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Understanding How Fees Are Modeled in Voyant

Voyant continuously improves how financial plans are modeled to ensure they are both accurate and realistic. This article explains how fees work in Voyant, how they are applied across different account types, and where you can view their impact within the software.

Overview: What Changed with Fees in Voyant

Previously, all fees were grouped together and automatically deducted from investment growth. While this worked well for product or fund fees, it did not accurately reflect:

• Ongoing advice fees
• Platform fees
• Fees paid by selling client-owned units
• Potential tax consequences created by those withdrawals

Voyant now separates product fees from ongoing advice fees to better reflect how fees are actually paid in real life.

Where to Find Fee Settings

1. From the Dashboard, scroll to Plan Settings.
2. Open Fees and Taxation.

You’ll see two main categories:

• Product Fees
• Ongoing Advice Fees

Product Fees (Growth-Reducing Fees)

Product fees behave the same way they always have in Voyant.

Key Characteristics

• Reduce the growth rate of the investment
• Do not sell units
• Do not create tax consequences
• Do not use allowances

Any existing product fees you previously modeled are automatically carried forward.

Ongoing Advice Fees (Unit-Selling Fees)

Ongoing advice fees are a newer enhancement.

Key Characteristics

• No default values — must be entered manually
• Sell units from the investment
• Appear as expenses
• May create tax consequences, depending on account type

This distinction allows Voyant to more accurately model real-world advice and platform fees.

Example 1: Exit Tax Investment Account

Account Setup

• Balance: €50,000
• Purchase value: €40,000
• Growth rate: 4%
• Product fee: 0.5%
• Ongoing advice fee: 0.75%

How Fees Are Applied

• Product fee reduces growth from 4% to 3.5%
• Product fee amount is shown for information only
• Ongoing advice fee:
  • Is withdrawn from the investment
  • Appears as an expense
  • Uses the related investment only as the payment source

You can see this clearly in:

• Year View → Investments
• Expenses
• Cash Flow

Example 2: Portfolio Investment (CGT-Sensitive)

Account Setup

• Balance: €200,000
• Purchase value: €0 (used here to demonstrate capital gains)
• Growth rate: 4%
• Product fee: 0.5%
• Ongoing advice fee: 0.75%

Key Difference

Because units are sold to pay the ongoing advice fee:

• Capital gains may arise
• Capital gains tax (CGT) may be triggered

Viewing the Tax Impact

1. Switch the chart to Taxes
2. Hover over the bars to see CGT amounts
3. Use Year View → Taxes to inspect calculations:
   • Capital gains allowance
   • Net gain after allowance
   • CGT calculation

Important:
Taxes are calculated in the year they arise and paid as an expense in the following year, following standard Voyant tax logic.

Example 3: Pension Accounts

Pensions follow similar fee logic with one important difference.

Pension Fee Treatment

• Product fees reduce growth
• Ongoing advice fees:
  • Are treated as authorized withdrawals
  • Do not use tax-free cash
  • Do not use pension allowances
  • Do not create income tax

You can confirm this by reviewing:

• Year View → Pension
• Expenses
• Cash Flow
• Taxes (no tax impact shown)

How to Track Fees Across the Plan

You can follow fees through:

• Year View → Investments or Pensions
• Expenses (shows the actual withdrawal)
• Cash Flow (shows where money leaves the plan)
• Taxes (shows CGT where applicable)

Voyant’s “follow the money” logic allows you to trace each fee from source to outcome.

Summary

• Product fees reduce growth only
• Ongoing advice fees sell units and appear as expenses
• Tax treatment depends on account type:
  • Exit tax & portfolio accounts may trigger CGT
  • Pension advice fees are authorized and tax-neutral
• Fees are visible across Investments, Expenses, Cash Flow, and Taxes

This enhancement improves transparency, reduces manual work, and creates more realistic planning outcomes.

Need Help?

If you have questions:

1. Click the client name in the top-right corner
2. Select Request Support
3. Enter your question and share client access if needed

You can also contact Voyant Support directly.