Last reviewed: September 2026.
Available on every plan. Buckets is turned on by default for every firm.
This article explains each part of the Buckets report, where every number comes from, and why a number can differ from what you expect.
What the Buckets report is
The Buckets report splits a household's included accounts into four buckets: Cash, Income, Annuities and Growth. Each account's asset allocation decides how much of its value goes into each bucket. Below the buckets, the report prints the same distribution table as the Guardrails report, built with the Buckets rates.
To open it, open the household, go to the Value Adds tab and click the Buckets card. The page has a snapshot dropdown (Live plus saved snapshots) and the buttons Refresh, Save, Print and Download. Refresh recalculates the report from live data. Save stores a snapshot that never changes again.
Header and branding
Logo. Your firm logo prints at the top. Surge flags a missing logo as "Missing Firm Logo".
Title. The "Buckets Title" setting. New firms start with "Buckets Strategy". A blank title also prints "Buckets Strategy".
Brand color. Your firm branding color is used for the dots in the footer.
Client name line. The same rules as Guardrails. One client prints "Smith, John" with the age as a small raised number. Two clients print "Smith, John & Jane", or "Smith, John & Doe, Jane" when the last names differ. Three or more print "Smith, John +2 more". No clients prints "---". A missing date of birth shows "--". Deceased clients are left off when at least one living client remains.
As-of date. "*Reported as of" and the most recent As Of Date across every account in the household, in M/D/YYYY format. Closed, cash, $0 and manually excluded accounts count for this date. If no account has a date, today's date prints.
The Guardrails article explains the name line and the as-of date in full.
"Total Assets"
The green figure under "Total Assets" is the total value of every included account, rounded down to the nearest $1,000. It includes accounts that have no asset allocation, and accounts whose allocation is too far from 100% to show in the bars.
The four buckets
The bars print in this order: Cash, Income, Annuities, Growth. Each bar shows a dollar amount under it.
For each included account with a usable allocation, SurgeTK multiplies the account value by each of the four percentages.
It adds the results per bucket.
It rounds each bucket down to the nearest $1,000.
Bar heights scale to the largest bucket. The largest bucket is always full height.
The Annuities bar is hidden when its dollar amount is $0. The other three bars always print.
Why the bars do not add up to Total Assets
Every figure is rounded down to $1,000 on its own: Total Assets and each bucket. The bars can add up to as much as $3,000 less than Total Assets. They are never more.
Accounts with no allocation, or with an allocation more than 5 points from 100%, are in Total Assets but not in the bars. That gap can be any size.
Allocation tolerance
An account's allocation is its four percentages: Cash, Income, Annuities and Growth. This is what happens for each total.
Allocation total | In the bars? | Warning |
Exactly 100% | Yes, as entered. | None. |
95% to 105% (within 5 points of 100) | Yes. The four percentages are scaled so that they total 100. | None on its own. The account is listed only when another account has a hard problem, as "…1234 — 98.0% (within ±5% of 100%; Included in Buckets)". |
More than 5 points from 100% | No. The account still counts in Total Assets. | "Some investable accounts have asset allocations that do not sum to 100%. Accounts within ±5% of 100% are still included in the Buckets illustration, but you may want to correct them for accuracy. Affected accounts: …1234 (110.0%)." |
All four fields blank, or all 0 | No. The account still counts in Total Assets. | Not flagged on the Buckets page. The Buckets card on the household's Value Adds tab warns "Some accounts are missing asset allocations:" with the last four digits, and Surge flags "Accounts Missing Asset Allocation". |
Accounts are identified by the last four digits of the account number. A number with no digits shows "????".
The banner on the Buckets page
When an account is more than 5 points off, the Buckets page shows "Buckets issues detected" with this note: "Review the accounts below. Accounts marked Included are still factored into the Buckets illustration (their allocation is near 100%). Accounts marked Excluded are not included until their allocation is corrected." The accounts appear under "Allocation not equal to 100%", for example "…1234 — 110.0% (more than ±5% off 100%; Excluded from Buckets)". A separate section, "No account type set", lists accounts left out because they have no type.
Where allocations come from
An account's allocation can be set in six ways.
