Last reviewed: September 2026.
Use this article when a household, a client or an account does not show where you expect it. Work through the checklist from the top. Most cases are a filter, an archived household, or an automatic account rule.
Buckets and Guardrails are available on every plan. Beneficiary, Net Worth, Homework and 1099 require the Pro plan and must be turned on in Settings › Value Adds. A report you cannot open at all is usually turned off there.
Start with this checklist
Is the advisor filter hiding the household? Check the Filter Advisors button at the top of the page.
Is the household archived? On the Households page, switch from Active to Archived or All.
Is the household in SurgeTK at all? Check your Sync Filters, your Zoho household settings, or your import.
Is the account left out of that report? Open the account and read its Exclusions tab.
Is the account closed, empty, a cash type, or without a type? See the rules table below.
Is the client marked Deceased? See the deceased section below.
Did you click Refresh on the report, and are you viewing Live rather than a saved snapshot?
Is a filter hiding the household?
The advisor filter
The Filter Advisors button sits at the top of the page. Its menu is titled "Filter by advisor" and lists "All advisors", "Unassigned" and each lead advisor in your firm. Your own name carries a "You" tag. The bottom of the menu says "Changes apply when the menu closes".
Households whose lead advisors are not selected are hidden from the Households list and from the totals.
Households with no lead advisor are shown by the "Unassigned" option.
The button shows the current choice: "All advisors", one advisor's name, "2 selected", or "Select advisors" when nothing is selected.
The choice is saved in your browser for your user. Another browser or computer can show a different selection.
Users who can only see their own households cannot choose "All advisors" or "Unassigned". Read Roles, seats, and permissions.
Archived households
The Households page shows active households by default. Use the Active | Archived | All switch above the list to show archived households. An archived household keeps its data, but its Value Add pages are read-only, Refresh is blocked, and Surge does not pick it by default. Read Archiving households and closing accounts.
Is the household in SurgeTK at all?
Redtail. Sync Filters decide which contacts come in. A contact excluded by a filter never becomes a client, and a household is created only when at least one member is already a client. Read Sync Filters and Syncing with Redtail.
Zoho. The "Excluded Households" and "Household Status Mapping" settings decide which households come in and which are archived. Read Syncing with Zoho.
Imports. Accounts that could not be matched to a client show up in the banner "You have N unlinked accounts." on the Households page. Read Importing Clients and Importing Account Data.
Is the account left out of that report?
Every account has an Exclusions tab that tells you, report by report, whether the account is in and why. Open the account from the household page and click the Exclusions tab.
What the tab shows
The section "Where This Account Appears" has the hint "Whether this account counts toward AUM totals and each value add, and why." It lists a row for "Total AUM" and one row for each Value Add your firm has turned on. Each row shows a chip, Included or Excluded, an extra chip Manual override when someone set it by hand, and the reason.
Row | Reasons you can see |
Total AUM | "Counted toward AUM", "Closed account", "Cash-equivalent account type" |
Buckets and Guardrails | "Investable account", "Closed account", "$0 account value", "No account type set (treated as cash)", "Cash-equivalent account type", "Education/custodial account type" |
Net Worth | "Counted in net worth", "Closed account", "$0 account value", "No account type set", "Education/custodial account type" |
Beneficiary | "Reviewed for beneficiary designations", "$0 account value", "No account type set (treated as cash)", "Cash-equivalent account type", "Closed account", "All account owners are deceased" |
Homework | "Homework includes all open household accounts", "Closed during 2026 — still counted for this year's distributions and RMD", "Closed before 2026", "Closed (no close date recorded, so it cannot be dated into a reporting year)", "$0 account value" |
1099 Letter | "Appears in the 1099 letter", "Account type is not 1099-reportable", "Checking/savings/money market accounts are not shown in the 1099 letter", "Closed during 2026 — forms were still issued for that year", "Closed before the 2026 tax year began", "Closed (no close date recorded, so it cannot be dated into a tax year)" |
Any row set by hand | "Manually included", "Manually excluded" |
The years in the Homework and 1099 reasons follow the current year and your firm's 1099 tax year. Value Adds that do not use accounts show "Included by default".
How to change it
Open the account and click Edit on the Exclusions tab.
Under "Assets Under Management", choose "Automatic — follow SurgeTK's standard rules", "Always include in AUM" or "Exclude from AUM — not an asset under our management".
Under "Value Adds", switch on "Exclude from all value adds — including ones added in the future" to remove the account from every report, or set each Value Add to "Automatic", "Always include" or "Always exclude". The hint reads: A per-value-add setting always wins over "Exclude from all."
Optional: type a "Reason (optional)" under "Note".
Click Save Changes.
A manual setting wins over every automatic rule. "Always include" pulls a closed, $0 or cash account back into a report. "Always exclude" removes an account the rules would include.
On a new account the tab is disabled with the tooltip "Save the account first to manage exclusions". Save the account, then open it again.
The list only shows Value Adds your firm has turned on.
The automatic rules, report by report
When no manual setting exists, these rules decide. "Closed" means the account has a Date Closed or an Account Status of Closed, Transferred or Inactive. "$0" means an open account whose value is exactly $0; an account with no value entered stays in. "Cash type" means the type contains checking, savings, money market, certificate of deposit, CD or cash. "Education or custodial type" means it contains 529, Coverdell, educational savings, ESA, custodial, UTMA, UGMA, guardianship or conservatorship. "Blank type" means no type is set at all; "Other" is not blank.
