Voyant UK Adviser Previous Release Notes

Version 4.0.17 Release Notes - 2015-05-28

Fixes and Improvements in version 4.0.17

• Bonds - removed validation related to previous withdrawals and removed input for previous taxed withdrawals
• Removed errant Finametrica warning icon
• Improved layout on investments chart detail panel
• Reset previous year payout and withdrawal amounts for Income v. Expenses Yearly report

Version 4.0.16 Release Notes - 2015-05-15

Fixes and Improvements in version 4.0.16

• Fix for phased drawdown of money purchase pensions (entered as 100% over the number of years) when the time spans age 75.
• Corrected Tax Free Cash calculation after age 75 to base the available tax free cash on the remaining Lifetime Allowance (ignoring the age 75 BCE when computing available LTA after age 75).
• Upgraded the Portfolio versions to better handle the Nil Rate Band and LTA Escalations in existing plans.
• Updated preferences to allow certain preferences to be defaulted to null rather than the system preference value.
• More 2015 Tax allowances and threshold updates.
• Made Fact Find more tolerant of inputs with commas or spaces.

Version 4.0.15 Release Notes - 2015-05-13

Fixes and Improvements in version 4.0.15

• Added bond "topping up"
• Onshore bond top-slicing now uses last chargeable event rather than purchase date as basis for annualized gain calculation
• Modified Net Worth Chart to include only primary and spouse/unmarried partner assets that are not trusts
• Both Liquid Assets charts were also modified to exclude trusts
• Added a new Plan Worth Chart which shows the Net Worth chart as it was before these changes
• Fixed ISA special inherited allowance contribution issue when recurring transfer/contribution is entered for spouse account
• Exposed Nil Rate Band Escalation in Preferences
• Added missing 'Recur' option on the Transfers / Additional Contributions panel for savings
• Corrected issue in Income v. Expenditures Yearly report where bonuses were hidden in special cases
• Corrected report generation issue which occurs when Market Assumptions name has an '&'
• Fixed exception which occurs when clicking away from a running calculation

Version 4.0.14 Release Notes - 2015-04-21

Fixes and Improvements in version 4.0.14

• Pension survivorship - fixed a presentation issue in the legacy view where the pension account information is duplicated in the estate list when distributed to multiple beneficiaries.
• Corrected an issue for certain white labels which caused the application to close when the preferences button was selected.

Version 4.0.13 Release Notes - 2015-04-19

Fixes and Improvements in version 4.0.13

• Added "as needed" withdrawal strategy for Money Purchase Pensions.
• Created a cleaner detail view to show multiple crystallisations in the same year caused by partial annuitisation, scheduled, and as-needed drawdown.
• Reduced Lifetime Allowance Limit (LTA) to £1 million from £1.25 million.
• Created a new field in Preferences named 'Lifetime Allowance Escalation %', currently defaulted to 0%
• Default state pension to currently receiving benefits if the normal start age falls before the start of the plan
• Added state pension growth rate preference which uses income growth rate unless otherwise specified.
• Corrected an issue where pension funds intended to remain in drawdown at mortality would ultimately be directed to the estate of the beneficiary in joint mortality case (instead of correctly passing to the drawdown pension of the second to die).
• Removed an outdated validation related to annuitisation timing for Unsecured pensions.
• Updated the Taxes chart to include LTA overage taxes.
• Corrected issue with onshore bond basic rate taxes on taxable withdrawals.
• Corrected issue with fact find which occurs when no account type is provided.
• Made several UI improvements
• Made numerous partner integration improvements and corrections

Version 4.0.12 Release Notes - 2015-04-12

Fixes and Improvements in version 4.0.12

• Money Purchase Pensions to only consider up to 25% of the withdrawals after age 75 as Tax Free cash
• Expenses Step Up / Step Down sections show selected frequency of values (monthly or yearly)
• Updated Detailed Taxes Report and added new Excel Detailed Taxes Report
• Removed strange character from Annuities Death Benefit section

Version 4.0.11 Release Notes - 2015-03-21

Fixes and Improvements in version 4.0.11

• Corrected plan calculation failure due to Critical Illness Insurance in certain situations.
• Updated Word Net Worth report to include final year.

Version 4.0.9 Release Notes - 2015-03-09

Fixes and Improvements in version 4.0.9

• ISA spousal allowance - now allows contributions to use Drawdown Pension if the drawdown pension is set to As Needed
• Critical Illness payouts may now be limited to linked debt liabilities.
• Other Trusts and Charitable Trusts have been removed from liquid assets chart

Version 4.0.7 Release Notes - 2015-02-22

2015 Pension Updates

• Added functionality to prevent forced crystallisation of money purchase plans at age 75 to allow unused funds to remain in the plan as well as to receive tax free cash post age 75.
• Implemented lump sum and drawdown survivorship options for money purchase pensions and corresponding 2015 tax rules based on mortality age.
• Modified drawdown pension and money purchase pension "income" survivorship option to include the ability to direct funds to a beneficiary account, allowing all properties such as anuitisation and drawdown to be defined for the beneficiary.
• Added beneficiary options to the drawdown pension.
• Implemented the new 2015 enhanced ISA allowance at the death of a spouse with ISA savings.
• Added support for partial annuitisation of money purchase and drawdown pensions.

Other Fixes and Improvements in version 4.0.7

• Fixed plan update issues related to plans containing decreasing term life insurance.
• Corrected partner integration issues related to monthly annuity and final salary incomes.
• Numerous user interface and report layout improvements.

Version 4.0.6 Release Notes - 2015-02-06

Fixes and Improvements in version 4.0.6

• Overview - Balance Sheet should reflect beginning of year balances and thus should not show property in the year purchased.
• Two-step authentication - fixed an issue where MFA verification and terms acceptance prompt caused incorrect redirect.
• Numerous partner integration improvements and bug fixes.
• General UI improvements (No chart colors were harmed in the making of this release)

Version 4.0.5 Release Notes - 2015-01-23

Fixes and Improvements in version 4.0.5

• Corrected Mac OS issue where Timeline only shows primary person
• Fixed addition issue on Family Balance Sheet - All Years (Word report)
• Suppressed embedded styles in Plan Notes section
• Added 'Include Real Property' and 'Include Pensions' to Optimize Allocation screen for AXA Elevate users
• Fixed issue where Asset Allocation Overview 'Include Real Property' showed incorrect amount allocated.

General UI improvements

• Updated Asset Allocation pie chart colours to better differentiate sections
• Added space on Income v. Expenses and Balance Sheet panels to allow for more descriptive text
• Updated colours on Timeline events (hover) for legibility
• Improved layout on Finametrica Risk, Balance Sheet and Income v. Expenditures Reports

Version 4.0.4 - 2015-01-13

The Voyant ORIGINAL chart colours are back! Now if I might divert your attention.... how about that new Cadbury Creme Egg recipe?

Other Fixes and Improvements in version 4.0.4

• Improved the layout of the asset allocation overview to avoid scrolling.
• Corrected an issue with the contribution type selections for employer contributions on the pension screen.
• Fixed a text highlighting issue on the plan update wizard.
• Increased text size for readability on the plan notes screen.

Version 4.0.3 - 2015-01-12

By popular demand, the "old man socks" colour palette is back for Voyant charts.

Thanks for the feedback on the new UI. Additional suggestions for improvement will be incorporated in the next release.

Other Fixes and Improvements in version 4.0.3

• Fixed a login issue affecting AXA Elevate users.
• Corrected desktop icons for some entity groups.
• Returned the fourth child to the timeline screen.

Version 4.0.2 - 2015-01-10

Voyant is starting off the new year with a new style. We hope you dig it!

Other Fixes and Improvements in version 4.0.2

• Asset allocation overview - added a checkbox to the property screen to specify if the property should be included in the overall asset allocation overview (when the option is selected on the asset allocation overview screen to include property).
• Fixed an issue with the computation of carried forward gift allowance and added an entry to the taxes screen for the gift exemption carryover available at the start of the plan.
• Decreasing Lump Sum Term Policies may now have their rate set at zero.
• Added ability to annuitize only a percentage of a money purchase plan while still maintaining other crystallisation directives in the same year.

Version 3.7.12 Release Notes - 2014-11-24

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.7.12

• Added an option to prevent crystallisation of money purchase pension plans prior to age 75.
• Corrected MP recurring fixed percentage drawdown computation of the annual drawdown amount.
• Added the ability to step up/down recurring crystallisation of money purchase funds.
• Reverted the default tax position on LTA overages from 55% back to 25% post 2015 where the overage is are taken as income through a drawdown pension. The 55% tax still applies if the overage is taken as a lump sum.
• Money Purchase - fix crystallization percent calculation to ignore phased drawdown number of years when phased drawdown isn't selected.
• Default Insurance/Protection policies to the start event if no event selected for convenience.

Version 3.7.11 Release Notes - 2014-11-01

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.7.11

• Insurance payouts - For cases where an insurance beneficiary is predeceased, payout to a contingent beneficiary instead to the estate of the insured.
• State Pension changes for those reaching the state pension age after April 2016 - 1) Change deferred state pension escaltion rate to 5.8% from 10.4%, 2) lump sum payout of deferred benefits is no longer an option.
• Allow overrides to the normal state pension age.
• Updated IHT rules for drawdown pensions post 2015.
• Corrected transfers into Loan Trust when "in specie" is selected

Version 3.7.10 Release Notes - 2014-09-23

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.7.10

• Fixed money purchase regression from the previous release related to crystallisation of multiple pensions in the same year.
• Added IHT relief breakdown to reports.
• Corrected issue with the PDF fact find data reader related to the handling of commas in item names.
• Fixed an issue with annuities where future purchases were not using the "specified" calc method and annuity rate.

Version 3.7.9 Release Notes - 2014-09-17

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.7.9

• Added Fixed 2012, Fixed 2014, and Enhanced protection options.
• Correct computation of tax free cash allowance for protected plans and also added an option to indicate the tax free cash already taken.
• Added the ability to schedule recurring fixed and escalating withdrawals directly from a Money Purchase without first having to crystallise into a drawdown pension.
• Improved the money purchase pension crystallisation screen and added additional lump sum and crystallisation recurrence options.
• Corrected transfers into Money Pension schemes from investment accounts to provide tax relief at source where applicable.
• Default linked Drawdown Pension accounts asset allocation to use the source Money Purchase asset allocation.

Version 3.7.8 Release Notes - 2014-09-01

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.7.8

• Corrected issue with ignored preferred funding items for debt payoff.
• Improved handling of disability insurance "coverage inflation rate" for employment linked insurance. If specified, this inflation rate will be used to escalate the payout amount when the policy is in payment rather than the linked employment's growth rate
• Prevent expenses from being fulfilled by withdrawals from Money Pension funds at mortality where the beneficiary is not a person in the plan.
• Do not apply savings starting rate of tax to pension annuity payments. Pension annuity payments are now taxed as earned income.
• EU Gender Act requires use of a single rate table for GAD limit calculations. From 2012, all calculations should use the male GAD tables

Version 3.7.4 Release Notes - 2014-08-07

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.7.4

• Final Salary - added flexible accrual rate entry in addition to enumerated values.
• Estate Tax - Correct step to collect previous PETs for scenarios where mortality falls in the first year of the plan.
• Corrected computation of excess pension contributions in scenarios with carried forward pension allowance.
• Corrected drawdown pension step up/down detail to properly ignore step details which are not selected.
• Expenses - added ability to specify an ordered list of preferred payment sources instead of a single preferred payment source.

