Last reviewed: September 2026.
Value Adds are short, branded planning reports built from a household's data. Each one covers one topic, such as Net Worth, Buckets, or Guardrails. You can open one inside a household, or build them in bulk for many households with a Surge.
This article explains what the Value Adds are, where to find them, what the buttons do, and when the numbers update.
What Is a Value Add?
A Value Add is a one-topic report that SurgeTK builds from the data in a household: clients, accounts, physical assets, liabilities, insurance, taxes, and transactions. You can view it on screen, print it, download it as a PDF, or include it in a Surge packet. Your firm logo, branding color, and the household's lead advisor names are on every one.
The Eight Value Adds
Value Add | What it shows | Plan | On by default? |
Buckets | The investable portfolio split into Cash, Income, Annuities, and Growth buckets, with the distribution rate table. | Free | Yes |
Guardrails | The household's current distribution rate against your firm's available, upper, and lower guardrail rates. | Free | Yes |
Beneficiary | Who inherits each account and life insurance policy, and how much. | Pro | No |
Net Worth | Assets minus liabilities, split by owner. | Pro | No |
Homework (the Meeting Worksheet) | A meeting prep sheet: client details and cash flow, plus a second page with the last 12 months of withdrawals and deposits and the RMD table. | Pro | No |
1099 Letter | The tax forms each account may produce, plus the estimated tax payments for the tax year. | Pro | No |
Roth Conversion Letter | A tax strategy letter built from the household's Taxes tab data. The household card reads "Roth Conversion". | Free | No |
One Page Plan | A one-page financial plan summary for prospect and client meetings. It is a prospecting tool: you edit its goals and action items in place on the page, and it is never included in Surge packets. | Free | No |
Turn each one on or off under Settings › Value Adds. Each card has a toggle and a Show Settings button for its title, disclaimer, and other options. Click Save Changes. Only admins can save.
Beneficiary, Net Worth, Homework, and 1099 need the Pro plan. On the Free plan the toggle switches back off and an upgrade window opens.
Preparing Surge packets also requires the Pro plan.
Where to Find Value Adds
The household's Value Adds tab
Open a household and click the Value Adds tab. A card appears for each Value Add your firm has turned on.
Each card shows the name and a status icon: a green check, or a warning triangle. Hover over the triangle to read the warning.
The Roth Conversion Letter card reads "Roth Conversion". The One Page Plan card sits under a separate Prospecting heading.
Below the cards: "Configure each Value Add or toggle availability in Value Add Settings." The link opens Settings › Value Adds.
The Saved Value Adds table
Below the cards, a table lists every snapshot saved for the household. Columns: Value Add, Notes, and Date Captured, plus a delete icon. Click a row to open that snapshot.
Empty state: "No Saved Value Adds".
Deleting a snapshot needs the Value Adds delete permission. Archived households show no delete icon.
Surge
The Surge page builds packets for many households at once. See Creating Surge with SurgeTK below.
The Value Add Page
Click a card to open the report. The report renders inside the page, with these controls under it.
Control | What it does |
Live dropdown | Shows the live report. Choose a saved snapshot by its timestamp to view it instead. A snapshot never recalculates. |
Refresh | Rebuilds the live report from the current data. It also clears the notes box. |
Save | Refreshes the data, then freezes the live report as a timestamped snapshot together with the text in the notes box. Save always captures the live report, even while a snapshot is selected in the dropdown. |
Opens your browser's print window. | |
Download | Downloads the report as a PDF. |
Annotations | Shows or hides small info markers on the report. Click a marker to open a card that explains the value and where it comes from. Admins can edit the firm-wide title, disclaimer, logo, and the 1099 text blocks in place from these cards. Markers never print and never appear in PDFs. They are on by default, and your choice is remembered in your browser. The button appears only when the report has markers. |
Add notes… | A notes box. The notes are stored on the snapshot you Save, not on the household. Refresh clears the box. When you view a snapshot, its notes show read-only. Notes are not printed on the report. |
The Value Add name at the top of the page opens a switcher to jump to another Value Add for the same household.
The back arrow returns to the household's Value Adds tab.
There is no Email button on these pages.
Generating Value Adds in Bulk With Surge
When you prepare a Surge, SurgeTK refreshes each Value Add included in the Surge for every selected household, builds the packet, and saves one snapshot per Value Add. Each snapshot's note is the Surge name.