The account's Allocation tab. Open the account, go to the Allocation tab and click Edit. Under "Asset Allocation" fill in "Cash %", "Income %", "Annuities %" and "Growth %". The hint reads "Percentages must total 100%, or leave all four blank." Any other total is refused with "If any asset allocations are entered, their sum must equal 100%." Save with Save Changes.
A Financial Accounts import or a Buckets import. Both run the same import. Map the "Cash%", "Income%", "Annuities%" and "Growth%" columns in the "Asset Allocation" mapping section. You can map more than one column to a bucket; the values are added. A row whose four values add up to about 1 (Excel percent cells) is multiplied by 100. A blank cell keeps the account's old value for that bucket, so a partly filled row can leave a total that is not 100. The Guardrails import has no allocation columns.
Redtail holdings. The Redtail sync pulls each account's positions and sorts every security into a bucket. It uses your firm's overrides first (Settings › Securities, admins only), then a shared list, then name and ticker rules. The split is written only when 100% of the holdings value could be sorted and the split was not entered by hand.
Redtail annuity default. An annuity-type account with no holdings and no split gets 100% Annuities.
Zoho mapping. On the Investable Assets tab of the Zoho mapping, the "Asset Allocation" group has rows for Cash, Income (Fixed Income), Annuities and Growth (Equity). Each row is a "Percent" or a "Whole $" field. Whole-dollar rows are divided by the Account Total Value, and skipped when that value is missing.
Manual changes stop the automatic updates. Any change from the Allocation tab or an import marks the split as entered by hand. Redtail holdings no longer update it. The Allocation tab then shows "Entered manually. These percentages override the synced positions below — clear them to let holdings drive the split again." Leaving all four fields blank and saving does not remove a saved split.
Cash accounts never feed the Cash bucket
Checking, savings, money market, CD and cash accounts are left out of the Buckets report completely. They are not in Total Assets and not in the bars. The Cash bar only shows the Cash % of investable accounts, for example the cash held inside a brokerage account or an IRA.
Distribution table
The table under the buckets is the same as the Guardrails table, built with the Buckets rates and the Buckets "Show guardrail percentages in the report table" setting. Columns: "Current*", "Available", "Upper Guardrail", "Lower Guardrail". Rows: "Portfolio Value", "Monthly Income", "Distribution Rate".
Current Portfolio Value = the included total, rounded down to $1,000. Current Monthly Income = the systematic withdrawals on included accounts, converted to monthly. Current rate = monthly income × 12 ÷ the unrounded total, two decimals.
With no withdrawals the Current column prints 0.00% and $0. It does not use the Available rate.
Available Monthly Income = unrounded total × Available %, rounded down to $1,000, ÷ 12, rounded down to $10. The Available rate prints with one decimal.
Upper Guardrail portfolio = anchor income ÷ Lower %. Lower Guardrail portfolio = anchor income ÷ Upper %. Both are rounded up to the next $10,000. The anchor is monthly income × 12, or the unrounded total × Available % when there are no withdrawals.
Upper and Lower monthly income = anchor × 1.10 and anchor × 0.90, each ÷ 12, rounded to the nearest dollar.
The Upper and Lower rate cells are blank unless the firm setting is on. Then both show the Available rate.
Read Guardrails Value Add: How Your Guardrails Report Is Built for the full math and a worked example.
Two account lists
Total Assets and the bars use the accounts linked to the household. The distribution table uses the household's own account list. The two are normally the same. After an account has been moved to another household they can differ, and Total Assets can then disagree with the Current Portfolio Value.
Firm settings
Go to Settings › Value Adds › Buckets › Show Settings. Only an admin can save. Save with the Save Changes button at the top of the Value Adds tab.
Setting | What it does |
The toggle on the Buckets card | Turns Buckets on or off for the whole firm. It is on by default. |
"Buckets Title" | The title printed in the header. The default is "Buckets Strategy". A blank title also prints "Buckets Strategy". |
"Buckets Disclaimer" | The text printed in the footer between the advisor sentence and the copyright line. New firms start with "THIS BUCKETS REPORT IS NOT COMPLETE WITHOUT ALL THE ACCOMPANYING DISCLAIMERS!..." |
"Buckets Distribution Range" | A slider with three handles and the fields "Lower %", "Available %" and "Upper %". Rates are kept to two decimals. The band is always symmetric: Available % is the midpoint, and moving one bound moves the other. Save errors: "Rates must be percentages between 0 and 100." and "Lower % < Available % < Upper % is required." |
"Show guardrail percentages in the report table" | Off by default. When on, the Upper Guardrail and Lower Guardrail cells of the Distribution Rate row both show your Available rate and get their borders back. |
Defaults: new firms start at Available 5.40%, Upper 6.48% and Lower 4.32%. Firms created before April 2026 may still show Upper 6.00% and Lower 4.80% unless someone changed them.