Version 3.7.1 Release Notes - 2014-06-06

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.7.1

• Added 10% (2014) and 0% (2015) Savings interest band
• Converted money purchase pension crystallization details to show remaining LTA instead of total to better illustrate instances where multiple funds crystallize in the same year
• Include the age of client next to their name on the overview screen when looking into a future date for both the income/expenditure and balance sheet
• Word Account Details report was not showing yearly withdrawals.
• Life Needs Analysis - change to default the spouse or non-married partner as the beneficiary for the life insurance rather than the estate to handle cases where the estate distribution plan does not include the spouse or non-married partner.
• Equity value of property calculated differently on Excel reports.

Version 3.7.0 Release Notes - 2014-04-25

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.7.0

• Added options to the Asset Allocation overview to selectively include real property and pensions.
• Improved importable fact find and integration support.

Version 3.6.27 Release Notes - 2014-04-12

This release fixes issues caused by changes made by FinaMetrica to images in their risk profile reports.

Version 3.6.26 Release Notes - 2014-04-04

Budget 2014 Updates

• Drawdown pension maximum drawdown limit increased to 150% of GAD for 2014/15.
• Flexible drawdown secured income requirement lowered to £12,000 for 2014/15.
• ISA contribution limit increased to £15,000 for 2014/15.
• Personal allowance increased to £10,500 for tax year 2015/16.
• Basic rate income tax threshold lowered from £31,865 to £31,785 for 2015/16.
• Capital gains allowance increased to £11,100 for 2015/16.

Pension Tax Restrictions Lifted in 2015

From April 2015, the budget proposes that the tax restrictions on lump sum withdrawals from defined contribution pension schemes will be lifted. As this change is pending, Voyant has modeled the elimination of the lump sum tax restriction as an optional setting. By default, the Voyant calculations will assume that the pension tax restrictions will be lifted. An optional plan preference setting to continue with the current tax restrictions can be found in the advanced details section of the Money Purchase and Drawdown Pensions screens.

Other Fixes and Improvements in version 3.6.26

• Excess pension contributions above the annual allowance are now illustrated in Voyant with tax relief limited to contributions within the allowance and excess employer contributions taxed as income. To enable excess contributions, deselect "Limit contributions to annual allowance" in the Advanced Details->Contributions section of the Money Purchase screen.
• Corrected transfers into Money Pension schemes from savings to provide tax relief at source where applicable.
• Fixed an issue with Equity Release plans when there is no retirement event.
• Investment Fee rates are now properly applied based on type: Tax Free, Tax-Deferred, Taxable
• Fixed error on Asset Allocation Overview screen and reports when only Agreed Risk Profile score is present

Version 3.6.24 Release Notes - 2014-02-25

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.6.24

• Improved estate handling of properties to prevent liquidation at mortality due to unfulfilled linked debt of a trivial amount.
• For property with linked expenses which is transferred to non-legal partner at death, make sure expenses are transferred as well.
• Needs Analysis - corrected the growth rate applied to the regular savings needs analysis simulated account when plan preferences "Use asset allocation for growth" is selected.
• Improved the default ownership of expenses in plans with non-married partners to be jointly owned by both partners and consistent with the defaults for plans having married partners.

Version 3.6.23 Release Notes - 2014-02-02

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.6.23

• Correct cost basis adjustment of transferred investments and properties at first mortality.
• Fixed estate overview display of debts when paid at mortality by linked endowment protection policies.
• For properties scheduled to liquidate at first mortality prior to the last year of the plan, liquidate before IHT/estate handling to provide clearer IHT estate summary.
• Fixed an issue where debt transferred to the join owner at mortality shows as a shortfall.

Version 3.6.21 Release Notes - 2014-01-22

December Budget Updates for 2014/2015

• Higher income tax rate threshold from £32,010 to £31,865
• Age related personal allowance income limit changed to £26,100 from £27,000
• National Insurance primary threshold / class 4 lower profits limit changed from £7,755 to £7,956 per year
• National insurance upper earnings/profits limit from £41,450 to £41,865 per year
• ISA savings limit from £11,520 to £11,880

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.6.21

• Improved IHT / estate handling to allow real property to transfer to unmarried partners by default.
• Corrected issue with life fund benefits displaying in the estate summary of the beneficiary when both die in the same year.
• Fixed issue with the distribution of Money Purchase pension benefits of the second to die in a joint IHT scenario.
• Improved the display of debt secured by property on the estate overview screen for joint mortality scenarios where the partner is assumed predeceased upon simultaneous death.
• Fixed display issue in Income vs Expenditures report where incomes with dividends were showing being double counted.
• Added life bond encashment tax expense at mortality to the expenses screen.
• Fixed an issue with the investment account cost basis not being carried through to the plan update wizard.

Version 3.6.17 Release Notes - 2013-11-20

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.6.17

• Allow EIS investments to the transferred to the spouse at mortality to extend IHT relief.
• Added a new "Fact Check" report detailing all preferences and data entered into a Voyant plan.
• Corrected the Voyant desktop link issue for Mac OS X Mountain Lion and later releases.
• Added permission attributes to the Voyant Adviser application resources to avoid Java security warnings.

Version 3.6.14 Release Notes - 2013-10-28

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.6.14

• Corrected issue with chargable lifetime transfers tax not showing up in the expense details and tax line.
• Removed previous withdrawal input fields for Loan or Bypass trusts as these entries do not apply.
• Correct loan trusts sub-account models to ensure that interest gains do not change the loan balance.
• Added authentication service support for local integration services.
• Adjusted the header row insets in the Overview Panel so lengthy labels no longer appear justified.
• Added income tax bracket details to taxes report.

Version 3.6.10 Release Notes - 2013-09-17

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.6.10

• Corrected tax calculation to consider pension contributions as an extending the high rate tax band and not just the base rate band.
• Added "Tax as PAYE" feature to allow taxes on self-employed income to be deducted in the year earned.
• Fixed report issue related to MS Word markup appearing in Plan Notes Report.
• Corrected issue with handling of incomes linked to properties at mortality. Individually owned asset linked incomes may not be used to pay off debts at mortality since the asset will either be liquidated or transferred.
• Corrected issue with Savings Need simulation related to the handling of the target savings account at mortality.
• Fixed estate handling issue with individually held secured debts where no other funds are available to fulfill the debt at mortality.
• Fixed PET/CLT gift year for existing life funds.

Version 3.6.9 Release Notes - 2013-08-17

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.6.9

• Fixed Income V. Expenses and Balance Sheet Reports to include spouse again.
• Correct IHT issue with jointly held accounts having a zero balance at first mortality.
• Other Trusts - Fixed issue with Previous PETs and CLTs data. Data entered did not appear in what-if plans

Version 3.6.6 Release Notes - 2013-08-10

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.6.6

• Improved layout of the detailed tax info screen and reports - tax paid in each tax band is now detailed with contributions to personal pension now shown as extending the basic rate band.
• Consume personal allowance when computing PAYE for multiple income sources so that the entire personal allowance is not applied to each income source.
• Corrected contributions to personal pensions entered in the advanced Transfers/One-Time Contributions section to provide tax relief at source.
• Fixed issue with previous exempt transfers entered on Taxes screen.
• Corrected the calculation of the reduced of IHT rate for charitable deductions to be based on the net estate (minus the nil rate band) instead of the total estate.
• Corrected issue where other trusts reported gains to the individual in some cases.
• Updated Income vs. Expenses and Balance Sheet Reports to include spouses and non married partners.
• Updated 2013 personal allowance threshold to 100,000 and cap gains allowance to 10,900 from 10,600.
• Added final salary accrual rate of 1/52.

Version 3.6.5 Release Notes - 2013-07-25

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.6.5

• Reverted previous change that allowed plans to extend beyond the last to die.
• Fixed Money Purchase issue for plans with single persons and plans with non-legal partners
• Fixed issue with tax calculation for withdrawals from drawdown pension

Version 3.6.4 Release Notes - 2013-07-22

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.6.4

• Created a separate chart view for Liquid Non-Pension Assets and restored Pensions in the default Liquid Assets view.
• Fixed tax calculation issue introduced in version 3.6.3 related to display of tax relief at source.

Version 3.6.3 Release Notes - 2013-07-19

Voyant is pleased to announce major improvements to the Trusts and IHT modules in this release.

Changes include.....

• New functionality for modeling Loan Trusts and Spousal Bypass Trusts
• Bare and Discretionary trust structures with automatic recognition of PETs and CLTs for transfers to trusts
• Flexible beneficiary designation for Money Purchase plans which now permits direction of funds to a spousal bypass trust or other individuals
• Additional options for business and agricultural property IHT relief
• New Potential IHT simulation to show potential IHT liability in every year of the plan
• Easier entry of non-legal partners - marital status may now be specified at the time of entry and easily changed within any plan

NOTE: For existing client plans, please review the entry of "existing" PETs manually entered to account for transfers to trusts in the first year of the plan. The system now automatically records PETs and CLTs for transfers into trusts.

Other Fixes and Improvements in version 3.6.3

• Improved the layout and presentation of the yearly personal tax summary (in the details screen and reports)
• Plan calculations may now be stopped at any event - either before or after plan member mortality ages
• Corrected tax calculation issue related to tax relief at source for zero rate self-employed taxpayers
• Reverse Mortgage - allow selection of events when linked
• Asset allocation added to holdings info for custom market assumptions
• Expense info now arranged by order of fulfillment on the detailed expenses screen
• Removed Pensions from Liquid Assets chart
• Corrected unallocated income display to properly account for unspent withdrawals such as from Unsecured Pensions

Version 3.5.8 Release Notes - 2013-06-25

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.5.8

• Fixed bug that caused some what-if plans to calculate differently from base plan
• Equity Release plan - fixed display of projected payment. Added ability to start equity release plan at a later time after linked asset is acquired in plan.

Version 3.5.7 Release Notes - 2013-05-27

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.5.7

• Fixed handling of individually owned debt at mortality when all assets are transferred to the spouse.
• Corrected issue where preferences in base plan could not be set to zero.
• Added final salary crystallisation information to the details screen.
• Added a preference to set the crystallization order of final salaries and money purchase pensions crystallizing in the same year.
• Finametrica 2.0 updates.

Version 3.5.6 Release Notes - 2013-05-10

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.5.6

• IHT threshold updated to remain fixed at £325k through 2018.
• Fixed FinaMetrica 2.0 issue with converting version 1.5 profiles to version 2.0
• Fixed issue with FinaMetrica 2.0 comfort zone meter
• Improved the compare plans UI visibility.
• Corrected date format on the update plan wizard screens to match the UK date format.
• Corrected item delete issue when the item name contains html tags.
• Voyant Server - For self-hosting clients, added proxy server support for outgoing requests from Voyant Server.

