Financial Planning Process
1. Initial meeting. At this initial meeting, we will discuss your current financial situation and goals. We will determine if a comprehensive financial plan is appropriate and if our firm is right for you. If you wish to retain our firm, we will provide you with an estimate of the plan preparation fee, a financial questionnaire, and a list of the information and documents we will need from you to complete the plan.
2. Define goals/objectives and gather data. At this second meeting, we will examine your financial priorities, objectives and concerns in more detail. We will review your balance sheets, income statements, and the financial questionnaire. Risk tolerance and investment time horizon issues will be addressed.
3. Analysis and Evaluation. We will analyze the data and information you have provided up to this point. We will evaluate your general financial status, identify and quantify particular needs and prepare specific recommendations. We may require additional information from you during this process.
4. Final Plan Presentation. We will prepare final reports outlining and quantifying your financial goals and objectives, identifying any deficiencies and providing specific recommendations. We will present the plan to you, along with an in-depth discussion of our analysis and recommendations. We encourage you to schedule a minimum of one hour and preferably two hours to allow for a thorough plan review.
5. Plan Implementation. At this stage we will review the options available to implement your plan. You may retain us to implement any investment and/or insurance recommendations indicated in the plan. We will also coordinate with other professionals, such as attorneys and CPAs to implement the recommendations.
6. Monitor and Update. The planning process is not a once in a life time event. Your financial plan should be reviewed regularly after implementation to determine your progress on achieving the plan recommendations. Changes in your personal circumstances should also be evaluated to ensure that our original recommendations are still appropriate. In addition, we will address any tax law changes that may impact our original recommendations. We use the WealthVision planning system to keep all of your financials up to date. We recommend that we review all of your goals and all of the plan assumptions at least annually.
The time frame for completing a comprehensive financial plan varies with the complexity of the issues, the personal circumstances of the client and the estate size. Generally, three weeks is sufficient time to prepare the plan. We will advise you as soon as possible if we anticipate that the timeframe will exceed our original estimate.