Report | Left out automatically | Stays in |
Total AUM (the top banner, the Households list, the household header "Total Investable Assets", Firm Overview and billing) | Closed accounts. Accounts whose account type field contains checking, savings, money market, CD or cash. | Blank-type, 529 and custodial accounts. $0 accounts (they add $0). Note: HSA types that contain "Savings", such as "Health Savings Account (HSA)", are left out of AUM even though Guardrails and Buckets include them. |
Guardrails and Buckets | Closed. $0. Cash types. Education or custodial types. Blank type. | HSAs, inherited accounts, annuities, trusts, TSP, employer plans, "Other". |
Net Worth | Closed. $0. Education or custodial types. Blank type. | Cash accounts (in the "Cash / Cash Equivalent" table). Inherited accounts. HSAs. |
Beneficiary | Cash types. Closed. $0. Accounts where every owner is marked Deceased. Insurance policies with the status Closed, Lapsed, Expired, Surrendered or Terminated. | 529, custodial, HSA, inherited, trust and annuity accounts. Policies with the status In Force, Paid Up, Claim Paid, Matured or Pending, term and permanent alike. |
Homework | Open $0 accounts. Closed accounts are out of Net Worth, Invest Assets and Checking/Savings; out of Distributions and RMD when closed before this year; out of the 12-month grids when closed before the first month shown; out everywhere when closed without a Date Closed. The page-2 withdrawal and deposit grids leave out checking, savings, money market, CD and cash accounts. | Every other account. Homework has no type filter of its own. |
1099 | HSA, 529, Coverdell or ESA, donor-advised fund, FSA, charitable lead trust, endowment and foundation types. Checking, savings and money market accounts (not shown in the table). "Cash" types. Accounts closed before the tax year, or closed without a date. | CDs (Form 1099). $0 accounts. Accounts closed during the tax year. "Other" (Form "--"). TSP and Mutual Fund types do not appear, because no rule catches them. |
Guardrails, Buckets, Net Worth and Beneficiary read the raw type text from your CRM or import first, then the account type field. Investable words win over cash words, so "Joint Checking" counts as investable. Total AUM reads the account type field only, so the same account can be cash for one and not for the other.
Accounts with no account type
An account with no type at all is left out of Guardrails, Buckets, Beneficiary and Net Worth. The report prints a footnote above its footer: "*1 account totaling $250,000 is not included above — no account type is set." The Exclusions tab shows "No account type set (treated as cash)" or "No account type set". An account created by hand with "Select Account Type" left unchanged has no type. To fix it, set the account type on the Details tab, or set that Value Add to "Always include".
Deceased clients
A client's status is Living or Deceased. It changes reports in these ways:
The client name line on Guardrails, Buckets and the other Value Adds leaves off deceased clients when at least one living client remains. If every client is deceased, all of them print.
The Beneficiary report leaves out an account whose every owner is deceased. A joint account with one living owner stays and prints under the living owner.
Homework counts only living clients' Monthly Income.
Net Worth still gives a deceased client a column.
How a client becomes Deceased
Source | Rule |
By hand | Edit the client and set the "Status" field to "Deceased" or "Living". |
Redtail | By default, a contact whose Redtail status name contains "deceased", "dead" or "death" is marked Deceased. In Sync Filters, under "Household Lifecycle from Redtail", each Redtail status can be mapped to "Deceased", "Active client", "No longer a client" or "Default". The flag is rewritten on every sync, so a Deceased status set by hand flips back to Living unless the Redtail status indicates death. |
Zoho | The Clients mapping has the field "Deceased / Living (or Date of Death)". A blank value means Living. Any value SurgeTK can read as a date means Deceased, including a year on its own such as "2021". The date of death itself is not stored. |
Warnings that point at the cause
Where | Text | What it means |
Value Add cards on the household page | "Household has no accounts." | The household has no accounts at all. |
Buckets card on the household page | "Some accounts are missing asset allocations:" | Those accounts are not in the Buckets bars. |
Report footnote | "*1 account totaling $250,000 is not included above — no account type is set." | A blank-type account was left out. |
Report footer | "⚠️ NO ADVISORS ASSIGNED" in red | The household has no lead advisor. |
Beneficiary report | "Missing Beneficiaries" | The account or policy has no beneficiary in that tier. |
Surge | "No Accounts", "All accounts closed", "No Advisor Assigned", "Missing Firm Logo", "No Systematic Withdrawals", "Accounts Missing Asset Allocation", "Household is archived" | Surge checks these before it builds packets. |
Quick fixes
Household hidden: change the Filter Advisors selection, or switch the Households page to Archived or All.
Account left out by a rule but you want it in: set that Value Add to "Always include" on the Exclusions tab.
Account in a report but you want it out: set that Value Add to "Always exclude", or switch on "Exclude from all value adds — including ones added in the future".
Blank type: set the account type on the Details tab.
Closed by mistake: reopen the account. Read Archiving households and closing accounts.
Deceased by mistake: set the client's "Status" to "Living". If Redtail is connected, also check the contact's Redtail status, or the next sync will flip it back.
Report looks stale: choose Live and click Refresh.