We typically start with a Financial Planning Consultation. This includes an in-person meeting in our offices which takes approximately an hour and a half. We ask you to fill in a questionnaire first, and to bring a whole collection of your financial documents with you. Details, including the questionnaire, may be found here: Client Data Packet.
The packet contains a list of documents and information we'll need, and several pages of forms to fill in. It's a lot of information. Don't be alarmed! To best serve our clients, we need a lot of information. And if you haven't already gathered all of this, you might be surprised to learn how helpful just the process of getting it all together in one place is.
Ask us questions! The more comfortable you are with this, and the more complete our information is, the better a job we can do. Don't worry if you're not sure how to fill in some of it, or if some of it doesn't seem to apply to you. And if there is other relevant information that we haven't asked for, please let us know.
At our meeting, we'll discuss your goals and financial situation in detail. We'll review all the documents you've brought with you, your investments, debts, savings and other life goals. All information we discuss at this meeting will be confidential. After the meeting, you'll be provided with a summary of what we've discussed. Typically, such a consultation will include discussion and review of things such as:
• financial and life goals
• actual investments - taxable, retirement, etc.
• estate planning
• insurance
• employer benefits (which often include various types of insurance as well as retirement plans)
• taxes and opportunities to minimize them
If you need further services, we will discuss options for that as well. Many people need very little more than that consultation, especially if their financial situation is simple. However, very common additional services include one or more of the following:
• detailed family balance sheet and cash-flow analysis
• investment policy statement(s)
• portfolio analysis and review, including asset allocation, and detailed recommendations
• planning for specific goals
• retirement savings projections
• Comprehensive Financial Plan (which usually includes all of the above and more)
• asset management services (ongoing management of investment portfolio(s))
• retainer arrangements (which usually start with a Comprehensive Financial Plan, and includes ongoing monitoring, regular reviews and periodic meetings and discussions)
If you engage us for further services beyond the initial consultation, we'll keep a copy of the questionnaire and copies of any other relevant data we've discussed. Depending on the services engaged, we'll expect that data to be kept up-to-date and will periodically ask you to review and update it. We'll prepare a letter of engagement detailing exactly what services we've agreed upon, what you can expect from us, and what we'll require from you, a timeline for delivery of those services, and we'll expect a deposit at that time.
What happens after that depends on the services in question, whether it's delivery and review of a written comprehensive financial plan, delivery and discussion of a portfolio review, management of an investment portfolio, or ongoing consultation.