The total income calculation is one of many processes influencing your plan projections.

The total income calculation sums the income from work, pensions, annuities and passive income in each year. It then subtracts planned savings.

Note: Income linked contributions will always be funded and when income is not adequate to fund income linked contributions, withdrawals may be taken from savings. Standard contributions are only funded when there is adequate income. Once work income has ended, no contributions will occur and the user must instead add transfers from one account to another.

When total income exceeds your planned savings and expenses, you'll have a surplus resulting in Excess Income. Each user has the ability to save all, or a percentage of Excess Income to an after-tax account via the Money Flows > Excess Income setting.

When planned savings and expenses exceed total income in your plan, you'll have a gap.

The software will fund any gaps by modeling net savings drawdowns based upon your Withdrawal Strategy and Withdrawal Order. Your annual Net Savings Drawdowns can be seen in the Lifetime Income Projection chart.

You may notice the term "Shortfall" On the Retirement Withdrawals Report and other charts. Shortfall is the term that we here at Boldin use for a withdrawal that funds a gap. Shortfall withdrawals differ from other distributions such as RMDs, one time expenses, and disbursements.

The Planner displays annual information to users, while calculations on the back end are performed monthly. This may result in a case where a user has shortfall withdrawals and no Net Savings Drawdowns.

When you have a shortfall withdrawal on the Insights > Savings > Withdrawals chart and no Net Savings Drawdown on the Lifetime Income Projection chart, the end of year account balances are not being reduced.

A common example is when you don't have enough income in January to cover expenses and estimated tax payments applied at the beginning of the year. The tool will draw from savings in January and replenish savings with excess income saved throughout the year.

If the years where there you see a saved surplus and a gap on the Insights Surplus-Gap chart, you are likely drawing on savings to cover expenses early in the year.