Portfolio Proposal Scenarios for Financial Advisers: Current vs Proposed, Before You Recommend

Published 21 October 2026 by Borderfolio

Before an adviser proposes changes to a client's portfolio, they need to see what the change does: to fees, to where the funds are domiciled, to the tax withheld on dividends, and to what the client keeps. A portfolio proposal scenario puts the client's current holdings next to the proposed ones and compares them line by line, without touching the actual portfolio. This article describes how scenarios work in Borderfolio for Advisors, as built.

Why a scenario, not a spreadsheet

A proposal built in a spreadsheet starts from retyped holdings and ends with a total that nobody can trace. A scenario starts from the client's confirmed holdings, valued in their base currency, and every figure in the comparison comes from the same tax and analytics engine as the rest of the review. Nothing in a scenario changes the client's records: the current portfolio stays what the statements say it is.

Three things you can do to each holding

• Keep it. The holding stays as it is in the proposed portfolio.
• Replace it. Where Borderfolio has a catalogued Irish UCITS counterpart for a US-domiciled fund, it is suggested. It is only a suggestion: you can search any other instrument by ticker or ISIN and choose it instead.
• Add a holding. To model new money, add an instrument the client does not hold yet, choose the account and the amount. Added holdings appear in their own section of the table and are counted as new money in the proposed total.

Fund or share is read from the instrument itself. A fund shows its total expense ratio (TER); a direct share, such as a single company's stock, shows no TER at all, because it carries no fund fee. A fund whose TER is not on file shows a dash, never zero.

What the comparison shows

• Domicile split of the current and proposed portfolios, and the share held in US-domiciled instruments.
• Blended fund fee, value-weighted, with direct shares at a known zero fund fee.
• US withholding on dividends, on the client today and, after a switch to an Irish fund, the withholding suffered inside that fund.
• Dividends kept after all tax: after source withholding and the residence's own dividend tax, with the credit that residence gives for US withholding.
• Kept after tax, net of fund fees: the line a switch is really judged by. A cheaper tax position can be outweighed by a more expensive fund.
• US-situs value against the non-resident estate-tax threshold.

Choosing the tax basis

The same switch can help one client and cost another, depending on where they are tax resident. Every scenario has a tax basis: the client's current residence, a planned move from their relocation plan, or any other residence the engine covers. Changing it recalculates withholding, home dividend tax and the after-tax figures for that residence. Rates are the residence's statutory default unless you have entered the client's expected rate; a special tax regime is shown as your own note, never as a rule Borderfolio applies. US vs Irish-domiciled ETFs by tax residence works through why the answer changes.

What a scenario does not pretend to know

Some effects are not modelled, and the scenario says so rather than showing a confident number:

• Withholding is modelled for a move from a US fund into an Irish fund. A move into another domicile shows "not modelled".
• Dividends on added holdings are not modelled; the after-tax lines say they exclude them.
• Switching realises gains. Capital gains tax on the sale and trading costs are not netted from the comparison.
• A currency change is not modelled when a replacement lists in another currency.
• When a residence has no dividend rate on file, the after-tax figures are left blank with the reason.

From scenario to client report

Your observations go into the adviser notes, which the PDF report prints as adviser-authored commentary, separate from the system analysis. The proposed replacements, any added holdings and the tax basis used are appended automatically, so the report states what was compared and on which assumptions. The report is generated from a stored snapshot and reads the same later.

A short checklist for any proposal

• Is the comparison made on the client's actual, confirmed holdings?
• Does it show the fee change next to the tax change, not just the tax saving?
• Is the tax residence it was calculated for written down?
• Are the effects that were not modelled named?
• Can the client tell your recommendation apart from the system's figures?

Frequently asked questions

What is a portfolio proposal scenario?

A side-by-side model of a client's current portfolio and a proposed one, built from the client's confirmed holdings. The adviser keeps, replaces or adds holdings and sees the effect on domicile, fees, dividend withholding, dividends kept after tax and estate exposure, without changing the actual portfolio.

Can I propose any instrument, or only the suggested Irish funds?

Any instrument. A catalogued Irish UCITS counterpart is suggested for US-domiciled funds where one exists, but you can search any ticker or ISIN and choose it, or add an instrument the client does not hold yet.

Does the scenario include capital gains tax on switching?

No. Switching realises gains, and capital gains tax on the sale and trading costs are not netted from the comparison. The scenario states this so the adviser can account for it separately.