
When we were looking at a new benefit calculator, all of our colleagues who tested Policy in Practice's Benefit and Budgeting Calculator agreed it was the one they wanted to have – the decision was unanimous! Its ease of use and visual features will make it much easier to help our customers.
Our Benefit and Budgeting Calculator is outcome-focused and gives advisors information they can trust. They can easily explain complex benefit changes and give people the advice they need to make decisions. The calculator is free for individuals; extra features are built into our expert version for advisors, for which charges apply.
Compare calculators
Benefit calculation
- Compare income under current system and Universal Credit
- Save and download information about benefits and how to maximise income
- See which benefits couples can claim to maximise joint income
Understanding change
- See impact of change in earnings or hours on income via sliders
Help for claimants
- Get personalised benefit advice
- Get advice to maximise income
- Print a record of the case
- Click links to Find a Job
- Click links to benefit claim forms and advice
- Get support via general email helpline
Benefit calculation
- Compare income under current system and Universal Credit
- Save and download information about benefits and how to maximise income
- See which benefits couples can claim to maximise joint income
- Calculate income for students, refugees and asylum seekers
- Forecast UC fluctuations for weekly income for next 12 months
- Forecast weekly income and total household income that falls in UC assessment periods, for next 12 months
- Auto calculate Council Tax liability based on postcode
- Auto calculate Local Housing Allowance
- Calculate localised Council Tax Support
- Allow for Council Tax exemptions, disability and single person discounts
- Manually change auto calculated values
- Include details of self employed user and partner
- Allow for pension contributions
Understanding change
- See impact of change in earnings or hours on income via sliders
- Model, save and compare changes of circumstances
Help for claimants
- Get personalised benefit advice
- Get advice to maximise income
- Print a record of the case
- Click links to Find a Job
- Click links to benefit claim forms and advice
- Get support via general email helpline
Help for advisors
- Access built in chat support
- Print a case in full or selected sections, eg budget
- Share cases with others
- Save a case and return later
- Create personalised action plans
- Create and access management information
- Customise the visual look of the interface with your branding
- Set user permission levels
- Create tailored views for individuals, team and organisation
- Print case record and select which features to include in print
- View expert hovers showing detailed breakdown of how calculations are made
Budgeting
- Access Budgeting calculator
- Compare outgoings with other similar households to help budget
- Create smart budget plans showing prioritised payments
- Calculate maximum overpayment repayments, deductions due to sanctions, advance payments and hardship awards
The Benefit and Budgeting Calculator is amazing, the frontline volunteers find it really useful. I especially like the calendar that shows claimants who get paid weekly how their monthly Universal Credit payments will be affected over the next 12 months.
I decided Policy in Practice’s Benefit and Budgeting Calculator was something we really needed. It’s enabled us to provide a consistent approach to assessing affordability. We’ve been able to give our customers an online tool which lets them take control of their finances and liaise with us electronically, without the awkwardness or challenge sometimes faced in person.
We believe that, with the right support, most people can find work and build a career. We chose to work with Policy in Practice because their unparalleled expertise in simplifying the welfare system, as well as their Benefit and Budgeting Calculator, allows us to deliver innovative services to jobseekers across the entire Southern region.
When we were looking at a new benefit calculator, all of our colleagues who tested Policy and Practice’s Benefit and Budgeting Calculator agreed it was the one they wanted to have – the decision was unanimous! It’s ease of use and visual features will make it much easier to help our customers.
We believe that, with the right support, most people can find work and build a career. We chose to work with Policy in Practice because their unparelled expertise in simplifying the welfare system, as well as their software, allows us to deliver innovative services to jobseekers across the entire Southern region.
The Policy in Practice Benefit and Budgeting Calculator is a fantastic asset for our employability teams to use with people on the Work and Health Programme. The support the Policy in Practice team have provided from start to finish has been excellent.
The software is so user friendly and there are lots of intuitive features in there which mean that an advisor doesn’t have to be a benefits expert.
Deven understood what our needs were and listened to how we intended to use the calculator as part of our pilot. His detailed knowledge of the current benefit system and Universal Credit, combined with his technical expertise to build online tools of this type, made him the ideal person to work with.
Policy in Practice has helped Oxford to develop a budgeting tool that helps our advisors to have better, outcome-focused conversations with our residents. They have made DHP applications more effective, as well as more efficient, reducing the dependence of our residents on discretionary housing payments.
As well as mitigating against the risks brought by the welfare reforms programme we also saw that there was a big chance to try and do something different, to promote opportunity.
Our tenants are facing increased pressure on their budgets as a result of welfare reforms. The Benefit and Budgeting Calculator allows us to provide better income and budgeting support to our tenants.