Overview

A Stencil is a template of placeholder tiles representing assets, insurances, liabilities and incomes. Applying a stencil to a household cuts the time it takes for making maps. It allows you to show your clients what their peer group could potentially have, or can be used as hand-out fact finders for clients to overwrite the tiles with their own financial information.

Stencils How-to Video

Public Stencil Library and My Stencils

Asset-Map Platform hosts a library of stencils which you may use. Your Broker Dealer may restrict the types of stencils available and you can create your own custom Stencils which will be stored in your Household Index and displayed in the My Stencils library.

We encourage you to use these as a starting point to making your own and store in your My Stencils library (hosted in your Household Index).

Note: The Building Blocks stencil applies to one member, not a couple (primary and spouse). The others will apply to a couple with the roles of primary and spouse automatically. The Building Blocks stencil is very functional. Please refer to this article for detailed information:

👉How to use the Building Blocks Stencil

How to Apply a Stencil to a Household

To apply a stencil to a household, start by navigating to the Asset-Map page for any household.

1. Open the Actions menu or right click on the Asset-Map.

Select Apply Stencil from the Actions menu.
Choose the Public Library or your own, My Stencils library.
Select a stencil from the dropdown list. You can preview the stencil using the image icon on the left before applying.
You can make a public stencil your own by adding it to your personal library (My Stencils tab). Though this isn't necessary, it's good customizing the specific stencil for your use. Click the "+" to the right of the desired stencil to copy the public stencil into your library.
Click Apply Stencil button.

Optionally Apply a Stencil to One Member

Selecting the "No" radio button, found in the area to the right will activate another feature. You may apply part of a stencil to a member of a household.

Select a specific member of the Stencil whose financials will apply from the left drop-down menu.
Then select the specified Household member you wish to apply the Stencil financials to from the right drop-down menu.
Click Apply Stencil.

How to Build a Custom Stencil

Building a customized stencil follows the same steps as manually creating a household in Asset-Map, found here and below.

1. Click the Add Household button from the home page. Select Manual.

2. Select STENCIL as the type of Household.

3. Enter in the Stencil's Household name, such as "Single Parent Stencil".

4. City/State are optional fields.

5. Enter Country

6. Enter your stencil family member name, age (greater than zero), gender and role.

Tip: the only parameter that matters here is the "Role" but fields in red are required.

7. Click Save Household.

8. Add Assets and Liabilities that define your stencil using the Actions menu.

Your custom stencil is now available in the My Stencils library (your Household Index) for future editing.

Tip: Here's how to make a custom stencil from an already existing client household

Here's a Common Use Example

If we know that Widget's, Inc. provides basic and voluntary benefits for their employees then we can use the household wizard ("+") to create a Stencil and add it to the Stencil manager for later use.

The benefits (which we found online at their website) are on the left. We have rounded out the stencil with a few extra common assets like savings account and social security. The Stencil Asset-Map could look like what you see on the right.

We've added the financials one at a time using the toggle menu, we used the same terminology, and input the company's name in the Location field where it made sense.
We also place a "$1" value into the value fields.

Now....

You are preparing to visit with someone who works at Widget's, Inc. Apply the stencil (Actions > Apply Stencil) onto the real prospect household you have started to create. You are well on the way to quickly making their Asset-Map Report for your great conversation.

You can reuse the Widget stencil on the next and every employee household you'll create.

How to Delete a Custom Stencil

A stencil is a type of household, therefore you can delete them in the same way.
Click here to see how to delete a household

Clear Stencil Tiles (all at once or individually)

Click the Clear Stencil option on the Actions menu to remove all stencil tiles on a household at once. Caution! This might include topics provided by the Discovery Interview. We suggest to save those first before clearing.
Select individual tiles for deletion by clicking the undesired tile to open its edit window. Click the trashcan icon to remove the tile. Alternatively, use the Search and Select tool in the upper right area. Here's how to use Search and Select.

Tips to Know About a Stencil

Target-Maps and Comprehensive Reports are not available for households set as Stencils.
Clear all stencil placeholders with a click of a mouse using the "Clear Stencil" option on the toggle menu.
Stencil financials with a value will be displayed and calculated on Target-Maps and the Financials page.
Stencils provided by Asset-Map cannot be edited nor deleted unless you copy the stencil from the Public Library to your My Stencils library.
Stencil placeholder financials are applied to the corresponding Member "Type".
For example:
The "Primary" Member in Stencil >>> Primary Member in Household
The "Spouse" Member in Stencil >>> Spouse Member in Household
The "Dependent" Member in Stencil >>> Dependent Member in Household, etc.