Planit:Objectives
From Planipedia
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The Objectives screen is where you’ll identify your client’s life goals. When this screen opens, it will be pre-populated with your client’s Retirement Lifestyle objective and any education objectives that were set for dependents in the Personal Information screen.
When you first come into this screen, you will notice that the system has created the Current Lifestyle for clients who are not yet retired and the Retirement Lifestyle record. And any Educational Goals that you identified for dependents on the Personal Information screen. The first thing you need to do upon entering this screen is to review the Retirement Lifestyle record and edit it as appropriate. The initial record that’s created here is based on the first save you do on the Cash Flow screen. From that point forward the retirement lifestyle will not be changed when you make any changes in the cash flow screen. This is because you typically will edit the retirement lifestyle objective based on either goal that your client has identified, or your estimate of the appropriate amount given your discussions with your client. This number should be considered as a starting point and will likely need to be adjusted to reflect a somewhat lower objective since typically client’s don’t require the same spendable income in retirement as they do during their accumulation years when they are paying off mortgages, other debts and supporting dependents.
Education Objectives – These are created for any dependant with an education objective on the Personal Information screen. Should the child be likely to start school earlier, or later, these dates can be edited while in the Objectives screen.
Other Objectives – In addition to the standard objectives set up by the system automatically, you can provide a very powerful life goals analysis if you explore your client’s other goals in life. A few additional objectives could be home renovations, purchase of a boat, roof on a house or maybe a retirement cruise.
Ranking
Unfortunately, sometimes clients won’t be able to achieve all of their goals. By identifying the highest to lowest priorities; the Auto Model process will know which goals to eliminate first.
Retirement Lifestyle Tiers
You have the ability to tier the retirement lifestyle objective into multiple tiers with different dollar amounts. To do this you would click on the edit beside the “Retirement Lifestyle” goal. Here you can adjust your Retirement Goal and also add in any tiers you wish for this client by clicking on the “Add” button.
After you click the add button another Retirement Lifestyle field will appear and when you change the “To Year” on the first entry and click save the second one will adjust appropriately.
TIP: Note that all goals identified on this screen are after tax spendable amounts.
Ownership – Objectives can be set up to be applicable for both the client and spouse (joint) or just for the client or just for the spouse. In the retirement life goals analysis that’s done, all goals will be incorporated. However in the Death or Disability analysis, goals for the Client will only apply on the Spouse’s death, not on the client’s death since the spouse isn’t concerned with that goal.
Model As – One very sophisticated feature of Planit is the ability to have the system model a solution to your client’s shortfalls. We call this the Auto Model process. However, when this modeling takes place, we need to know how to treat these revenue streams in the event that the client has to defer his/her retirement due to their inability to achieve their objectives. The “Model As” field allows you to identify if this particular revenue stream has a “Fixed Period” associated with it . . .meaning that it will be paid out on those dates and a change in the retirement date will have no impact. This would be the case for something like an inheritance. However, with a pension as illustrated above, if the client has to work longer, we have to recognize that the pension will also be deferred. Thus we set this item to “Start During Retirement”.
Index Rate – Defaults to the inflation rate set on the Personal Information screen but may be adjusted on each objective as required.
% On Death or Disability – Allows you to identify how each objective will be impacted by death or disability.
Once you are satisfied with the entries on this screen, click on the “Next” arrow icon.