Version 3.5.4 Release Notes - 2013-04-19

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.5.4

• Tax and NIC thresholds - Updated per the 2013 Budget.
• Investments - Added options to apply entrepreneurs' relief to investment gains for modelling shares of a business property.
• Drawdown Pensions - Corrected flexible drawdown income requirements to avoid further testing in the year following the first qualifying year.
• Dependants' pensions - Corrected an issue with dependants pension to NOT test against the LTA of the dependant at age 75.
• IHT Summary - Corrected display of life funds to reflect the estate value as net of the tax taken at encashment.
• Age related personal allowance - Adjusted the qualification year to avoid using the higher allowance for those born in 1948 but after April.
• Finametrica - Added support for Finametrica 2.0.

Version 3.4.19 Release Notes - 2013-03-15

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.4.19

• Added direct support for Fixed and Primary pension protection.
• Corrected property linked income and expenses to exclude the year of planned property liquidation since the planned liquidation is deemed to occur at the beginning of the year.
• Corrected an out of memory error caused by viewing version history for clients with a large number of versions in the local db.
• Fixed the growth rate column of the account details report.

Version 3.4.17 Release Notes - 2013-03-04

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.4.17

• Updated IHT threshold for 2015 to be fixed at £325k.
• Improved fixed w/ inflation withdrawal option on savings account.
• Updated flexible drawdown income requirement for 2012 - 2014 to £20k.
• Corrected an issue with the Family Balance sheet encountered on some Mac OS systems.
• Corrected taxation of disability payments.

Version 3.4.16 Release Notes - 2013-02-12

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.4.16

• Plan update error when including child plans
• Overview screen error for child plans with deleted items
• Better handling for deferred Final Salary in plan update
• Order of items in detailed asset charts now matches order of the underlying categories in the non-detailed asset charts

Version 3.4.13 Release Notes - 2013-01-04

HM Treasury Updates

• Personal allowance increased to £9,440 for tax year 2013-14.
• Higher rate threshold increased by 1% for two years beginning 2014-15.
• Capital gains allowance increased by 1% to £11,000 in 2014-15 and £11,100 in 2015-16.
• ISA contribution limit increased to £11,520 for 2013-14.
• Pension allowance decreased to £40,000 beginning 2014-15.
• Pension LTA decreased to £1,250,000 beginning 2014-15.
• IHT nil rate threshold increased by 1% to £329,000 beginning 2015-2016.
• Drawdown pension capped drawdown limit increased to 120% of GAD amount beginning 2013-14.

Customisation of future escalation rates for allowances and thresholds is now available for white labeled configurations of Voyant. Contact support if you subscribe to the white labeling service and would like to cutomise these projections.

Other Fixes and Improvements in version 3.4.13

• Corrected liquidation strategy issue with life funds tagged as Tax Deferred investments.
• Added Net Worth data table to reports.
• Added gender selection to other person screen to correct an exception with drawdown pension calculations for "Other" people.
• Correct handling of insurance payouts in joint immediate legacy IHT calculations.
• Prevent withdrawals from Money Purchase plans for legacy expenses when modeled as contributions to children's accounts in the plan.
• Corrected issue with employment incomes being improperly adjusted to include bonus in base amount on update.
• Finametrica - Added individual agreed scores entry for primary and spouse to the stored results.

Version 3.4.12 Release Notes - 2012-11-14

This release corrects the order in which final salary income and lump sum benefits are crystallised against the pension lifetime allowance. The corrected order of crystallisation is as follows:

1. Lump sum amount up to 25% of the remaining LTA
2. Income portion of the pension with 20:1 factor
3. Remaining lump sum w/ overage taxed at 55%

Version 3.4.11 Release Notes - 2012-11-11

In this release...

• This release handles a bug in Java which prevents some Mac users from launching Voyant.
• Added "PDF" as an importable extension allowing the Fillable Fact Find PDF to be opened in Voyant.
• Corrected an issue in the Fillable Fact Find encountered when a child is included in the Fact Find but a spouse is not.

Other Fixes and Improvements in version 3.4.11

• Updated the child trust fund contribution limit to £3,600.
• The Estate and Inheritance Overview Report in Excel is now correctly subtracting debts.
• Previously, a withdrawal from a Life Fund over fulfills expense when encashing segments.

Version 3.4.7 Release Notes - 2012-09-14

This release is the first installment of several planned estate and IHT enhancements.

In this release...

• Immediate IHT - The assumption of a will with a simultaneous death clause has been removed. For the joint immediate IHT calculations, the youngest person is deemed to have survived the eldest person. An option is now provided in plan preferences to change this assumption such that each are deemed predeceased in the event of simultaneous death.
• Property ownership - Handing of joint tenants and tenants in common ownership of properties has been improved to correctly reflect the disposition of the property at mortality. Further, individually held properties or properties held as tenants in common are no longer liquidated at mortality in cases where the estate distribution plan is 100% to the spouse.
• Investments - Unwrapped and cash investments are also no longer liquidated in 100% to spouse scenarios.

Other Fixes and Improvements in version 3.4.7

• Special events such as disability, critical illness, and long term care now allow modification of the "owner".
• Future inflation rates for contribution/tax relief limits for EIS, ISA, MP pension, VCT plans adjusted to the same rate as other allowances and thresholds.
• For consistency, the "Use Asset Allocation for Account Growth" setting has been moved the asset allocation screen for all account types.
• Credits/Income funding sources for contributions are now correctly prioritized based on the target account owner.

Version 3.4.6 Release Notes - 2012-08-27

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.4.6

• Drawdown Pension - Fixed issue with step up/down when switching from scheduled drawdown to as needed.
• Money Purchase Pension - Changed SIPP type to allow employer contributions. Also corrected layout issue which obscured the tax free cash entry when displaying details in-line.
• Property - Fixed behavior of linked Expenses and Incomes when displaying details sections as a popup.

Version 3.4.4 Release Notes - 2012-08-10

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.4.4

• Money Purchase Pension Contributions - removed assumed linkage to first employment for purposes of calculating applicable income basis and step events. Pensions should be directly linked if contribution amount entered as percent of income and the plan contains more than one employment.
• Final Salary - Corrected deferred final salary survivorship calculations to exclude actuarial reduction and lump sum pension commutation. Also modified ledger to display uncommutated value of pension at the start date for consistency.
• Unsecured Pensions - Corrected issue with annuitisation drawdown event disappearing from the event dropdown if the event timing is adjusted to after age 75
• Real Money Charts - Corrected account details printable chart display of real money account values.
• Family Balance Sheet - Corrected ownership of Money Purchase and USP Taxes to display these in the correct column. Corrected issue with endowments not showing properly shown on Balance Sheet and Income vs. Expenditures
• Timeline - Corrected issue with stage corruption following plan promotion. Also fixed issue with timeline scaling when mortality placeholder event is added to the end of final stage.

Version 3.4.2 Release Notes - 2012-07-21

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.4.2

• Cash Account Sweep - corrected an issue with cash accounts sweeping into spouse's accounts after mortality.
• Money Purchase - eliminate linked drawdown pension from ledger and overview if source money purchase is annuitised.
• Investments - corrected issue with tax deducted as source setting not being persisted upon reopening client file.
• Endowments - corrected issues with endowment maturity value escalation when multiple endowments are entered.

Version 3.4.0 Release Notes - 2012-07-01

Version 3.4.0 brings an updated and enhanced user interface (UI) to Voyant.

The most noticeable change is the way Advanced Settings are displayed and edited. By default, each individual advanced detail section will popup into its own separate dialog. This provides more room for editing items such as "Step Up/Step Down" or Transfers.

If you prefer the previous expand collapse mechanism, a new preference in the "Application Preferences" section, "Edit Advanced Details in popout dialogs", can be unchecked to restore the functionality to the previous mechanism.

In addition to numerous cosmetic changes, certain data entry screens have been re-organized to make basic data entry as easy as possible.

A line showing the total basic expenses in each year can now be shown on the Cashflow charts. This line simply shows the total for all expenses categorized as Basics. Keep in mind that this line does not include any tax expenses. The line can be toggled on and off from the Plan Preferences, or from the "Show/Hide Basic Expenses" link underneath the chart.

An option on debt has been added to allow one to declare the "Interest is tax deductible" on a debt.

Other Fixes and Improvements in version 3.4.0

• Money Purchase Pension - default newly created pensions to crystallize 100% at retirement with 25% tax free cash
• Money Purchase - add contribution details advanced section and employment link controls
• Debt Screen - add ability to link asset to debt from the debt screen. Removed this from the property screen.
• Open Client Record dialog now remembers previous search parameters
• Money Purchase and Drawdown Pension - change annuitization applies default to off for new model items
• Customer Service Dialog - added fields to provide info about the particular plan for which support will be requested

Version 3.3.23 Release Notes - 2012-06-21

This release is a simple maintenance release to update the Voyant security signature which was set to expire on June 22, 2012.

Version 3.3.21 Release Notes - 2012-06-05

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.3.21

• Improved fulfillment item sorter for singly owned expenses such that user entered primary and spouse individually owned cash accounts are given the same priority as default cash accounts (i.e. primary and spouse individual cash accounts will now be used for the other's individually owned expenses).
• Fixed an employment linking issue on the disability screen in What-If plans.
• Corrected an issue with the Finametrica overview screens which caused the spouse fields to remain hidden after opening a single client plan.
• Fixed an issue with calculating interest yield returns when the standard deviation provided in the user entered market assumption is zero.

Version 3.3.19 Release Notes - 2012-05-21

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.3.19

• Added support for Offset Mortgages.
• Corrected handling of benefits-in-kind in the end of year tax computation when multiple employment items are entered.
• Fixed data entry issue with increasing/decreasing lump sum term assurance.
• Corrected Enterprise Investment Scheme IHT regression.

Version 3.3.17 Release Notes - 2012-05-07

This update adds improvements to the recently introduced Income vs. Expenditures screen. Clickable links have been added to each item in the Income vs. Expenditures screen, as well as the Family Balance Sheet screen, to the data entry screen for the clicked item.

Additionally, each year of the plan may be viewed on both the Income vs. Expenditures and Family Balance Sheet screens.

The Income vs. Expenditures also adds an optional checkbox to toggle whether income from pension drawdowns and other withdrawals are included in the income portion of the statement.

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.3.17

• Allow pasting from MS Word documents into Plan Notes
• Legacy Expenses - Incude other spouse credits and accounts to be used as sources for legacy expenses owned by single person. Also allow for joint legacy expense where charitable credits and IHT tax consequences split between owners.
• added in savings growth rate, property growth rate, salary growth rate and the 15yr gilt rate into the Assumptions PDF, Word and Excel reports.
• Improved validation for decreasing lump sum insurance policy
• Correct display of unpaid taxes to reflect tax credits and the actual tax payable. This was a display issue only
• IHT enhancements - added Business Property IHT Relief option to Unwrapped Investments and Property

Version 3.3.16 Release Notes - 2012-04-21

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.3.16

• Added an Income vs. Expenditures view to the Overview screen and fixed layout issues in the Income vs. Expenditures report.
• Enabled recurring transfers from surplus income.

