Greet. Review. Analyze. Strategize. Plan review.
Financial Planning Process
For our on-boarding clients we’ve made our financial planning process client-friendly with collaborative reviews, high security, and attention to detail. Our aim is to provide you:
- A secure
and collaborative planning environment - A process that provides comprehensive financial planning
- A written Initial Plan that you can then execute on your own or with our help
Step ZERO:
Before we begin our financial planning process with you, we want to make sure that fiduciary financial planning services are a good fit for you and for us. If you haven’t already done so, please take a few minutes to answer these few questions: Find out if these services are a good fit for you!
5-Phase On-Boarding / Financial Planning Process
Planning Stage
We use a 5-phase financial planning process as described by the diagram above and the narrative below. The process is very professional, extensive and client friendly. These are the major steps and highlights of each phase:
Financial Planning Phases
Your Role
Our Role
No-obligation “Get Acquainted” meeting
2. Fill out your profile and basic financial information in our Planning software: Financial Planning Software**
3. Contact Us to schedule the Get Acquainted meeting
- Understand client goals, needs, and wants
- Review client’s financial questionnaire
- Estimate cost of Planning project
- Submit Client Service Agreement to client
1st Collaborative Review (60 min)
2. Complete a Risk Tolerance Questionnaire
3. Scan (both sides) of your financial documents into a PDF file. Upload to our secure electronic file folder
- Jointly review all data submitted
- Re-establish goals, needs, and wants
- Discuss the “what if” scenarios to be analyzed
Planner performs the analytics and projections
Patiently wait while we do our “thing”!
- Determine current financial status and projections
- Model the agreed upon scenarios
- Perform analysis and projections per the scope of Agreement
- Prepare a visual Plan of software projections
2nd Collaborative Review (60 min)
Engage in the discussion and ask a lot of questions!
- Review the Plan scenarios
- Discuss the projections and impact on client goals
- Agree on a preferred “Proposed Plan” approach for the final write-up
3rd Collaborative Review (60 min)
1. Access your written Plan from your secure electronic folder
2. Take your time to review. Write down your questions.
3. Think seriously about how you would like to implement your Plan
- Submits the final Plan to client’s secure electronic vault
- Live Review walk-through of Final Plan
- Discuss implementation options
- Propose next steps to implement the Plan
** If you need assistance in completing the “Profile” tab in the software, contact us or preview this help video: Help Videos and click on the help video for completing your Financial Profile
At this point, you have completed the financial planning process and your Initial Plan has been completed and you are ready for the Implementation Stage. You can review your Plan and all account data from a convenient dashboard at our Client Portal providing 24/7 access.
Implementation Stage
Execute and Monitor the Plan
Once the Initial Plan is completed, on-going review meetings are critical to ensure you implement and stay on track with your Plan. We will jointly develop a service model calendar that meets your personal needs. The graphic below shows an example of an on-going service model.
Related Information to Financial Planning Process
You can also read more about our On-going services here: On-Going Financial Planning
…and a key article here: Is Continuous Financial Planning For You?
Thinking about implementing your Plan yourself?” Read this white paper from First Ascent, “You Want to Do it Yourself?” to get some eye-opening information.
