Financial Information Block
This block displays the household size and income fields necessary to calculate percentage of poverty.
This block may be labeled "Financial Information - Alternate" on your site. Fear not, you are in the right place.
Configuration options allow:
- Collecting expense information
- Optionally calculating adjusted percentage of poverty based on income minus expenses
- And so much more.
This block is generally placed on its own intake form and on an auxiliary form tied to an auxiliary process that allows editing this information after a case is opened.
In this Article:
Tips and Things to Know
Note: This block also allows collecting asset information, however the recommended configuration is to use the separate Assets block, and if needed the Non-Liquid Assets block, and uncheck the options in this block regarding assets.
Adults and Children: During intake, the applicant is assumed to be an adult if there is no DOB. Other people entered without a DOB are assumed to be under 18. In the default configuration, the household size fields are editable, and it is not necessary to enter any additional people to manually set the fields to the correct numbers.
Tidbit: If "No Income" is selected, percentage of poverty will be set to 0.00. If "Income not Provided" is selected, percentage of poverty is left blank.
Extra tidbit: Percentage of Poverty on a case profile will display 0% in both instances.
Nugget: Percentage of poverty is calculated based on Intake Date, using the guidelines in effect on that date. If a household is eligible based on later guidelines and you want it to be considered income eligible, you can override the ineligible determination and explain yourself in the override note.
Morsel: LegalServer automatically calculates and stores the Initial Monthly Income and the Initial Percentage of Poverty at the end of an intake. That's done by the Disposition block, not this block. Required by some funders, interesting information even if you don't need it for that purpose.
Configuration Options
- Show "Financial Information" header
- Require Household Size Fields
- Household Size Fields Begin Empty
- Household Size Fields Static - display these fields read-only on the form
Income
- Use Default Income Instructions
- Income Instructions - text box wherein you can change the default text.
- Allow Excluded Incomes - displays an "Exclude" checkbox on each income row. Useful for collecting Food Stamps and other "income" that should not count towards the percentage of poverty calculation.
- Show Family Field on Income - useful for associating an income entry with a specific person in the household. Displays a dropdown list of people in the household before the income type field.
- Show Income Notes Field - displays a Notes box for each income row.
- Show Income Totals after all incomes - recommended.
Assets
- Show Assets - Highly recommended to uncheck this option and use the separate Assets block on your form. If you do, uncheck these as well:
- Require Assets
- Show Asset Notes
- Allow Excluded Assets
Expenses
- Show Expenses
- Require Expenses
- Expenses Change Eligibility - total expenses are subtracted from total income to calculate Adjusted Percentage of Poverty, depending on other configurations. See Max. POP to consider Adjusted below.
- Show Expense Totals
- Show Expense Totals after all expenses - recommended.
- Expenses only appear when Income is Ineligible - hide the Expense section unless income exceeds the configured cap. Not recommended as it can make the form confusing as income changes.
- Show Child Support Notes - display a "Paid to" and "Number of children" field as part of expense information
- Show Income Calculator - display the calculator link/icon that pops up a weekly hour and rate calculator on each income row.
- Show Expense Notes - display a Notes box for each expense row.
- Expense instructions - text box, empty by default.
Eligibility
- Eligibility - display the "Income Eligible" Yes/No field and set its value according to the percentage of poverty calculation, and other calculations if you enable those.
- Show Eligibility Overrides Immediately - display the override option in an overlay window as soon as percentage of poverty exceeds the cap - not recommended, but if you want to frighten people, go for it.
- Allow Eligibility Override - display the Override button.
- Require Override Note?
- Do not popup eligibility if POP is above - not recommended. Don't "pop up" things at your users.
More Assets Stuff
- The following options (with one noted exception) have no effect if the Show Assets option above is unchecked as recommended:
- Use Default Asset Instructions
- Asset instructions
- Additional asset instructions
- Show Full Frequency Controls - Okay, we lied, this has nothing to do with Assets. It allows, for example, selecting Monthly, but then entering 3 if the applicant has some seasonal income each year. And no, we the intrepid help page editors don't know why it is interspersed here.
- Liquid Asset Cap - not recommended, use the Asset block.
- Allowance for Each Additional Family Member
- Non-liquid Asset Cap
Percentage of Poverty
- Percentage of Poverty - the maximum percentage to be considered eligible.
- Max. POP to consider Adjusted - if the household's PoP exceeds this amount, do not calculate an Adjusted PoP.
- Adjusted Percentage of Poverty - the maximum percentage to be considered eligible.
- A common configuration here is 125, 200, 125. That means the applicant is eligible if the household PoP is 125 or below, or Adjusted PoP (income less expenses) is 125 or below, but do not subtract expenses from income to calculate adjusted if PoP is over 200.
- If you do not use adjusted percentage of poverty, both Max PoP and the Adjusted Percentage of Poverty options should be set to the same value as Percentage of Poverty. For example, 125, 125, and 125.
Median Income
- Show Percentage of Median Income - this is not HUD Area Median Income.
- Percentage of Median Income - the maximum percentage to be considered eligible.
- Include Median Income % for Eligibility - if the Eligibility option above is used, set the Income Eligible field according the percentage of poverty configuration and the percentage of median income configuration. If either fails, show as not income eligible.
Net income
- "Net Income" is total total income minus total expenses that are tagged as deductible for these purposes.
- "Tagged as deductible" means the expense has "Deduct Expense from Income (Net Income Calculation)" set to Yes in Admin > Lookups > Expense Categories.
- Show Percentage of Net Income
- Percentage of Net Income
- Include Net Income % for Eligibility - if the Eligibility option above is used, set the Income Eligible field according to the percentage of poverty calculation and the net income calculation. If either fails, show as not income eligible.
- Note: The "Net Income Scales" must be configured on the Admin > Net Income Scales for the Net Income % to be calculated.
Even More Options
- Default Income Interval - Weekly, Monthly, etc.
- Also Set Expense Period With Default Income Interval
- Ask about needs-based assistance - this option has no effect if Show Assets above is unchecked as recommended.
- Show Adjusted Percentage of Poverty - highly recommended to show it if you calculate it. And no, we don't know why this ended up down here.
Buttons (but no Bows)
- Edit Income Source Defaults button - opens a configuration window where up to 20 income entries can be set to display by default.
- Edit Asset Defaults button - same as above, but for assets
- Edit Expense Defaults button - same as above, but for expenses, and only up to 5 default entries
Notes and Known Issues
The block currently records an Override Date and Override Advocate even if Income Eligible is not overridden. To avoid what look like false positives in reports, include the "Did someone override this ever" field. (Ref: LS-107028)