Version 3.3.15 Release Notes - 2012-04-15

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.3.15

• Added an Income vs. Expenditures Report in PDF, Excel and Word formats.
• Plan Overview Report - Resolved dividend income display issue.

Version 3.3.14 Release Notes - 2012-04-09

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.3.14

• Employment - Added input field to the employment screen and tax considerations for benefits in kind.
• Protection - Added decreasing term assurance.
• Child trust fund - Enabled ad hoc withdrawals for child expenses
• Chart details screen - Added a second details panel for use in dual chart mode and enabled resizing for readability.
• Analytics - Added client analytics for Entity Group Admin, Subscription Manager, and Advisers. Analytics functions are available via the Voyant website.

Version 3.3.12 Release Notes - 2012-04-03

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.3.12

• Corrected offline mode issue found in release 3.3.11.

Version 3.3.11 Release Notes - 2012-03-30

Budget 2012 Changes

• Personal Allowance increased from £8,105 to £9,205 for 2013/14
• Basic rate threshold decreased from £34,370 to £32,245 for 2013/14
• Higher income tax rate decreased from 50% to 45% for 2013/14
• Age 65 / 75 personal allowance frozen at £10,500 and £10,660. Also, restrictions added such that clients must reach age 65 / 75 during or before 2013 to qualify.
• Age related allowance phase-out threshold increased from £24,000 to £25,400
• EIS contribution limit increased to £1,000,000 for 2012/13
• National insurance primary threshold increased from £7,228 to £7,592 for 2012/13
• National insurance class 4 lower limit from £7,225 to £7,605 for 2012/13
• National insurance contracted out rebate lowered from 1.6% to 1.4% for 2012/13

Updates to set 2012/13 values which are unchanged from 2011/12 (previously escalated from 2011/12 values)

• Pension contribution limit remains £50,000
• IHT annual gift exemption remains £3,000
• Money purchase pension contribution limit without earned income remains £3,600
• High rate threshold remains £150,000
• Personal allowance phase-out threshold remains £100,000
• Capital gains allowance remains £10,600
• National insurance primary upper limit remains £42,484
• National insurance class 4 upper limit remains £42,475

Other Fixes and Improvements in version 3.3.11

• Money Purchase Pension - Corrected an issue with pension contributions using carried over allowance when contribution is made from multiple sources.
• Reports - Added Excel version of the Family Balance Sheet Report. Also added Endowments to the Balance Sheet Report.

Version 3.3.9 Release Notes - 2012-03-20

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.3.9

• Money Purchase Pension - Fixed an error in the previous release, 3.3.8, which applied earned income limit to employer contributions.
• Asset Allocation Overview - Savings Certificates should be considered cash only accounts.

Version 3.3.8 Release Notes - 2012-03-16

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.3.8

• Money Purchase Pension - Employer contributions are now applied towards both the annual contribution limit and the carried forward allowance.
• Annuities - Hide irrelevant fields when Pension annuity is selected.
• Investments - Ensure base amount entry field is visible on account types where applicable even when the investment has been marked as new.
• Investment Details Screen - Corrected layout issue.

Version 3.3.7 Release Notes - 2012-03-09

Asset allocation returns / market assumptions - Added a new feature to approximate geometric means from arithmetic means for the deterministic cashflow. To enable, go to Preferences -> Market Assumptions and select "Assumptions Type: ARITHMETIC" and check "Approximate Geometric Mean for default calculation." Users with custom market assumptions in their rebrands should email support to update your rebrand if automatic defaulting to use the geometric approximation is desired.

By popular request, tax deducted at source is no longer reflected in the cashflow chart as "Savings and Investments." Taxes are still deducted at the source where applicable but are now only displayed on the Investment details screen and in the end of year tax summary.

Other Fixes and Improvements in version 3.3.7

• Pension Lifetime Allowance - Corrected pension LTA calculation in cases where percent used previously and a protected amount are entered on the taxes screen.
• Drawdown Pension age 75 BCE - Exclude LTA tax charges from being counted against the drawdown limit to allow drawdown in addition to the LTA tax charge.
• Final salary - Fixed exception encountered when entering on Employment screen.
• Employment dividend visibility - Corrected issue where the ledger displays a non-zero dividend value even if the employment type is not set to "Company Owner".
• State Pension - Corrected pension age for females born in 1952.
• Child cash account withdrawal limits - Added ability to set withdrawal limits on non-primary and non-spouse cash accounts.

Version 3.3.5 Release Notes - 2012-02-21

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.3.5

• Final Salary Pension - added death in deferment survivor's pension option.
• State Pension - corrected minimum pension age to 63 for females born in 1953.
• Plan update / promotion - corrected issue caused by collapsing multi/linked events during the update.
• Client sharing - fixed the user search issue.
• Life Funds - corrected top-slicing tax calculations at mortality and where other income is below the personal allowance.
• Overview screen - fixed issue with restore and delete not handling stage detail objects correctly.
• Debt payoff event - corrected handling of event changes in child plans.
• Expenses payment source - removed trusts from this list since withdrawals from trusts must currently be scheduled.
• Reports - added bonus and dividend to incomes in plan overview reports. Also improved handling of asset allocation images in MS Word.

Version 3.3.2 Release Notes - 2012-02-09

7IM Integration

Client data integration with 7IM is now available - allowing direct, secure, seamless, and real time integration between Voyant and 7IM for creating and updating Voyant plans. Contact support@planwithvoyant.co.uk to add this integration extension to your subscription at no additional charge. Note: Setup also requires approval and authentication credentials to be issued by 7IM.

Other Fixes and Improvements in version 3.3.2

• Plan comparison capability has been added for Real Money charts.
• Expense payment sources are now highlighted in a mouse-over tooltip in the detailed info expenses tab for easy tracking and analysis of expense fulfillment.
• Annuity Years Certain - Payments to suvivor should not be reduced to survivorship levels until after the years certain
• Added ability to model Variable Rate Mortgages via new step up/step down of interest rate on Debt screen
• Added bonus and dividend display to Employment ledger
• Updates to State Pension Retirement Age
• Voyant Web Site - fixed issue with client list linking to wrong client records
• Fixed issue when overwriting deleted client files

Version 3.2.90 Release Notes - 2012-01-20

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.2.90

• Annuities - Fixed survivorship payout regression from the previous release to correctly identify the owner of survivor payments.
• Life funds - corrected inconsistency in the calculation of the allowed prior principal withdrawals to be inclusive of the year purchased.
• Chart Improvements - changed color of Yield to be more distinct.

Version 3.2.89 Release Notes - 2012-01-13

Cashflow Chart Improvements

By popular request, this release contains the following improvements to the cashflow chart.

• A new category, Planned Withdrawals, was added to separate scheduled withdrawals and MP lump sum withdrawals from ad hoc savings and investment withdrawals.
• The detailed cashflow chart series are now arranged in the following more natural order - Employment Income -> Other Income -> Pension and Annuities -> Planned Withdrawal -> Ad Hoc Savings and Investment Withdrawals.

Other Fixes and Improvements in version 3.2.89

• Fixed source account filtering for legacy gifts to others in the plan to follow the same restrictions as expense fulfillment. ISAs, Life Funds, and Drawdown Pensions may now be used (when setup to allow withdrawals) to fulfill legacy gifting plans.
• Allow client file renaming when the name is changed for individuals within the plan.
• Improved the Savings Need Analyser to calculate allowable gifting when no additional saving is required.
• Added bonus and dividends where applicable to the Employment step up/down details.
• Added other and unscheduled contributions to the printable account details report.
• CSV and PDF export support has been added to the client list within the subscription and client management console (i.e. the website app).

Version 3.2.87 Release Notes - 2011-12-16

Features and Improvements in version 3.2.87

• Flexible Drawdown Pension - Fixed an issue with the evaluation of secured income. In certain cases, secured income for a spouse was used as the basis for the client's secured income.
• Final Salary - Improved the handling of death benefits in deferment. Lump sum death benefits and the return of individual contributions are now supported options.

Version 3.2.84 Release Notes - 2011-12-8

Features and Improvements in version 3.2.84

• Fixed a synchronization issue which caused excessive "client plan updated" emails and incorrect plan version ordering in certain limited usage scenarios.
• Added a system preference to specify the starting screen when opening a client record. Choose between the Charts, Timeline, or Overview screen.
• Added a system and plan preference for the default Gilt rate used to calculated the maximum GAD limit for drawdown pensions.

Version 3.2.81 Release Notes - 2011-12-2

Features and Improvements in version 3.2.81

• Added the Family Balance Sheet overview and printable reports to all versions of Voyant Adviser.
• Improved the layout of the Fixed the Family Balance Sheet PDF report and corrected the issue related to &s in item names.
• Added 2012 ISA contribution limit, £11,280.

Version 3.2.80 Release Notes - 2011-11-30

Other Fixes and Improvements in version 3.2.80

• Update Report footer with current year
• Enabled transfers between money purchase pensions
• Improved client file version list to better view changes
• Escalate active final salary in deferment for final salary deferred after linked employment ends
• Limit pension contributions to earned income portion of the employment only (i.e. exclude company owner dividends)
• Fix some bugs related to opening old plans
• Added a help popup to Savings and Investments to help explain difference between withdrawal limits and draw-down strategy
• Voyant @Home now defaults to using Java Web Start instead of Java Applet

Version 3.2.79 Release Notes - 2011-11-08

Tax Reporting

• Tax relief at source is now modeled directly for individual contributions to money purchase pension plans.
• Tax details previously displayed only in the Details->Tax info screen within the application are now available as printable PDF and Word report options.

Final Salary

• UI improvements to prevent selection of two events for the pension timing. Only the start event is required.
• Benefit calculations in the context of a disability/income protection simulation have been corrected to compensate accordingly when the disability starts during the employment phase and extends past the planned initiation of the final salary pension.
• Added additional escalation options.

Other Fixes and Improvements in version 3.2.79

• Several improvements were made to plan synchronisation for fault tolerance and backward compatibility.
• Plan overview report layout improved for asset allocations with many asset classes.

Version 3.2.77 Release Notes - 2011-10-23

Features and Improvements in version 3.2.77

• Money Purchase pensions now allow employer contributions to be Stepped Up or Down.
• Corrected a display issue which caused shortfall to be displayed above the need line when utilising the "Liquidate when Needed" option for properties.
• Added full page timeline report.
• Correct asset allocation input rounding issue.

Version 3.2.76 Release Notes - 2011-09-30

This release includes several often requested features including Widow's Pensions, Plan Notes, and Saved Report Sets!

• Death-in-Service/Widow's Pension models are now available as both stand-alone employment options as well as linked to Final Salary schemes. To add a death in service survivor's pension, see the "Death in Service / Widows Pension" details section of the Employment and Final Salary screens.
• Reports now support the ability to save favorite report sets for easily selection upon re-use and to reorder reports sections as desired. Simply drag and drop report sections to select and customize the ordering of the report sections as desired.
• Plan notes - keep track of plan notes now directly linked to the plan in the Overview -> Notes screen. Clicking the arrow by the Notes tab will push the notes data entry to a pop-out window for side by side planning.

