-off or recurring transfers from the account to another using the settings on the Transfers / Additional Contributions panel. Transfers between accounts are not subject to withdrawal limits and will therefore be allowed to occur.