Greet. Review. Analyze. Strategize. Plan.
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 click here and answer these few questions: Find out if these services are a good fit for you!
5-Step On-Boarding / Financial Planning Process
Planning Stage
We use a 5-step 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 your role and our role for each step:
Financial Planning Steps
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 your goals, needs, and wants
- Review your financial questionnaire
- Estimate cost of Planning project
- Submit Client Service Agreement to you
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 scenarios, analysis and impact on your 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.
- Submits the final Plan to your secure electronic vault
- Live Review walk-through of Final Plan
- Discuss implementation options
- Propose next steps to implement the Plan
Financial Planning Software
Our financial planning software provides you with your personalized Financial Dashboard with all your accounts aggregated in one place. Here you will also input your goals, income and other financial data on the Profile tab.
** 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
After the delivery of your written Plan, you will have completed the financial planning process. You can review your Plan and all account data from a convenient dashboard at our Client Portal providing 24/7 access.
Your Initial Plan is now complete and you are now ready for the Implementation Stage. You can implement the Plan yourself or choose us to help with the implementation. An On-Going Financial planning contract is required to help you implement and execute your Plan.
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.
