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Initial Setup

Overview: The “Financial Framework” provides a mechanism by which users can allocate all available “Investable Cash Flow” across different investment accounts. The following accounts are currently supported by Vassant: Brokerage, Roth IRA, Traditional IRA, HSA, and Traditional 401(K). By default, the “Financial Framework” is a model that spans a full calendar year (January 1st through December 31st) that repeats infinitely until changed or cancelled. The objective of the framework is to create a recurring yearly model which allocates “Investable Cash Flow,” and then track this allocation incrementally on the “Allocations” dashboard. If a user joins mid-year (June - December, for example), the framework is implemented for the current calendar year with no progress documented yet for the months backdated to January; the model refreshes for the full calendar year in the following year.

  • Investable Cash Flow: The budget model creates an “Investable Cash Flow” value that will be used as input for the “Financial Framework” in the Allocations sub-tab. Access to the “Financial Framework” is only enabled after the creation of a budget model.

  • Note: The workflow currently allocates all capital in post-tax dollars for seamlessness. However, for specific pre-tax contribution accounts such as HSAs and 401(K)s, take-home pay is impacted differently in reality than suggested by allocations made in the Vassant platform. Therefore, if you create allocations to pre-tax contribution accounts, you will actually be allocating less take-home pay than suggested by the platform. Please create estimations for this discrepancy on your own time, given your personal effective and marginal tax rate.

Financial Framework Workflow

  • Starting & Saving Progress: To begin the “Financial Framework,” users must press the “Create Financial Framework” button on the blank state screen. At any time during the workflow, users may save their current progress by pressing the bookmark icon at the top right of the page. After saving progress, a user may come back at any point, starting at the page the bookmark was originally pressed with previous progress automatically loaded. Users may exit by pressing the “X” icon at the top right of the page.

  • Organization: At the top of the “Financial Framework” is a progress bar indicating the percent completion. Underneath the progress bar is the current remaining amount of “Investable Cash Flow” dollars yet to be deployed in the workflow. This value is dynamic and changes as capital is allocated towards the various accounts presented.

    • If the user attempts to deploy all “Investable Cash Flow” at any point before completing their full financial framework (as indicated by desired preferences for account types, for example), a warning notification will be presented. If the user continues through this warning, the workflow will skip any remaining accounts indicated by preference earlier, and the user is presented with the final “Financial Framework” overview.

  • Investment Account Selection: During investment account selection, Vassant currently supports modelling of “Retirement” accounts (Roth IRA, Traditional IRA, Traditional 401K), “Flexibility” accounts (Brokerage), and “Health” accounts (HSA).

    • 2 Different Paths: To start, users will be presented an option to determine how accounts will be selected: on your own (“Let me choose”) or with extra information through example contribution profiles (“Explore Illustrative Profiles”). If the user chooses “Let me choose,” they will be prompted to order the accounts based on the account name (“Brokerage,” “HSA,” “Roth IRA,” etc.). If the user chooses “Explore Illustrative Profiles,” they will be prompted to order investment preferences based on long-term investment goals, which align to specific accounts, rather than the specific account types themselves. Example user profiles are shown in this mode to help illustrate the use cases of different investment accounts. In this mode, “Retirement” aligns with retirement accounts, such as Roth IRA, Traditional IRA, and Traditional 401(K), “Flexibility” aligns with a Brokerage account, and “Health” aligns with HSA accounts. If “Retirement” is moved into the “Interested” category in the “Explore Illustrative Profiles” workflow, a similar ranking page will eventually be presented to prioritize different retirement accounts for your financial framework. Any categories left in the “Not Interested” section will not be presented subsequently for deploying “Investable Cash Flow” in the “Financial Framework.”

    • Changing Preference Order: To change the order preference for either “Let me choose” or “Explore Illustrative Profiles” options, simply press the up or down arrow to the right of each investment account category.

    • Enabling Investment Options: For an investment option to be displayed subsequently in the “Financial Framework,” that category of investment (e.g. “Retirement” or “HSA”) must be moved to the “Interested” section. The order of preference in the “Interested” section for both “Let me choose” and “Explore Illustrative Profiles” workflows will determine the order that will be presented to the user for allocating “Investable Cash Flow” later in the workflow (the path of accounts presented to the user). Reordering accounts in the “Not Interested” section will not affect subsequent screens presented, because all categories left in the “Not Interested” section will not be presented for deploying “Investable Cash Flow” in the questionnaire.