Buckets and Guardrails have separate rate settings with the same defaults. A change to one does not change the other.
The rates apply to every household in the firm. After a rate change, live reports recalculate the next time they are viewed. Click Refresh to be sure. Saved snapshots keep their old figures.
Footer and disclaimer
Footer line. Firm address, phone number and website, in that order, separated by small dots in your brand color. Empty items are skipped.
Disclaimer. "GENERATED FOR THE CLIENTS OF {advisor names}. {your Buckets Disclaimer} VALUE ADD COPYRIGHT SURGETK, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED." The whole line prints in capitals.
Advisor names. The household's lead advisors, joined with "and".
No lead advisor. The disclaimer prints "⚠️ NO ADVISORS ASSIGNED" in red bold text. This prints on the client copy too. Assign a lead advisor before you send the report. Surge flags the same problem as "No Advisor Assigned".
Blank-type footnote. When an open account with a value has no account type, the report prints "*1 account totaling $250,000 is not included above — no account type is set." above the footer. The count and the total follow your data.
Warnings you may see
Where | Text | Meaning |
Buckets card on the household's Value Adds tab | "Household has no accounts." | The household has no accounts at all. |
Buckets card on the household's Value Adds tab | "Some accounts are missing asset allocations:" followed by the last four digits of each account | Those accounts have no allocation and are not in the bars. |
Buckets card on the household's Value Adds tab | "Some accounts have asset allocations that do not sum to 100%:" with, per account, "(97.0%, within ±5% (still included in Buckets))" or "(110.0%, outside ±5%)" | Shown only when at least one account is missing an allocation or is more than 5 points off. |
Buckets page | "Buckets issues detected" | See the allocation tolerance section. |
Surge | "No Systematic Withdrawals", "Accounts Missing Asset Allocation", "No Accounts", "All accounts closed", "No Advisor Assigned", "Missing Firm Logo" | Surge checks these before it builds packets. |
The household card uses a simpler check than the report. It reads the account type field first, treats any type that contains "cd" as cash, and does not skip closed or $0 accounts. The card can name an account that the report leaves out.
Why doesn't my number match?
The bars are each rounded down to $1,000. Up to $3,000 can disappear against Total Assets.
An account with no allocation, or an allocation more than 5 points off, is in Total Assets but not in the bars.
A checking, savings, money market, CD or cash account is not in the report at all. Its balance never reaches the Cash bar.
A blank-type account is left out. Check the footnote at the bottom of the report.
A split entered by hand overrides the Redtail holdings. Check the hint on the account's Allocation tab.
Withdrawals on a left-out account do not count. The household header "Monthly Distribution" does count them, so it can be higher than the report.
The household header "Total Investable Assets" follows the AUM rule. It leaves out "Health Savings Account (HSA)" and keeps blank-type, 529 and custodial accounts, so it can differ from Total Assets.
You may be looking at a saved snapshot. Choose Live in the snapshot dropdown and click Refresh.
Your firm's rates may not be the defaults. Check Settings › Value Adds › Buckets.
Summary
Total Assets = open, non-$0, investable accounts, rounded down to $1,000. Cash, education or custodial, blank-type, closed and manually excluded accounts are out.
Each bucket = the sum of account value × allocation %, rounded down to $1,000. Bars scale to the largest bucket. Annuities hides at $0.
Allocations must total 100. Within 5 points they are rescaled and kept. Further off, or blank, they leave the bars but stay in Total Assets.
Allocations come from the Allocation tab, the Financial Accounts or Buckets import, Redtail holdings, the Redtail annuity default, or the Zoho mapping. A manual split stops the automatic updates.
The distribution table works exactly like Guardrails, with the Buckets rates.