Other Features and Improvements in version 3.2.76

• Final Salary plans now include a setting to use only the base salary when computing the Final Salary accrual.
• Scheduled transfers now support recurring annual transfers.
• A fee rate similar to the savings/investment account fee rate is now available for assets entered as Property.
• A Market assumptions rounding issue which prevented name matching after loading the market assumptions has been fixed. Additionally, an improvement has been made to allow for changes to the system assumptions and allocations names upon update.

Version 3.2.75 Release Notes - 2011-09-24

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.2.75

• Fixed Error in uncommon GAD calculation for previous inceptions dates.
• Accounts in plans using an asset allocation based on market assumptions that include yield should ignore yield values specified in the growth section of the individual account.
• Asset Allocation images in Account Details report are too small for custom market assumptions
• Fixed errors with Default Asset Allocation in Default Assumptions report
• Fixed equity values in Plan Overview - Assets report
• Fixed is in Excel report where Assets worksheet sometimes is missing data
• Sweep from Cash accounts didn't properly transfer to cost basis of target account.

Version 3.2.74 Release Notes - 2011-09-14

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.2.74

• Default savings type default order changed to be Tax Free, Tax Deferred, Taxable
• Fixed issue with adding mortality replacement events when "No" is selected from the confirmation dialog.
• Added paraplanners in the "Connected To" column of the Open Portfolio screen.
• Fix for partner's National Insurance Contribution calculation issue when only the primary is contracted out.

Version 3.2.71 Release Notes - 2011-08-19

This release includes a common request from users. A separate preference has been added to specify the default savings growth/interest rate independent of the default investment growth rate. Newly added savings accounts will now use this preference to default rate instead of the default investment growth rate.

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.2.71

• Precision issue fix for GAD calculation
• Dividends on life bonds are incorrectly being taxed as personal dividends
• Fix typo in validation for annuity assumed interest rate between 0 and 100%
• Remaining portion Critical Illness payouts are no longer lost if "Transfer Excess to Savings" preference is not set
• Custom Rebrands can now have adviser profile info in the header and footer
• Fixed issue with after-tax contributions which prevented contributions from utilizing all of remaining employment credits.
• Correction for VCT and EIS tax relief calculations to provide income tax relief on all sources of income tax (not just employment income relief).
• Immediate Estate Scenario - In the PDF Report, the "Other Credits" were not being added to the Value To Estate total
• Home Equity plans double charing interest
• Unsecured Pensions - funds crystallized into the USP at the beginning of the year should be included in the balanced used to compute the percentage based drawdown amount in the year of crystallization

Version 3.2.64 Release Notes - 2011-07-04

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.2.64

• Immediate Estate Report - fixed issue with debt calculation in printed report
• Money Purchase - fixed error when navigating directly from a newly created employment to it's newly created money purchase plan

Version 3.2.63 Release Notes - 2011-06-21

The RPI preference is now used as the basis for the "Real Money" chart instead of the CPI preference.

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.2.63

• Implemented major performance improvements to plan synchronization process.
• Corrected an issue with Other Trust accounts where contributions to other items were incorrectly fulfilled from trusts where the trust was setup to not allow withdrawals.
• Fixed an issue with plan updates where Whole life policies are dropped from the updated plan.
• Improved handling of life funds payouts display on the cash flow chart.
• Corrected immediate IHT calculation issue for single clients with property scheduled to be purchased in the future.
• Implemented LPI rules.
• Corrected Estate and Immediate Estate report totaling issue.

Version 3.2.58 Release Notes - 2011-05-16

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.2.58

• Fixes issue moving existing stage boundaries.
• Equity Release Plan payments were not correctly designated as co-owned when co-owned.

Version 3.2.57 Release Notes - 2011-05-06

This release includes an update is to the historic data set, which has been updated to include the years 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010.

The Major Loss Event features now use this historic data set to calculate and default the major loss asset allocation percentile for a specified growth rate.
E.g. For a major loss event growth rate of -30%, the asset allocation percentile is set to 4.

Additionally, a new withdrawal limit type allows one to specify the withdrawal limit as the "Max without Tax Liability". This is primarily useful for life funds where one may want to allow ad hoc withdrawals up to the 5% principal limit.

Fixes and Improvements in version 3.2.57

• Fixed alignment of event names at the beginning and end of the timeline.
• The asset allocation overview sometimes shows a blank asset allocation when switching plans or client files.
• Certain Money Purchase and UPS configurations did not properly use yield.
• Money Purchase employer contributions now honor the "Use Base Salary Only for Contribution" checkbox in calculating the employer contribution.

Version 3.2.53 Release Notes - 2011-04-16

There are two ways to use this feature:

From the Chart, Click the "Major Loss" button text next to Simulations. This tab allows you to run a Major Loss simulation in the current plan. Specify the age of primary client when the event will occurr. Click the Settings button to define the nature of the major loss event. Define the length of the Major Loss from 1-5 years, and specify the growth rate and asset allocation percentiles for each year in the event.

To simulate something like 3 year double dip (The following numbers are given as an example)
Year 1 specify -35% and 2%ile
Year 2 specify 20% and 75%ile
Year 3 specify -20% and 11%ile

Select the Event to perform the Required Rate of Return analysis, and click Analyze. The two ? buttons explain the results of the analysis.

Create a what if plan, and go to the timeline screen. Drag the Major Loss event icon on to the timeline. Click the Event Settings at the top of the screen to edit the nature of the major loss event. Default values may be set in the Preferences section. Click Let's See to view the plan with the Major Loss Event. The timing of the event may be changed by clicking Edit Time and dragging the event to a new year.

Other Fixes and Improvements in version 3.2.53

• FinaMetrica import from CSV file now sorts profiles by last name.
• UK Critical Illness Term end year is off by one. The term extended one year longer than needed. Existing plans that were created to working around this issue have automatically been corrected

Version 3.2.51 Release Notes - 2011-04-01

Chancellor's Budget of 23 March 2011 Updates

• Personal allowance increased to £8,105 for 2012/13
• Higher rate threshold reduced to £34,370 for 2012/13
• Increase in EIS income relief rate to 30%.
• ISA contribution limit increased to £10,680 for 2012/13
• CGT allowance increased to £10,600
• Increase in gains qualifying for Entrepreneurs Relief to £10m
• IHT reduced rate of 36% where 10% of Estate is bequeathed to Charity

New Features

• FinaMetrica client risk profiles import tool to facilitate importing existing FinaMetrica client risk profiles into Voyant plans.

Other Fixes and Improvements in version 3.2.51

• Property details screen fixed to show end of year equity values.
• Fixed step up/down of properties to allow a step event in the year of liquidation.
• Fixed an issue with child plans not saving appropriately modifications made to linked debts on insurance products.

Version 3.2.50 Release Notes - 2011-03-19

New Features

We are pleased to announce the availablity of the integration with FinaMetrica's risk profiling system. Please contact us at support@planwithvoyant.co.uk to enable the integration features for your subscription or your trial. You must be a user or trialist of FinaMetrica in order to use the integration features.

See the Voyant UK YouTube channel for an introductory video about the integration features.

To learn more about FinaMetrica's risk profiling system, please checkout www.riskprofiling.com.

The package is free for the remainder of the year for all subscribers who have signed up by June 30th, 2011.

This release also features a complete makeover of the Asset Allocation Overview. The overview includes a new 3D pie chart of the asset allocation in the plan at each event or stage. When using the FinaMetrica risk profile, the asset allocation overview also provides a risk comfort zone comparison between the asset allocation at various points in the plan and the client's risk tolerance comfort zone.

Additionally, one may calculate the required rate of return (RRoR) for the plan from any event in the stage from the overview. An asset allocation overview report features the same 3D pie chart, RRoR from the start of the plan, and FinaMetrica Risk Comfort Zone chart.

One may find the new Asset Allocation Overview screen by clicking on the Overview button beneath "Let's See", and then clicking on Asset Allocation.

Other Fixes and Improvements in version 3.2.50

• CPI/RPI preference has been separated into distinct RPI and CPI plan preferences.
• Fix tax calculations in the year of a BCE 4 event which incurs a lifetime allowance tax charge.
• Contributions to accounts scheduled to continue after the death of all account owners now cease at death of the account owner.
• Allow transfers between Cash and Stock ISAs to be excluded from contribution limit rules.

Version 3.2.48 Release Notes - 2011-03-12

Other Fixes and Improvements in version 3.2.48

• GPP Plans - Corrected configuration of Group Personal Pensions to allow for full income relief through PAYE. Also fixed a contribution limit issue where contributions were made from multiple sources.
• Available Income Limits - Added limit to contributions made from employment income to account for compulsory tax deductions for National Insurance.
• Final Salary - Corrected entry for Final Salary lump sum commutation factor to allow entry of decimal values.
• Enterprise Investment Schemes - Updated income relief rules for Enterprise Investment Schemes and added IHT exclusion rules if funded more than two years prior to mortality.
• Funding item sorting - Improved sorting of expense fulfillment sources to utilize recurring income for both the primary and spouse prior to windfalls and other single year incomes.
• Plan Wizard - Corrected plan update wizard issue related to dropped and duplicated windfall items.
• Debt/Cashflow Chart - Corrected cashflow chart rendering issue regarding the display of incurred debts when used to fulfill a contribution to savings or investments.
• UI Exceptions - Fixed ui exceptions on the insurance beneficiary and tax preferences screens and when generating the Real Money report in certain circumstances.
• Joint Immediate IHT report - Changed labeling of contingency estate distributions for clarity.

Version 3.2.46 Release Notes - 2011-02-25

Finance Act 2011 Updates in version 3.2.46

• Added flexible drawdown rules for individuals with more than £20,000 secured lifetime income. The income threshold is reviewed and inflated by 2.5% (cumulative and compound) every 5 years.
• Added an input to specify the initial maximum allowed drawdown for existing pensions in drawdown.

Other Fixes and Improvements

• The consumer invite url is now visible on the invites screen for consumers who have not yet accepted the invite. Advisers may reference this URL as needed in the event of lost invite emails.

Version 3.2.44 Release Notes - 2011-02-21

New Features

• Added National Insurance Class 4 calculation for Self Employed.
• Added Debt as a cashflow chart item to more clearly identify purchases and expenses fulfilled from debt instead of from savings.

Finance Act 2011 Updates

• Added 3 year carry-over of any unused pension savings allowance. For years prior to the start of the plan, the available carried-over allowances are entered on the Taxes screen.
• New 2011 GAD tables have been included for new drawdown pensions with inceptions dates after 2011 and for use with existing drawdown pensions upon the next review or after the age of 75.
• The maximum drawdowns are currently limited to 120% GAD for drawdown pensions w/ inception dates prior to 2011. With this update, the maximum drawdown is limited to 100% for new drawdown pensions with inception after 2011 and existing drawdown pensions upon the next review.
• The maximum drawdown / GAD limits now evaluated every 3 years for new drawdown pensions and every year for owners over the age of 75 regardless of the inception date.
• The tax on lump sum benefits from drawdown pensions taken at mortality has been increased to 55% (up from now 35%) for new and existing drawdown pensions.
• Removed all of the warnings which might still be in the system related to mandatory annuitisation age 75/77.
• Updated age related personal allowances and income limit.
• Reduced higher income threshold from £38,900 to £35,000


• Coming in the next release - Flexible drawdowns for individuals with a lifetime pension income of at least £20,000.