  • Investment Accounts:

    • Traditional 401(K): An informational page will be presented regarding contribution requirements for a Traditional 401(K). This page addresses the following restriction: to have an active Traditional 401(K) with ongoing (live) contributions, you must be associated with a qualifying employer entity that sponsors the plan. 401(K) accounts have individual contribution limits as indicated by financial regulatory bodies. The cap is reflected in the contribution slider bar and is changed on a yearly basis to reflect current year personal contributions, not including any employer matching. You may qualify for a raised contribution cap at certain ages; tapping the checkbox below the slider bar, if this applies to you, will increase the maximum cap in-app. Consult with a financial advisor for further questions about age-related restrictions. Note: 401(K)s enable pre-tax contributions. Because the workflow currently allocates all capital in post-tax dollars for seamlessness, you will actually be allocating less take-home pay than suggested by the platform. Please create estimations for this discrepancy on your own time given your personal effective and marginal tax rate.

    • Roth IRAs & Traditional IRAs: The total combined contributions of Traditional IRA and Roth IRAs are subject to a single cap due to enforcement from financial regulatory bodies, which is reflected in the contribution slider bar in the “Financial Framework.” The maximum value is changed on a yearly basis to reflect current year contribution limits. You may qualify for a raised contribution cap at certain ages for a Traditional IRA; tapping the checkbox below the slider bar, if this applies to you, will increase the maximum cap in-app. Consult with a financial advisor for further questions about age-related restrictions. Note: While Traditional IRAs are pre-tax, contributions are typically made with post-tax dollars and are then tax-deducted at the end of the year; Vassant treats this as a post-tax contribution for simplicity. Your actual net contributions may be lower from your tracked contributions in the Vassant application.

    • HSA: Initial questions before accessing the contribution page address the following restriction: to open and contribute to an HSA without being subject to penalty taxes, one must be enrolled in a qualified high deductible health plan (“HDHP”). Check your existing health coverage information and verify qualification before proceeding with this step. From the options presented during these initial HSA pages, if it is indicated that you are not currently enrolled in a High Deductible Health Plan, and you don’t plan on enrolling in a High Deductible Health Plan soon (you answer “No” to question 1), the HSA capital allocation screen is skipped. HSA accounts have contribution limits for both individual and family HDHPs as indicated by financial regulatory bodies. The cap is reflected in the contribution slider bars and is changed on a yearly basis to reflect current year contributions. You may qualify for a raised contribution cap at certain ages; tapping the checkbox below the slider bar, if this applies to you, will increase the maximum cap in-app. Consult with a financial advisor for further questions about age-related restrictions. Note: HSAs enable pre-tax contributions. Because the workflow currently allocates all capital in post-tax dollars for seamlessness, you will actually be allocating less take-home pay than suggested by the platform. Please create estimations for this discrepancy on your own time given your personal effective and marginal tax rate.

    • Note: Vassant limits the capital allocation to each investment account preference by availability of “Investable Cash Flow” dollars or the regulated contribution limits for that investment account for the current calendar year, whichever is lower.

  • Financial Framework Overview: At the end of the “Financial Framework,” the user will be presented with an overview summarizing all allocations. The "Yearly Investable Cash Flow" card at the top of the screen summarizes the total yearly take home pay, after all yearly deducted expenses. Any underallocated or overallocated funds will be shown via a warning message at the top of the screen in the “Yearly Investable Cash Flow” card.

    • If there are any unallocated “Investable Cash Flow” dollars, users have the option to add dollars to existing accounts already indicated in the framework. Users may edit the dollar amounts by pressing the "View allocation details" button at the bottom of the "Allocations" subtab, if applicable. This enables “Editing Mode” for the section that is selected, and allocations may be changed at this time. To implement changes, users must press the “Save” button on the card that was edited.

    • When editing from the “Financial Framework Overview,” the sum of the total yearly investing allocation dollars may not exceed the total “Investable Cash Flow” sum. An error will appear when this occurs, and the framework cannot be confirmed unless the values are normalized.

    • When editing allocations in a contribution-limited account from the “Financial Framework Overview,” users may not enter a higher allocation than the current-year contribution limits. The same limitations were applied to these accounts during the original “Financial Framework”. If you tapped on the checkbox indicating older age and therefore higher catch-up contributions, these higher limits will be reflected in the overview editing state.

    • This overview is accessible via the “Financial Plan Dashboard” (via the “View Allocation Details” button) at any time, and similar edits may be made