Voyant Plan Builder
Voyant’s Plan Builder helps enterprises bridge the gap between standalone financial calculators and the Voyant financial planning platform. Leveraging an XML API, Plan Builder abstracts the complexity of application integration, providing seamless data and transaction flow between third-party planning tools and Voyant financial plans – from the input of consumer data on one end, to the calculations, simulations, and recommendation engines on the other.
This allows enterprises to optimize customer interactions, leveraging consumer data as part of a larger, more cohesive planning process, and eliminating the tendency for throw away data or dead end results.
Leverage Existing Data: Standalone Calculators and Planning Modules
Enterprises have spent millions of dollars on their web sites implementing standalone financial calculators for retirement savings, retirement income, college saving, life insurance needs, and long term care needs, among others. Consumers use these calculators, but are left disappointed due to the limited value of disconnected result sets and the lack of next steps in the planning process. In most cases, consumers must reenter the same data multiple times when using each of the different modules. Instead of finding value in this process, most consumers just move on to another site hoping to find different and better solutions.
Voyant’s Plan Builder helps enterprises extend and deepen the client relationship by providing a seamless migration path from single-issue calculators to more in depth and collaborative planning solutions -- without starting over from scratch. Data from standalone calculators is saved in the Plan Builder XML format, then pulled into Voyant’s comprehensive planning platform. If the consumer is interested in building a more accurate and robust financial plan on their own, they can use Voyant Consumer, Voyant’s do-it-yourself end-user planning solution. Voyant Consumer includes a wizardbased fact finder that helps users confirm and refine information previously entered in standalone calculators, as well as additional details that may be needed to complete a comprehensive plan.
If a consumer wants to share and discuss his results with a financial adviser, this data can be accessed via Voyant’s industry-leading platform for professionals, Voyant Adviser. Financial professionals can review and confirm the available information, and request additional data that may be required. As a result, consumers can continue the planning process without starting over, and enterprises can provide deeper, more differentiated value, and discover new sales opportunities with reduced effort.
How It Works: Data Mapping, Inclusion from Disconnected Systems
Plan Builder allows enterprises to map all calculator data elements into the Voyant plan, including but not limited to names, ages, account balances, account details, current incomes, mortgages, debts, insurance, and expenses. In addition, Voyant supports all account types such as taxable, tax free, and tax deferred, as well as specific contribution limits and tax rules for the majority of tax wrappers including 401(k), IRA, Roth IRA, Roth 401(k), 403(b), 529 Plans, and Coverdell.
Voyant’s Plan Builder also supports the inclusion of information not available in real time via Voyant’s Web Services API. Data from disconnected systems can be packaged in Plan Builder’s XML format and integrated into the planning process. This includes account data, budget information, bill pay information, and any other data element already available in the enterprise or via disconnected third-party tool. The more information there is available, the less information that must be collected, and the more tangible and valuable the planning simulations and recommendations will be.
Simple Modules No Longer Disconnected
As enterprises look to update and add new simple calculator modules, Voyant’s Plan Builder can serve as a “data standard”, providing access to information previously entered in other modules, and reducing the time and effort required developing new calculators. Calculator modules developed using Plan Builder can submit their information directly to the Voyant calculation engine for simulation and recommendation results. Newly entered data, combined with previously captured data, allows Voyant’s sophisticated calculations engine to provide more accurate and intuitive results, including action items or product recommendations.
