Transcript:
In this training, we’re going to walk through how to enter Social Security into your Voyant plan.
As usual, we’re going to begin by going to the plus button in the bottom-right corner. This is where we input information into the plan.
Before we get started, I did want to quickly point out the down arrow here.
At any point while working on a practice plan or a real client plan, if you need to edit something you’ve already entered, you can simply use the down arrow to open the category, select the item you want to edit, make your changes, and click Done to save those updates.
Now, we’re going to go back to the plus button in the bottom-right corner and select the Retirement tile again.
From there, we’re going to select Social Security.
Since our clients are not already retired, we are not going to select Currently Receiving Benefits, which is the option you would use if the client was already collecting Social Security.
Instead, we’re going to select Estimate From Income.
Next, we’ll select the age at which we estimate the client will begin receiving Social Security benefits.
For Judy, we’re going to assume she starts Social Security at age 67.
The software will estimate her Social Security benefit based on the employment income we previously entered into the plan.
We’ll then click Save and Add Another so we can enter Philip’s Social Security information as well.
We’ll repeat the same process for Philip.
I also want to point out a couple of additional options available within this module.
You’ll see:
- A Use Monthly Statement option, which can be used if your client has an official Social Security statement available
- And a Receive Spouse Benefits option, which can be useful for modeling benefits for a non-working spouse
For this example, however, we’re going to continue using the Estimate From Income option.
We’ll click Done to save.
Now that we’ve entered Social Security into the plan, you’ll notice purple inflows appearing within the chart.
If you have the Details option turned on, you can see these benefits beginning at age 67 for each client.
You’ll first see one client’s Social Security benefit begin, and then once both clients reach age 67, you’ll see both benefits appearing within the plan.
Next, let’s go into Year View to look at this in more detail.
If we scroll over to Philip’s age 67, you’ll see that his Social Security benefit has started.
The software is using the Social Security COLA rate from the Plan Settings section to estimate how that benefit grows in the future.
If desired, you can always adjust the Social Security COLA assumption within Plan Settings.
Once Judy reaches age 67, we then see both Social Security benefits flowing into the plan simultaneously.
Later in the plan, when Philip reaches age 90 and his mortality event occurs, we should expect to see the survivor benefit apply to Judy.
Specifically, the larger of the two Social Security benefits will continue for the surviving spouse.
You can see that reflected within the plan as well, since Voyant models Social Security survivor benefits automatically.
I hope this has been helpful.
If you have any questions, remember that you can always click the name of your client in the top-right corner, select Request Support, enter your question into the text box, and share client access with our support team.
Thanks for listening.