Q. How does the start date I choose for my plan correlate to the tax year and/or account balances I am entering?
A. Voyant performs all calculations annually, based around an adviser configured planning year. When you first begin a new client case in Adviser Go, the plan will automatically start on the date that you begin to input data for the client. You can amend the start date in Adviser Go by clicking on the Plan name, clicking Manage plans and then clicking Update and Promote, to choose a start date.
Once the start date is chosen, calculations will be performed in the client case using planning years that run in 12 month intervals from the selected starting point. The tax year that is used will be the one the plan year starts from i.e. a plan started on 1/6/2021 would have tax year rules for 2021 in year one of the plan, 2022 in year two and this will follow through till the end of the plan.
Voyant only ever applies one one set of tax rules per plan year. For example it will use the 2021 tax rates for a plan with a start date of any day or month in 2021. So if a plan has a start date of 01/06/2021 it will just use tax rules 2021. It does not use 2021 up to 30/06/2021 and 2022 rules from 1/7/2021.
A planning year could be set to start with the tax year or the client's birthday, any date could be chosen. The key is to select a starting point that is appropriate for the account balances and other values you are entering into the client case.
The software allows advisers to configure the planning due precisely to the question you raise. When one meets with a client, the balances the client provides are often current ones, not back dated to the beginning of the year or to the tax year.