You will find the Revised Plan Charges step in the following review sections:
- Review of Your Existing Investments
- Review of Your Existing Pensions
- Review of Your Existing Retirement Income Plans
When combined with the Current Plan Charges step, this step has been designed to allow you to provide the client with a clear "before" and "after" view of the charges of an existing plan in instances where a recommendation is being made that could result in a change to the plan's percentage or monetary charge. For example, following a change to the plan's investment strategy or adviser charge, or a new contribution being made to, or withdrawal being taken from the plan.
It is an optional step, but when completed, a table providing a 'Summary of revised plan charges' will be included in the review section of your report, which when compared with the 'Summary of current plan charges' table (generated by the Current Plan Charges step) above it, will clearly demonstrate what impact the recommendation will have on the plan's charges moving forward.
The step has been designed to outline the charges clearly and concisely, and in a 'MiFID II-friendly' format that the client can still easily understand. Within Genovo, plan charges are split into four categories:
- Product
- Platform
- Adviser
- Investment Management
It is anticipated that these four categories will accommodate all plan charges. You should include the combined total of all investment-related charges in the 'Investment Management' field. This could include, amongst others, the AMC / TER / OCF, as well as any additional transaction or DFM / DIM charges. If you wish to provide a granular break down of the investment-related charges that make up the 'Investment Management' charge, this can be achieved within the revised investment strategy you create for the plan in the Recommended Investment Strategy section.
The charges can be entered as a percentage or monetary value. If you enter a percentage charge, the equivalent monetary charge will be automatically calculated for you. However, this can be overwritten if required (e.g. it does not match the figure included in the provider's literature due to differences in calculation methods). The combined total of the plan's charges is also automatically calculated for you.
Initial one-off charges
In instances where the recommendation being made may also give rise to initial one-off charges being applied to the existing plan (e.g a top-up), additional fields will also be included in the window. However, if you do not complete any of these fields, no reference to initial charges will be included in your report.
Other charges information
Any further information regarding the revised charges of the plan(s), or additional charges that cannot be accommodated within one of the four charges categories can be included in the text box at the bottom of the step.
Copy across current plan charges
In all likelihood, the revised plan charges wont be too different to the plan's current plan charges. Therefore, to save time re-keying the charges again, you can use the 'Copy across current plan charges' icon to copy a plan's charges from the Current Plan Charges step into the Revised Plan Charges step.
Having copied the charges across, you can then update any % charges and the monetary charges will automatically update to reflect the new % charge, as well as an additional monies being invested or withdrawn from the plan.
Optional step
There may be instances where you do not think it is necessary to provide the client with a "before and after" view of their plan's charges because you are only recommending a minor change e.g. you're recommending a small increase / decrease to the amount being contributed to / withdrawn from the plan. As previously mentioned, this step is optional. If you do not complete it, the 'Summary of Revised Plan Charges' subsection wont be included in your report.
Consolidated Plan Charges *STANDALONE ALTERNATIVE* section
If you'd prefer that the charges information for all of the plans you've included in the review and recommendation was consolidated within one section, you'll find further instruction on how to achieve this here.