Asset Location
The "Where" Matters as Much as the "What"
While asset allocation focuses on what your clients invest in (stocks, bonds, cash), asset location focuses on where those assets are held (Taxable, Tax-deferred, or Tax-free accounts, and Unassigned).
Asset-Map’s Asset Location features are designed to help you visualize and optimize the tax efficiency of your clients' portfolios relative to their goals and circumstances. This tool automatically sorts financial instruments into three distinct tax buckets, allowing you to instantly identify opportunities to reduce tax liability and improve retirement outcomes.
By using this feature, you can:
Visualize Tax Diversification: Quickly see if a client is over-exposed to future tax liabilities (e.g., having 90% of assets in Tax-Deferred accounts).
Facilitate Deeper Conversations: Move beyond performance discussions to talk about tax efficiency and estate planning value.
Using Asset Location in Conversational Planning
We've put together a few ideas on how to integrate Asset Location into your client meeting conversation. These are suggestions and are presented for educational purposes only.
The "Tax Diversification" Reality Check
Switch to the Asset Location Visual View to show the household's "tax weight". This may be especially effective if the client is heavily weighted in one area.
The Script: "We’ve spent time today talking about what you own—the stocks and bonds. Now, let’s look at the Visual View of where you own them. Ideally, we want tax diversification. If 90% of your assets are Tax-Deferred, you might be over-exposed to future tax hikes. As you can see by this proportion bar few of your investable assets are allocated to the Tax-Free category."
The Goal: Instantly identify opportunities to potentially reduce tax liability and improve retirement outcomes by ensuring flexibility during distribution.
Understanding the Buckets
The Asset Location page automatically filters client investable assets, including retirement and non-retirement, into groups based on a specific set of rules. It includes instruments of type "asset" (excluding stencils and hidden instruments).
The system sorts assets into the following categories:
Bucket | Definition & Rules |
Tax-deferred | Assets that grow tax deferred and will be taxable upon distribution. Includes Non-Roth Retirement accounts and Non-Qualified Annuities. |
Tax-free | Assets that are not taxable upon distribution (tax-exempt growth and distributions subject to rules). Includes Roth IRAs, 529 Plans, Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), Municipal Income, and Life Insurance Cash Value. |
Taxable | Assets subject to annual taxes on gains/income. Includes Non-Retirement accounts (checking, savings, brokerage) that are not identified as 529s, HSAs, or Municipal Income. |
Unassigned | Non-retirement assets that have Account Type as "none", designated on the Details page, go unassigned. |
Note on Joint Assets: Joint instruments will count at 100% value if any selected member is an owner.
Assigning Assets
Selecting the appropriate menu items on the Essentials and Details pages of an asset financial will assign them to tax buckets.
Asset Type (Essentials page) | Asset Purpose | Special Settings | Status |
Retirement | Roth | Essentials page, Roth setting checkbox | Tax-free |
| Non-Roth |
| Tax-deferred |
Non-retirement | 529 | Details page/Account Type menu = "529" | Tax-free |
| Health Saving Account | Details page/Account Type menu = "Health Savings Account" | Tax-free |
| Municipal Income | Details page/Account Type menu = "Municipal income" | Tax-free |
| Annuity | Essentials page: Deferred annuity checkbox | Tax-deferred |
| Mutual Fund, Money Market, CDs, Brokerage (stocks, bonds), etc. or if no additional settings |
| Taxable |
| If none of the above... | Account Type = "None" | Unassigned |
Property |
|
| Not assessed |
Accessing Asset Location
1. Sidebar Asset Location
With the Sidebar enabled, navigate to the Asset Location applet located in the Sidebar. The content displayed respects your current Member selection in the nametag bar at the top of the Asset-Map page, allowing you to view data for the whole household or specific individuals.
Focus Mode: To see exactly where these assets sit within the broader financial picture click the Focus Mode icon (eye icon) in the sidebar. This highlights the related instruments directly on the Asset-Map Report.
2. Location Report - Visual View and List View
Visual View
Upon opening the page, you will see the Visual View by default.
Overview: You will see the three primary buckets (Tax-free, Tax-deferred, Taxable).
Metrics: Each bucket displays the Total Value (sum of instruments), the Count (number of instruments), and the Proportion (percentage of total assets).
Insight: Use the 'Proportion' bars to quickly assess the client's tax exposure by location category.
Right-click (alt-click) anywhere on the page for a convenient actions menu: Show Unassigned, Expand All or Collapse All.
List View
For a detailed line-item review:
Toggle the button at the top right from "Visual" to List.
This view displays four tables of all categorized assets, dollar values and other information.
Using the right-click (command-click) menu provides the option to hide the unassigned table.
Exporting (PDF)
Asset Location Page, List view: While in list view clicking the PDF icon will generate a report showing the current list. "Internal Use Only" will be added to the report.
Report Center: From the Reports center page, add the Asset Location report (visual and/or list view) to the Comprehensive report by clicking its associated check box. "Internal Use Only" will not be displayed. Using the download arrow next to the checkbox will create a report with "Internal Use Only" added to the electronic version.