Surge packets can include Buckets, Guardrails, Beneficiary, Net Worth, Homework, 1099 Letter, and Roth Conversion Letter. One Page Plan is never included.
Preparing packets requires the Pro plan.
Warnings on the Household Cards
The Value Adds tab checks the household's data and paints each card green or with a warning triangle. Hover over the triangle to read the text.
Card | Warning text | When it shows |
Guardrails, Buckets, Beneficiary, Net Worth, Homework, 1099 Letter | "Household has no accounts." | The household has no accounts. |
Buckets | "Some accounts are missing asset allocations:" followed by the last 4 digits of each account | An investable account has no asset allocation. |
Buckets | "Some accounts have asset allocations that do not sum to 100%:" followed by each account, its total, and "within ±5% (still included in Buckets)" or "outside ±5%" | An account is off by more than 5%, or another account has no allocation. Accounts within 5% are listed only when the warning already shows for another reason. |
1099 Letter | "There are no estimated tax payments recorded on any accounts in this household." | No account in the household has an Estimated Tax Payment transaction, from any year. |
The Buckets allocation check skips cash-style accounts. It looks for the text checking, savings, money market, cd, or cash anywhere in the account type, so "QCD IRA" and "Health Savings Account" are skipped too.
The Beneficiary card does not reliably warn about missing beneficiaries. Open the report and look for "Missing Beneficiaries".
The Roth Conversion and One Page Plan cards are never checked.
Controlling Which Accounts Appear: the Exclusions Tab
Open an account and go to the Exclusions tab. It shows, for AUM and for each Value Add your firm has turned on, whether the account is included and why. Under Value Adds, each Value Add has a dropdown with Automatic, Always include, and Always exclude. There is also a switch, Exclude from all value adds — including ones added in the future. A per-Value-Add setting always wins over Exclude from all. Always include pulls the account back in even when it is closed or holds $0.
Each Value Add has its own automatic rules. See the article for that Value Add, and Why a Client or Account Is Missing From a Report below.
When Do the Numbers Update?
Saving an account, client, physical asset, liability, or insurance policy marks every Value Add in the household as stale. Transactions, tax years, closing or reopening accounts, and changes to your firm's Value Add settings have the same effect. Imports and CRM syncs change that data too, so they count as well.
A stale Value Add is recomputed the next time you open it. Net Worth and 1099 Letter are rebuilt every time they open.
Saved snapshots and Surge packets never change.
Archived households are read-only. Their Value Add pages show the last saved snapshot, Refresh is blocked, and each card shows "Captured" with a date, or "Not captured" when nothing was saved before archiving.
Income Shown in Value Add Reports
Guardrails and Buckets show income from systematic withdrawals only. Salary, Social Security, and pension income are not included.
Homework uses each client's Monthly Income field for its Cash Flow section.
Net Worth, Beneficiary, and 1099 Letter show no income.
See Where Monthly Income Comes From in Guardrails and Buckets below.
Generate a Value Add Without a Household
The sidebar has a Generate Value Add button. It opens "Manually Generate Value Add", where you choose a Value Add, type the figures yourself, and preview the result. It supports Guardrails, Buckets, Net Worth, and Beneficiary. It does not support Homework, 1099 Letter, Roth Conversion Letter, or One Page Plan. Use it for a prospect who is not in SurgeTK yet, or for a what-if illustration.
Printing Tip
When you print from the browser, turn on "Background graphics" in the print window. Without it, colored table headers and banners may print white.
Branding on Every Value Add
The logo, branding color, address, phone number, and website come from Settings › Firm Info.
The household's lead advisor names print in the footer disclaimer. With no lead advisor, the disclaimer prints "NO ADVISORS ASSIGNED" in red.
Each Value Add's title and disclaimer text are set under Settings › Value Adds.
Tips
Import first. Clients and households, accounts, beneficiaries, insurance, physical assets, liabilities, and billing data. See What to Import First below.
Save a snapshot around each client meeting. Snapshots are your record of what the client saw.
Use the notes box before you Save. Write why the snapshot was taken, for example "Reviewed in the spring meeting".
Check the card warnings before a Surge. Fix missing allocations and account types first.