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Financial Planning (2) Resources

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Financial News ,Financial Planning

The Different Types of Financial Planning Services

Financial planning services should provide purely concept-based (not product-based) solutions for your financial objectives, while plan implementation may use a variety of financial services and products, including both traditional products like stocks, bonds, mutual funds and insurance, and newer offerings such as ETFs, SMAs, and robo-advisors.

Insurance Agent

Insurance agents sell life, disability, long term care, property and casualty, and other types of insurance products. They customize related plans and programs to cover a variety of risks that best suit clients’ needs. They weigh the advantages and disadvantages of these policies and promote the associated sales—oftentimes compensated via commissions based on those policies’ premiums. 

Accountant

Accountants primarily examine and prepare financial records, ensuring the accuracy and timely preparation and submission of tax returns to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). They review the financial operations of businesses and fiscal matters of individuals, and assist in creating plans to improve efficiencies. Many accountants earn Certified Public Accountant (CPA) licenses from their respective state board of accountancy—a distinction denoting extensive education, experience and competency within the profession. 

Estate Attorney

Estate Attorneys, as their titles indicate, specialize in estate planning issues, such as, for instance, estate taxes and the effective distribution of assets to heirs. They provide advice to clients on strategies about how to best prepare for the possibilities of mental illness or incapacitation, and eventually, death. Advice on Wills, trusts, estate tax minimization, business succession, and strategies to ensure clients’ assets and savings are secure following their deaths are typical elements of such services. Estate attorneys can provide further legal advice regarding these areas, and also prepare related legal documents.

Stockbroker

Stockbrokers, as aforementioned, may sometimes refer to themselves as “financial planners” or “investment advisors,” but in fact are more accurately described as salespeople employed by brokerage firms (“broker-dealers”), who sell stocks, mutual funds, and other securities on a commission basis. Thus, the more products sold or transactions made, the more they benefit—and while professionals in this area are heavily regulated and are most often quite scrupulous, there is an inherent conflict of interests and an incentive structure here that could result in sales that may not necessarily be aligned with clients’ financial objectives. 

Investment Advisor

Investment advisors are typically focused on the management of client investment portfolios and planning issues directly related to the securities and accounts being managed for the client. Such advisors typically collect a fee for ongoing management of the securities portfolio based on an annual percentage of assets under management. Their firms are regulated by either the states or the SEC (depending on whether they are federal or state registered) as Registered Investment Advisers (RIAs). While such investing arrangements tend to provide a much better alignment of the goals of the investor with the incentives of the advisor than a traditional stock broker’s compensation, if the associated fees are too high, they may provide a significant drag on returns in the long term (if not kept in check). In addition, compensation solely by this means is likely to lead to an over-focus on investing and a neglect of other financial planning issues.

Financial Planner or Wealth Manager

Financial Planners and Wealth Managers who are compensated based on either a fixed fee, retainer fee, or hourly rate fee have perhaps the most optimal incentive structure to provide the broad, comprehensive, concept-based solutions needed for fully coordinated multi-disciplinary financial planning and wealth management. Such professionals are free to think from the multiple perspectives of Investment Planning, Estate Planning, Business Succession Planning, and Fringe Benefits Planning, and may focus their energies on crafting and developing purely concept-based (as opposed to product-based) strategies to help clients achieve their short- and long-term goals. Like investment advisors, their firms are also regulated as Registered Investment Advisers (RIAs), and as such they are both required to act as fiduciaries with clients’ best interests in mind, and may be monetarily incentivized to do so (depending on their exact fee structure). 

 


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Financial News ,Financial Planning

Do You Have a Personal Financial Plan?

Personal financial planning is crucial when organizing your individual financial goals. Setting realistic goals and making a strategy on how to achieve them will ensure your success.

Whether you're saving for something important or simply trying to cut down on unnecessary spending, a personal finance plan can help you achieve your goals. It allows you to see where your money goes and find ways to make it work harder for you. Here are some tips for making a personal financial plan for yourself or your family.

