Our role is to sit down with our clients and go through these questions so that, together, we can understand where the client wants to go financially and how they can best get there.
Personal financial planning helps the client reach those goals through the development and proper management of their financial resources.
Financial planning is not a product… it is a process. With the assistance of a planner, clients may use specific financial products, but only as ends to accomplish the goals they have established.
The financial planning process is a series of steps taken to help clients accomplish their goals. A qualified financial planner, such as a Certified Financial Planner® professional, will first gather and analyze data about a client’s income and expenses, taxes, insurance coverage, retirement plans, wills, trusts, investments and other information pertinent to the overall financial situation.
The planner will then help the client set realistic goals, identify key financial issues concerning these goals, and prepare a list of recommendations and alternative strategies for achieving these goals. Each strategy, from tax planning to investments, will be recommended in the context of other strategies to achieve the optimum overall results.
Once the client has decided which recommendations to follow, the planner will help them implement those decisions. The last step in the financial planning process is to periodically review and, if necessary, revise the plan.
