The Financial Planning Process:

1. Getting to Know Each Other

The first and most important step in creating your financial plan is the get-to-know-you phase. Here, we explore your current financial situation, identify where you are now and where you want to be in the future, as well as determine your risk profile, which is based on your past experiences, your current circumstances and your attitude to investing. This step is also where you get to know us. Common questions asked at this point are about the planner’s background and qualifications, how often you’ll need to meet, what risks are involved, if any and, most importantly the costs. 

2. Review & Plan

Meet with your Financial Adviser to review your financial roadmap and work with us to plan your future. 

Based on what we know about you and your goals, we will then get together to discuss some broad investment strategies and go over your options. This step allows us to confirm if we’re on the right track to creating a plan tailored specifically to you.  

3. Presenting Recommendations

This stage is where we formally present our recommended strategy to you in what we call a Statement of Advice (SoA). Your SoA will detail everything we know about you, any assumptions we’ve made, set out our recommendations and a plan for how we will implement your strategy. Here you’ll have the opportunity to discuss the strategy in detail to ensure that you understand and are comfortable with it. 

4. Putting Your Plan In Motion

Once we’re totally satisfied that you’re comfortable with our recommendation and that you’re fully aware of what we’ll be putting in place, you’ll then be in a position to give us the authority to implement the agreed strategy on your behalf. 

5. Regular Reviews

As with any plan, we need to keep track of how things are progressing along the way to see if anything needs to change. Regular reviews are critical to the success of any financial plan as they allow us to check on any changes to your financial situation, and to track the progress of your strategy and determine if we need to revise any part of our plan of attack. Depending on your financial plan and what you need, reviews can take place quarterly, half yearly or annually.