The Six Step Financial Planning Process

01

Initial Meeting

We offer an Initial Meeting without obligation or fee. This is an opportunity for us to begin to get to know each other and decide if we can work together.

It gives you a chance to ask questions about us, what we do and how we do things. It gives us a chance to begin to find out from you what is truly important to you, your goals, your aspirations, the people and things that really matter to you.

Following the meeting we will issue a summary of our discussions, along with a Scope of Work outlining where we believe we can help you to achieve your goals, the steps we would need to do that and how much it would cost for us to do the job you need doing.

02

Information gathering

This is very much a collaborative step, with some of the information coming for you and some of it coming from the various providers with whom you have investments, pensions and other financial products. It is both a vital step, since the quality of the plan is dependent on the quality of the information, and a frustrating one as providers are not always quick, efficient or accurate. We ask you to bear with us during this step!

03

Evaluating your position

This is where it all begins to come together. Putting together your goals and aspirations with what you currently have, we can look at how close you are to achieving your goals and any risks that you might be open to that could prevent you from doing so. It’s only a snapshot in time but it means we have a starting point for the future and the first step in the construction of a plan.

04

Developing your Plan

Finally we are in a position to pull everything together and construct your personalised financial plan, which we will send to you before the Planning Meeting. Here you will find all the information, all the analysis and a detailed explanation of exactly what we believe needs to be done, by whom, by when and how. At the Planning Meeting we will then walk you through the plan and enable you to ask questions, clarify anything that isn’t clear and challenge us.

05

Implementing your Plan

Once you are happy with your plan and the recommendations, we will implement whatever is needed to action these. This may mean making minor changes to existing products or setting up new ones. Wherever we can, we will take care of the administrative hassle, dealing directly with the providers, and will keep you updated as things progress.

If you wish to handle your own implementation then this is not a problem, the only thing we ask is that you let us know before we produce the plan as many providers will only deal through advisers.

06

Monitor and Review

Any plan is only as good as the point in time that it is created. Your situation will change; your objectives will change; the world around you will change; your plan is likely to need to change over time as well and it is our belief that having a scheduled process for review, even when everything seems to be going smoothly, means catching those changes before they move from changes to problems. Through regular meetings, the ability to contact us between meetings with any questions or concerns, liaising with your other professional advisers and, most importantly, providing an independent, rational view when other things get too much, we’ll keep you on track.