Other Fixes and Improvements

• Fixed Regular Savings Need Analyzer growth rate issue
• Plan start wizard - Fixed modification exception related to persons age when reentering screen.
• Added version into the title bar and manage plans screen to make it easier to determine which version is currently opened.
• Fixed issue with expenses charts and Excel output where only Basic Expenses were displayed.

Version 3.2.43 Release Notes

New Features

• New "Use Base Salary Only for Contribution %" checkbox on Savings, Investments, and Money Purchase screens allows one to specify that only the base salary should be used to calculate the contribution amount. If selected, then a contribution of 10% from an employment with a £20,000 base salary and £20,000 in Bonus/Commissions will result in a £2,000 contribution rather than a £4,000 contribution.

Fixes and Improvements

• Child Trust Fund - fixed various bugs: could not specify a child cash account to withdraw to, bug preventing contributions
• Fixed bug entering Taxes - Lifetime Allowance
• Allow Cash ISAs to accept contributions from child 16 or older instead of 18
• Fixed bug when Updating/Promoting a what-if plan to a new base plan
• Fixed cashflow chart bug related to insurance payouts

Version 3.2.41 Release Notes

This is a bug fix release.

• Fixed "problem synchronizing files" error received by @Home users that did not yet have a client file.
• Updated 2011 personal allowance phase-out threshold to 100,0000
• Fixed Legacy Expense Wizard
• Fixed various issues with Debt report - Excel report produced error when Debts were 0. Word and PDF reports produced error when Debts chart had not run before generating report. Debt names with '&' caused errors.
• Fixed problem with Protection report including bonuses when calculating employment linked protection policy benefit amount.

Version 3.2.38 Release Notes - 21/01/2011

New Features

• Added support for Potentially Exempt Transfers prior to the start of the plan. Previous PETs are entered on the taxes screen.
• Implemented Benefit Crystallisation Event #4 rules for Unsecured Pensions at annuitisation or at age 75 if annuitisation is not applied. Note: this calculation requires entry of the initial USP balance and the system will prompt for this information upon opening previously saved plans.
• Debt payoff details now include a preferred payoff source.

Other fixes and improvements in Version 3.2.38

• Capital Losses Carry-over - Corrected handling for losses taken in the first year of the plan.
• State pensions - Removed legacy 5 year deferral limit.
• Currency and percent input fields - Improved handling for 'cleared' entries. Values will now consistently revert to defaults. In child plans, clearing a field will cause the value to revert to the value for the same item in the base plan (if the base plan contains the item). For items the base plan or original items in child plans, clearing a field will cause the value to revert to the item's default value or preference value if applicable.
• Plan Update - Fixed issue related to State Pension items being dropped during an update when already receiving benefits is selected.
• Savings and Investments - Fixed draw down issue when switching to withdrawal limits
• Detailed Debt Report - Added data to the detailed Debts report, previously, this report only had the Debts chart.
• Plan Overview Report - Removed Asset Allocation for accounts set to not utilise the asset allocation entries.
• Plan Overview Report - Corrected display of Critical Illness benefit amount.

Version 3.2.34 Release Notes

New Features

• Added support for Discounted Gift Trusts
• Updated 2011/12 national insurance threshold and upper earnings limit to 7,228 (139 weekly) and 42,484 (817 weekly)

Other fixes and improvements in Version 3.2.34

• Fixed - Money Purchase - Contributions without supporting income will continue after crystallization, annutization and owner death
• Update to reports to allow for full pages of disclosures in the front and back, fixed issue with word reports having 1 blank page
• Updated Plan Overview Reports to include more detailed information such as growth rates, asset allocations, etc
• Phased crystallization of Money Purchase - fixed "As Needed" withdrawals
• Phased crystallization of Money Purchase - fixed warning for USP ownership age
• Fixed Joint Immediate IHT report output
• Corrected annuity validation to prevent purchase after mortality

Version 3.2.31 Release Notes

New Features - Revised Money Purchase Drawdown and Expanded USP Income

• Phased Money Purchase Drawdowns
• Ability to Defer, Increase and Decrease USP Income
• Flexible New USP Income Options
• Fully Configurable USP Growth Rates, Asset Allocations and Fees

Note: While most older plans will translate to the new approach without issues, plans having Money Purchase plans with multiple drawdowns using the fixed income option should be reviewed to confirm that the new USP income option is consistent with the plan intent.

For usage examples and more information regarding these changes, please see the new Money Purchase / USP tip page.

Other fixes and improvements in Version 3.2.31

• Life Funds now allow ad hoc, as-needed withdrawals.
• Expenses with preferred payment source settings now use credits created from the preferred payment source via scheduled withdrawals as well as the direct withdrawal from the preferred payment source. This is useful in cases where withdrawals are limited or controlled via scheduled drawdowns.
• Investment return needs analysis fix related to an issue with reinvested yield within Life Funds.
• Corrected handling of estate distributions to people outside of the plan to ensure that these funds are never available within the plan.
• Improved employee benefit Term Insurance policies to use to exclude bonus and commissions from the salary basis.
• Improved handling of unsecured debts at mortality to allow utilization of all estate funds for debt payment.
• Enhanced the Plan Update Wizard to preserve employment linked Money Purchase and Final Salary pensions. Also added flexibility for specifying a previous date during plan updates.
• Improved labeling of immediate IHT reports for clarity.

Version 3.2.30 Release Notes

Fixes and improvements in Version 3.2.30

• Update to reports to allow for full pages of disclosures in the front and back
• Immediate IHT - fix for carry over allowance to spouse when mortality in the same year.
• Cash ISAs are now only included in Asset Allocation Overview when cash accounts option is selected
• Grandchild was erroneously being assigned a gender in the reports

Version 3.2.29 Release Notes

New Features

• Immediate estate and IHT summaries have been added as tabs on the Legacy Overview screen and as options for paper reports.
• Quickly illustrate early mortality in What-If plans by simply dragging mortality events to the timeline. The system will replace existing mortality events with placeholder events for plan consistency.

Fixes and improvements in Version 3.2.29

• Improved final salary over lifetime allowance tax computation to tax lump sum overage and regular income overage at 55% and 25% respectively.
• Corrected issue related to estate distributions to people outside of the plan.
• Corrected issue with entering cash account sweep instructions in What-If plans.
• Fixed Excel report generation error for plans without any entered or generated expenses

Version 3.2.28 Release Notes

New Features

• Spending and sustainable loss analyser - The Needs Analyser for required savings and required investment returns now calculate the additional spending or investment loss sustainable in a plan.

Fixes and improvements in Version 3.2.28

• Fixed issue with plans switching from market assumptions without yield data to assumptions with yield data.
• Improved market assumptions input to allow input of zero for average and standard deviation assumptions for cash.
• Improved visibility of the expenses line on the cash flow chart.
• Change unsecured pension minimum age error to a warning to allow for input of a dependant's pension.
• Corrected an issue with the overview panel upon deletion of a person and the person's associated items in a what-if plan.
• Fixed issue with deletion of investment one-time contributions in child what-if plan.

Version 3.2.27 Release Notes

New Features

• Family Income Benefit protection policies are now modeled and may be added within the "Term/Endowment" section by selecting the benefit type of "Regular Income
• The forced annuitisation rules for money purchase and unsecured pensions at age 77 have been relaxed to allow for continued USP income after age 77 in anticipation of drawdown rule changes in 2011. Unsecured pensions in drawdown after the age of 77 are limited by the calculations to 90% of max GAD in accordance with current alternatively secured pension limits.

Fixes and improvements in Version 3.2.27

• Updated Real Money Reports to include Assets (by Type), Taxes (Simple) and Taxes (Detailed) images in word and velocity reports
• Added a setting for Savings and Investments used to model fixed interest products. Found in the "Growth" section of the Savings and Investment screens, the new setting prevents the performance slider from modifying the fixed growth rate when running a performance simulation.
• Improved the Need Analyser to calculated a negative value for the required return rate and required savings to illustrate sustainable level of losses and gifting or spending which will still result in a successful plan.
• Excluded annuity purchases from expenses charts.
• Fixed the incorrect display of the estate values for life funds not held in trusts.
• Corrected report generation issue with writing reports to a base directory containing & characters.

Version 3.2.22 Release Notes

New Features

• Person deletion - Added the ability to delete people, excluding the primary person, from any plan.
• Capital Losses - Carried over capital losses may now be entered at the beginning of the plan on the Taxes screen and are tracked throughout the plan.
• Chart Zoom/Copy Controls - The interactive charts have been enhanced to include a tool bar for zooming (i.e. changing the scale of the y-axis) and copying the current chart to the clipboard. The copy functionality is especially useful for recording simulation results in client reports and presentations. To access the chart controls, click in the chart area to activate the info panel in any year and then click "Chart Controls".

Fixes and improvements in Version 3.2.22

• Income Protection - Improved handling of benefit and premium timing related to the maximum benefit age and benefit waiting period entries. Premium expenses now end at the maximum benefit age regardless of the specified timeline or linked income timeline. The waiting period, entered in months, is rounded to the nearest year to determine the start year of benefits following a disability event. In addition, the handling of coverage step up/down and inflation has also been improved.
• Recurring Expenses - Expenses may now be configured with a recurrence interval during the scheduled timeline. This allows for easier modeling of periodic expenses such as vehicle purchases and perhaps travel.
• Final Salary - Added disability handling to eliminate individual final salary contributions during periods of disability.
• Property - Added a new preference value for property appreciation/depreciation separate from the default inflation preference.

Version 3.2.20 Release Notes

Also, Voyant has added support for separately specifying dividend and interest yield for each asset class in the Market Assumptions. This change allows Voytant to more precisely calculate the tax implications of growth in Unwrapped Investments. For each asset class in the Market Assumptions, users may specify the average dividend or interest yield produced by the asset class. The Cash asset class is now considered to produce 100% interest yeild.

Checkout the Preferences -> Market Assumptions section to see how this data can be added.

Rebrand customers should contact support if you would like to modify your custom Market Assumptions to include the specification of this data.

Additionally, yield may now be NOT reinvested for all accounts types excluding Life Funds.

New Features

• Added support for dividend and interest yield values in market assumptions
• New button on preferences screen to revert system preferences to configuration defaults

Fixes and improvements in Version 3.2.20

• Account Details Report failing if no growth rate set
• Venture Capital Trusts and other items may now elect to not reinvest yield.

Version 3.2.19 Release Notes

New Features

• For annuitisation, the expected Annuity Rate may now be entered directly as opposed to being derived internally using an assumed interest rate. This allows for more precise modeling of annuities by specific providers and/or consideration of the health of the annuitants.
• Final Salary Individual Contributions may now be specified for employment linked active final salary plans.
• Expenses may now be tagged as tax deductable and are accounted for during the end of year tax assessment step.