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Financial News ,Financial Planning

Comprehensive Financial Planning Explained

Comprehensive financial planning doesn’t have to be as intimidating as it sounds. Learn about different levels of what this can mean, and how it might benefit you.

Comprehensive Financial Planning – quite the austere topic. It sounds like a serious examination, or something painful. Comprehensive Financial Planning is a phrase your Investment or Financial Advisor may have thrown around at some point, or perhaps something you were told to think about. But don’t worry, it’s not as complicated as it sounds. It is a fancy way of saying, “Let’s go over your current finances and find out what areas we can help you improve on.” With that said, let’s break it down.  

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Financial News ,Financial Planning

Where to Get the Best Financial Guidance

When looking for the best financial guidance, it can be tricky to navigate through all the available resources. Here are some great ones to get you started.

Whether you're young or young at heart, it's never too early, or too late, to get your financial house in order. If you're not particularly educated about the intricacies of financial management, taking those first money-management steps can be daunting. Where should you go for accurate financial guidance you can trust? Here are some great sources to get you started.

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Financial News ,Financial Planning

Protect Yourself with Holistic Financial Planning

Holistic Financial Planning is a comprehensive evaluation and coordination of Financial, Investment, Business Succession and Fringe Benefit Planning.

You may have heard of holistic financial planning. As its name suggests, it is a method of financial planning that encompasses many different aspects of income and capital management, from planning for the education of your children, to saving and investing for retirement, to estate and business succession planning. According to Kiplinger research, holistic financial planning, and in particular in the area of investment, could net you 1.5 percent more in average annual returns.

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Financial News ,Financial Planning

How to Determine Your Financial Planning Goals

The first step towards financial freedom is learning how to create and execute financial planning goals. Here are five steps to beginning this process.

The purpose of money is to create stability, peace of mind and enjoyment for you and your family. If you work towards these three things, you'll always be on the right track. With that in mind, here's the order in which you should take on your financial planning goals.

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Financial News ,Financial Planning

How Multi-Method Investing® Mitigates Market Volatility

Multi-Method Investing can be embraced by investors to enhance returns and develop a solid investment strategy

Market volatility has been endemic in seemingly every single asset class since the financial crisis started in 2007. Investment managers offer a variety of ways to cope with this new paradigm, such as attempting to profit from the volatility by active trading, or providing diversified exposure to different asset classes. 

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Financial News ,Investment Strategy ,Financial Planning ,Pro Tips

How Can CPAs Help Optimize Conservation of Capital? “Embrace the Next Generation”

CPAs must work with every generation of a client's family to optimize a capital conservation strategy. This helps craft and implement more effective plans.

Professionals often make the mistake of not working and planning alongside the heirs of their clients. Not exploring the wishes of both clients and their children not only causes miscommunication in the development of a plan that efficiently transfers assets but also may displace the professional relationship in the future.

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Financial News ,Financial Professionals ,Investment Strategy ,Financial Planning ,Pro Tips

Embrace Technology & Methodology Together To Optimize Conservation of Capital

Embracing technology and a solid investment methodology allows financial advisors to better conserve capital. Learn how turnkey asset allocation helps.

Financial professionals are starting to grasp the power of technology as a tool to manage client assets. A savvy financial professional will not only utilize technology but will develop a corresponding investment methodology and strategy behind it.

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Financial News ,Financial Professionals ,Investment Strategy ,Financial Planning ,Pro Tips

Utilize SMAs with Unique Investment Strategies to Mitigate Your Client's Risk

Financial advisors can leverage SMAs with unique strategies to help mitigate risk and to help better engage their clients.

Investment professionals can utilize specialized Separately Managed Accounts (SMAs) as a way to mitigate the risk of their clients. SMAs can be customized by investing in certain securities or certain strategies. They may, for example, wish to screen for equities or fixed income and invest according to a selective or opportunistic strategy.

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