This video provides a tutorial for creating What If scenarios in Voyant, which saves surplus income and grows it in an investment account.
Transcript
In this video, we’ll look at where to see surplus money in the plan and discuss saving this surplus. We’ll set up three scenarios:
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Where all surplus money from employment income is spent.
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Where all surplus money from employment income is saved.
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A scenario for building an advice plan—saving a portion of the surplus.
Scenario 1: Spending All Surplus
In this plan for Julia Newton, if we click on the first year of the plan, we can see her cash flow: earnings, taxes, contributions into savings accounts (about $1,200 a year), and her basic living expenses.
If I hover over that first year, under Surplus Income, we see that she has $10,923 in surplus. By default, Voyant assumes this money is spent. You can confirm this by checking under Investments: there are no contributions into the cash sweep account.
If we go to Plan Settings → Dashboard → Calculation Settings, you’ll see that “Transfer all excess income to credits to saving” is set to No. This is the default. The plan assumes Julia spends her income, apart from the $100 per month she’s already contributing to savings.
Scenario 2: Saving All Surplus
Now let’s create a What-If scenario to show Julia what would happen if all surplus income were saved.
Go to Plan Settings → Dashboard → Calculation Settings, set “Transfer all excess income credits to savings” to Yes, and save.
Now, when we hover over the plan year, there’s no longer surplus income—it’s reclassified as savings. Under Investments, you’ll see contributions into Julia’s cash account equal to the surplus.
At this point, we can compare plans. In Compare Plans → Chart View, the base plan shows surplus as spent, while the “Save Surplus” plan shows that surplus redirected to savings.
If you want to sweep this money from the cash account into an investment account, go to the Cash Sweep Account → Sweep Options, and select the investment account. Contributions will then flow automatically from cash into investments, growing at investment rates instead of cash rates.
Scenario 3: Saving Part of the Surplus
For the third scenario, let’s model Julia saving $5,000 of her surplus income. She doesn’t think she can save all of it but wants to set aside at least part.
Starting from the Base Plan, create a What-If scenario. Go to Savings and Investments → Investment, and add a $5,000 annual contribution. Under Timing, ensure the contributions occur during pre-retirement years when surplus income exists.
Now, the surplus reduces from about $10,000 to around $5,000. Under Investments, you’ll see the $5,000 contribution each year. The remaining surplus is assumed spent, since plan settings are still set to “Do not save surplus.”
We can again compare plans:
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The Base Plan shows all surplus spent.
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The Save Surplus plan shows all surplus saved.
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The Save $5,000 plan shows partial savings.
In the comparison, you’ll notice that saving all surplus eliminates shortfall, whereas saving $5,000 still leaves some red in the plan.
One useful insight is the Annual Savings Insight, which shows how much more Julia would need to save between now and retirement to cover that shortfall. For example, the system may indicate she needs about $2,000 more per year—though it won’t assess affordability.
These What-If scenarios and insights can help open up meaningful conversations around savings, the impact of different saving levels, and the long-term direction of the plan.