Fixes and improvements in Version 3.2.19

• Joint-Life Annutisation w/ Survivorship - corrected the internal calculation of the annuity rate for joint-life annuitants with large age differences.
• Capital Gains Tax Calculation - changed the income basis used in the dual tax rate capital gains calculation to include gross dividends.
• Reports - corrected categorisation of Rebate-Only pensions and miscellaneous formatting issues.

Version 3.2.18 Release Notes

Fixes and improvements in Version 3.2.18

• Money Purchase Pensions - corrected forced crystallisation at age 75 to use drawdown details if entered.
• Other Income IHT - corrected handling of unlinked "other income" at mortality and added additional survivorship option allowing the choice of continuation or ending at mortality.
• Reports - added an Excel version of the 'Taxes' report.
• Update/Promote Plan Wizard - fixed issue with What-If plan promotion.
• National Insurance - changed the assumption for the 2011/12 value of the income threshold from being fixed at 2010 levels to now inflate at the default rate.

Version 3.2.17 Release Notes

New Features

• Individual plans can now be locked by advisers to prevent accidental modification by clients. This feature is found on the plan management screen within the Adviser application.

Other fixes and improvements in Version 3.2.17

• Transfers from taxable unwrapped accounts to cash accounts now incur capital gains.
• Plan update - the remaining durations of protection policies are now updated during the plan update process.
• Insurance information added to report plan overview section.

Version 3.2.15 Release Notes

New Features

• Added an application system preference setting to set the behavior of performance slider range for investments - choose between a fixed range of 0% to 12 % or a floating range of +/- 6% from the deterministic growth rate specified for each investment. This preference can be found in the "Application" settings section of the Preferences->System Preferences screen.

Taxation and Calculation Improvements

• National Insurance budget 2010 updates to earning thresholds and rates.
• Capital gains dual rate tax calculations announced in the 2010 budget have been adjusted to use the income net of the income tax personal allowance as the basis for the dual rate capital gains tax calculation.
• Reinvested yield deposits for unwrapped investments have been corrected to apply to the cost basis sub-account.
• Equity Release Plan credits are now deposited into savings regardless of the "Transfer Excess" setting - similar to windfalls and insurance credits.
• IHT calculations for Life Funds corrected for funds not held in trust. Additional improvements made for display of IHT handling of joint Life Funds.

Other fixes and improvements in Version 3.2.15

• Money Purchase Pensions - Improved contribution timeline handling to allow for contribution timing independent from linked employment timing. Also one-off contributions funding source now include excess credits.
• Plan Overview Report - Improved to detail Savings, Investments, and Pensions as separate categories similar to the Overview screen with Voyant Adviser.
• Allow user selection of tax deducted at source setting for current accounts
• Cash flow chart now displays end of year property values.
• Timeline - Modified to allow deletion of retirement events and improved stage editing error handling.
• Taxes info screen corrected to show the additional tax due to phased out income relief included in the total tax value.
• Fixed report creation failure due to '&' characters in the account name.

Version 3.2.13 Release Notes

This update includes one fix to the ordering of accounts used to fulfill co-owned expenses to use

For example, previously, if an expense was owned by both Bob and Alice, the following is the order of accounts that would be used to fulfill the expense, provided the plan was configured to liquidate taxable accounts before tax free accounts.
Bob and Alice's Joint Savings Account
Bob's Savings Account
Bob's ISA
Alice's Savings Account
Alice's ISA

The ordering was corrected to make sure the taxable accounts of all co-owners are used before tax free accounts are used. The ordering for the example is now:
Bob and Alice's Joint Savings Account
Bob's Savings Account
Alice's Savings Account
Bob's ISA
Alice's ISA

The other major change in this release is to the "Performance" slider. For accounts using asset allocation, the very top and bottom of the slider represents 1 standard deviation change up or down respectively from the 50 percentile return of an asset allocation. For accounts grown using a hand entered growth rate, or the default growth rate, each tick on the slider now represents a +/- .5% change in the specified growth rate. Before, the tick represent an exact growth rate from 0-12%.

For example, previously, with the slider in the middle, all accounts not using asset allocation would use a growth rate of 6%. Now, these asset allocations will use the growth specified from the account screen. With the slider at the very top, and account with a specified growth rate of 8%, will return 14%. With the slider at the very bottom, the account will return 2%. The caveat is that accounts with 100% Cash allocation, or savings account composed will return a minimum return of 0%. Hence, if an account is set with a growth rate of 3%, then the very bottom of the slider will use a return 0% rather than -3%, if the account is a savings account or uses a 100% Cash allocation.

New Features

• Tax deducted at source now an option for current accounts
• Re-investment of yield on ISAs is now optional

Other fixes and improvements in Version 3.2.13

• Performance slider changed to use +/- X% instead of 0-12% for asset grown using an entered growth rate
• Fixed ordering of accounts used to fulfill co-owned expenses
• Reports written to a windows network share do not open.
• Change detection on the Overview Screen is smarter.
• Formattting of long plan names in word reports has been improved
• Real Money data for Liquid Assets, Cash Flow and Expenses added to excel spreadsheet
• An income relief rounding issue
• Plans with 10 years or less could not create a word report
• Various validation improvements.
• When using Voyant offline, show the number of days remaining until the user must login online again.

Version 3.2.10 Release Notes

Budget 2010 Updates

• Personal Income Tax Allowance - Increased to £7,475 for tax year 2011/2012.
• Capital gains - Added higher rate of 28% for gains over the higher rate income threshold.
• Entrepreneur's Relief - Added support for entrepreneur's relief on capital gains from properties with the lifetime limit of £5 million.
• Inheritance Tax Nil Rate Band - The nil rate band has been changed to remain fixed at £325,000 for the next 5 years and then will increase at a rate of 2.5% thereafter.
• Enforced Annuitisation - The age of enforced annuitisation has been increased to age 77. The latest crystallization age for funds held in a money purchase pension remains at age 75.
• State Pension Escalation - State Pensions are now linked to the Nation Average Earning (NAE) growth rate found on the preferences screen.

Additions and improvements in Version 3.2.10

• Microsoft Word reports are now available from the reports creation menu.
• A new Assets chart categorises assets as Savings, Investments, and Pensions rather than Taxable, Tax Deferred, Tax Free.
• Improved quick event entry to accept specific year input as an alternative to the event owner age.

Version 3.2.9 Release Notes

Additions and improvements in Version 3.2.9

• Implemented tax credit rules for legacy gifts to charity.
• Fixed filtering of source accounts for legacy gifts to people outside of plan to be limited to only accounts owned at least partially by the giver.
• Added client file password protection to allow client files to be protected from other (non-HOME) users that have access rights through the subscription to the client record.
• Fixed liquidation order settings which incorrectly prioritized Cash ISAs.
• Improved misc model validation and system warning messages.

Version 3.2.7 Release Notes

Additions and improvements in Version 3.2.7

• Potentially Exempt Transfers - Added support for future potentially exempt transfers. See "Legacy Expense" screens to enter potentially exempt transfers.
• IHT Carryover - IHT carryover's from previous spouses may now be entered on the Taxes screens for each individual in the plan.
• Reports - Miscellaneous formatting improvements to Excel reports.

Version 3.2.0 Release Notes

New Estate Distributions and Inheritance Tax Calculations !!

Features:

• Beneficiary designation for Protection Policies and Life Funds including dependants, charities, or others outside of the plan
• Held In-Trust options for life and endowment policies
• Joint-tenancy and Tenants in Common rights of ownership designations for real property
• Estate distribution plan with provisions for charitable giving and distributions external to the plan individuals
• Detailed estate distribution and inheritance tax overview screen and report options

NOTE: For existing client plans, please review the default beneficiary distribution and ownership settings for insurance, life funds, and real property to ensure these match the plan intent.
In particular, please review real property ownership settings as individually owned properties are now liquidated for estate distribution at mortality.

Other fixes and improvements in Version 3.2.0

• Added dedicated Taxes chart and report option.
• Added Critical Illness and Disability events for detailed planning for these events outside of simulations.
• Endowment Policy validation corrected to allow payout in the first year of the plan.
• Protection and Endowment policies improved to ensure that payouts/benefits change with step changes to linked employments.
• Fixed Money Purchase step details validation error.
• Improved Consumer wizards

Version 3.1.11 Release Notes

New features and improvements in Version 3.1.11

• Investment Return need analysis - determines the investment return required to meet all shortfalls after a specified plan date.
• Annual Savings need analysis - determines the additional annual savings required to meet plan shortfalls.
• New Offshore Investment account type - allows for user specified gains taxation rules for investments outside of the UK tax jurisdiction.
• Long term care simulation - improved to allow for simulation of long term until mortality.
• Improvements to plan promotion/update and other wizards.

Version 3.1.8 Release Notes

Fixes and improvements in Version 3.1.8

• Reports - Added Excel output of report data.
• Term Life Insurance - Fixed salary multiplier input field of term life insurance to allow decimal values.
• Asset Liquidation - For more intuitive cash flow chart, asset liquidation credits are now transferred to cash after expense fulfillment.

Version 3.1.6 Release Notes

Fixes and improvements in Version 3.1.6

• Pension contribution limits - Corrected contribution limits for individuals without employment income.
• Income protection simulation - Fixed display of insurance categories in the detailed view of the cash flow chart.
• Plan overview report - removed annuity purchase expenses from the overview.
• Miscellaneous formatting improvements to reports.

Version 3.1.5 Release Notes

Fixes and improvements in Version 3.1.5

• Improve error message if report output folder can not be created.
• Endowment Policies - fix "Do Not Grow" maturity value setting
• Monte Carlo - fix error for certain types of Market Assumptions
• Prevent error for existing reverse mortgage when no credit limit is specified
• Reports - Add a "Default Assumptions" report
• Miscellaneous minor chart bug fixes

Version 3.1.4 Release Notes

Fixes and improvements in Version 3.1.4

• Investments - added validation for withdrawal limit percent
• Property - fixed validation to allow property liquidation at the start of the plan when liquidate at age is selected
• Debt payments, and asset/investment purchases now have higher priority than basic expenses when fulfilling expenses.
• Improved stage and event validation methods
• Improve Life Fund Liquidation and added a new "Allow Tax Optimazation Strategy" checkbox. With this checked, a segmented life fund will use partial encashments in order to reduce the taxes incurred when withdrawals are made.
• Money Purchase and Unsecured Pension annuitization assumed interest rate now uses the default preference value

Version 3.1.3 Release Notes

Fixes and improvements in Version 3.1.3

• Debts - improved methods for controlling debt payments and payoff
• Added convenience selection for interest only.
• Added debt payoff selection in details section of the debt screen to force a payoff at a specific event.
• Improved handling of debt payment step up/down events.
• Payment escalation as well as distinct steps in payments are now supported.
• Tax brackets and allowance assumptions - Per the pre-budget 2010 report, the following brackets and allowances have been fixed at 2009/2010 levels for the 2010/2011 tax year.
• 20% tax band top end threshold
• Standard and age related personal allowance
• Age related personal allowance income limits
• National insurance earning threshold and limit
• Pension lifetime allowance. Additionally, per user request, the lifetime allowance has been fixed at £1,800,000 until further HMRC projections are provided.
• Asset Liquidation - Full asset liquidation credits are now displayed in the cash flow chart.
• Chart Scale/Zooming Control - To change the scale and zoom in on any chart, click the left mouse button in the numeric label area of the chart's y-axis.

Version 3.1.1 Release Notes

Fixes and improvements in Version 3.1.1

• Final Salary - improved UI and model for handling of deferred pension schemes.
• State Pension - clarified data entry for state pensions currently in payment.
• Client search and delete - this feature is now available to advisors or subscription owners through the Voyant web site.
• Open client dialog now includes a recent clients tab for more efficient client record access.
• Improved online/offline detection and notification.
• Added additional user role types for client and user access control within a subscription.

Version 3.0.21 Release Notes

Complete list of bug fixes and improvements in Version 3.0.21

• National Insurance - corrected calculation to eliminate NI tax for persons over the state retirement age.
• Initial Tax Expense and Rebates - corrected issue where first year tax or rebate was not included in What-If plans.
• Debt Payments - added handling for preferred funding items as with other expenses.
• Endowment Policies - corrected endowment payout in What-If plans.
• Report Timeline Chart - changed the timeline to reflect the primary person's age instead of the year.
• Mortality Events - improved handling of mortality events to allow creation for any person in the plan and to exist outside of the planning timeline.
• Synchronization - improved fault tolerance of sync operations during application shutdown.

Version 3.0.19 Release Notes

This release includes one new feature requested by a number of our advisers, a liquid assets chart., which is essentially the assets chart, excluding all property (non-liquid assets). A liquid assets report is also available as a separate report.

Complete list of bug fixes and improvements in Version 3.0.19

• Final Salary - correct calculation for linked income with fewer than 5 years remaining.
• Report Overview - fixed issue with pension balance in overview.
• Charts and Reports - added liquid assets chart.
• Monte Carlo - improved random returns generator to use alternate method if market correlation matrix is not positive definite.
• Web Services - NTLM Authenticated Proxy Support

Version 3.0.18 Release Notes

Tax Deducted at Source improvements - Taxes deducted at the source from taxable interest bearing accounts are now shown in the cash flow charts as expenses "From Savings". Additional "Gross" and "Net" descriptions have been added to the growth rate, dividend yield rate, and interest yield rate inputs on the Savings and Investments screens to clarify the input as gross or net of the basic tax rate.

Annuity and Unsecured Pension PAYE - Taxes on income from annuity and unsecured pension payments were previously calculated at the end of the planning year and added as an expense when needed to the following year. With this release, annuity and unsecured pension payments are now subject to PAYE tax withholdings. These taxes are created and fulfilled directly from the payment at the beginning of the planning year and are rolled into the expenses value shown in the cash flow chart. Additionally, the PAYE taxes are itemized in the detailed expense panel.

Improved handling of Lump Sum Credits - Lump sum pension credits and windfalls are now transferred to cash accounts after expense fulfillment. This improves the cashflow chart in that it eliminates the misleading "spikes" in the chart caused by displaying credits which were not previously available to fulfill expenses.

Real Money Chart View - An additional option has been added to display the charts in the context of real money where all values have been adjusted by the RPI. This new feature is enabled by clicking the "Real Money" button at the bottom of the chart / "Let's See" view.

Complete list of other issues and improvements in Version 3.0.18

• Added compression to web service requests to improve client record synchronization performance.
• Removed the ability to delete the default cash accounts. These are required by the system.
• Added Charitable Trust investment type and taxation rules.

Version 3.0.17 Release Notes

This release contains significant improvements to the distribution of cash inflows from lump sum payouts and liquidated assets.

New Dedicated Cash Accounts to Receive Excess Cash Inflows - Funds from lump sum cash inflows (e.g. liquidated assets, lump sum payouts from pensions and insurance policies) and yearly excess income (when applicable), which were previously deposited into a single default cash account (current or savings) will instead be distributed into new dedicated cash accounts. Dedicated cash accounts will be created by the software for each person in a plan. Funds will be deposited into these dedicated accounts based on ownership of the cash inflow.

A new sweep account feature has been added to enable the regular transfer of funds from dedicated cash accounts into any range of investments, savings and pensions.

Taxable and Tax Free accounts may now specify a draw down strategy in addition to the previously allowed withdrawal limit settings.

Noteworthy Calculation Changes

• Allow contributions to be made before expenses are paid.
• Allow contributions to non-taxable accounts to come from taxable accounts.

Complete list of issues fixed in Version 3.0.17

• Fixed UI exception when changing owners of a term life insurance.
• Report generation errors encountered when charts fail to render

Version 3.0.16 Release Notes

This release adds some minor enhancements and fixes some minor issues with Money Purchase and Final Salary items.

Transfers can now be made from other accounts to Money Purchase Pension accounts. To transfer from an account into a Money Purchase, go to the source account, expand the Transfers / One-time Contributions Advanced section, pick the "Transfer to" and select the desired Money Purchase acccount.

For Final Salary items, an actuarial reduction has been added to reduce the amount of the final salary for every year the final salary is taken before the normal retirement age.

This release also fixes a bug in the Voyant Consumer beta version that prevented reports from being created.

Noteworthy Calculation Changes

• Money Purchase - Allow transfers in from other credit reserves
• Final Salary - add actuarial reduction if taken prior to the normal retirement age

Complete list of issues fixed in Version 3.0.16

• File Cannot Be Saved - In cases where file cannot be saved to server, automatically prompt user to save file locally
• Final Salary - add actuarial reduction if taken prior to the normal retirement age
• Money Purchase - Allow transfers in from other credit reserves
• Report generation fails for home users
• Company Info not available in Reports

Version 3.0.15 Release Notes

This release fixes a bug in Java that prevented older Mac computers from being able to login from the applet or the desktop application.

Noteworthy Calculation Changes

Complete list of issues fixed in Version 3.0.15

• An SSL problem with Java 5 prevents Mac OS X Tiger and Leopard users with Java 5 from connecting to the Voyant server.

Version 3.0.14 Release Notes

This release fixes an issue in the expense report where the expense total was double the actual total expenses.

Noteworthy Calculation Changes

Complete list of issues fixed in Version 3.0.14

• Expense Report total expenses is wrong

Version 3.0.13 Release Notes

We've corrected the issue where expenses linked to a property with a single owner were dropped from the plan after the owner's death even though the property had not been liquidated.

Other Trusts on both savings and investments screens will no longer fulfill expenses any expense as needed. Instead, to fulfill expenses with money in "Other Trusts", one must use either the "Draw Down Strategy" section or specify the trust as the "Expense Payment Source" for a specific expense.

Noteworthy Calculation Changes

• Other trusts no longer pay for any expense as needed
• 2010 ISA contribution limits updated to legislated value of £10,200
• Property/Expenses - Expenses linked to a home with a single owner are no longer dropped from a plan after the owner's death

Complete list of issues fixed in Version 3.0.13

• 2010 ISA contribution limits updated to legislated value of �10,200
• Other trusts no longer pay for any expense as needed
• Reports: re-ordered Plan Overview page to show Incomes-Expenses, Assets- Liabilities, etc
• Money Purchase Annuitization - added validation for beneficiary w/ joint life annuitization and corrected rendering of people in the beneficiary list.
• Property/Expenses - Expenses linked to a home with a single owner are no longer dropped from a plan after the owner's death
• Income Protection Simulation - Simulation does not show benefits from employment linked "in service" policies

Version 3.0.12 Release Notes

This release includes some minor bug fixes.

Noteworthy Calculation Changes

• Life funds allow more than one owner

Complete list of issues fixed in Version 3.0.12

• Life funds allow more than one owner
• Release notes view in browser button fixed
• Release notes only shown first time Voyant is launched after an update

Version 3.0.10 Release Notes

This release includes the addition of a feature highly requested by UK Advisors; the ability to link the payout of any life insurance policy to the payoff of a debt or set of debts. In addition to the debt payoff, the modelling of endowment life policies has been added as well. Report enhancements continue to be added as well.

To link a debt payoff to a term life insurance policy

1. Go to the newly named "Term & Endowment" screen located under "Protection".
2. Enter the basic data of a normal life insurance policy
3. Expand the details section titled "Link Insurance Payout to Debt Payoff"
4. Click the "Add" button in the details section in order to select a debt from the plan to link to the insurance payout. You may add as many debts as desired to the insurance. The debt must however already be added to the plan before you may use the link debt details section to link it to the insurance.

To model an endowment life policy:

1. Go to the newly named "Term & Endowment" screen located under "Protection".
2. Enter the basic data of a normal life insurance policy
3. Expand the details section titled "Payout At End of Term (Maturity)"
4. Select the "Receive Payout at end of term (Policy Maturity)" checkbox
5. Enter a value for the "Current Maturity Value"
   The value entered here will depend on how you want to model the growth of the endowment.
   • If you want to simply enter the estimated value at maturity as a future value, then enter that amount, and leave the "Do Not Grow Maturity Value" option selected.
   • If you want to model the growth of the maturity value from start to payout, then enter the starting value for the maturity value, and then select either "Grow Maturity Value Annually By" to grow the maturity value annually by an entered growth rate, or "Grow Maturity Value Annually using Asset Allocation" to grow the maturity value annually by a selected asset allocation.

Noteworthy Calculation Changes

• Life insurance payouts may now be directly tied to the payoff of debts
• Support for endowment life policies

Complete list of issues fixed in Version 3.0.10

• Added "What's in this release" dialog to show these release notes
• Allow Life Insurance policies to be linked to debts
• Add support for modelling endowment life policies
• Report Redesign, added Debts detailed and Expenses charts
• Added insurance payouts to Cashflow details
• Added workaround for java user.home directory bug on windows systems using Citrix
• Report files generated on Mac OS are put in wrong location
• Plan Preferences Savings Order and Liquidation Order preferences do not persist after being applied on preferences screen
• Life funds only allow one owner
• Client Save should write to local DB regardless of "enableOfflineMode" setting
• Continued report design enhancements.
• The Personal Data and Plan Overview sections are no longer required when generating a report

Version 3.0.8 Release Notes

This release fixes a number of behind the scenes bugs as well as a few showstoppers. Additionally, a number of improvements to reports styling have been added.

Noteworthy Calculation Changes

• Percentage of Income contributions now work correctly for Savings and Investment items

Complete list of issues fixed in Version 3.0.8

• Plan cannot be saved with a british pound symbol (£) or euro symbol (€) in the name of the plan or any item in the plan.
• Percentage of Income contribution calculation for Savings and Investments items is not correct
• Report design enhancements.

Version 3.0.7 Release Notes

A few of the most noteworthy changes in this release include the addition of the Net Worth Chart to reports, and the addition of a non-reinvested Yield category to the charts.

Complete list of issues fixed in Version 3.0.7

• Add "Reset to Default" button to Asset Allocation details section to allow user to reset the allocation to the plan's default asset allocation.
• Add sort button to ledger to allow items to be sorted by name, value, or order entered.
• Report Redesign, added Net Worth Chart, and assets to Overview Page
• Fix DOUBLE-CLICK client save issue.... created multiple duplicate client records
• Fix error using asset allocation "Select Optimal" button
• Fixed offline mode with mixed casing of the username
• Invited home user is not linked to advisor who invited