Financial Planning

Our Planning Process

Integrated Wealth Management offers a planning process unlike anything you’ve been exposed to previously. The first time we meet we’ll have a well-thought out, productive discussion. If we agree there is basis to move forward, we’ll request some objective information so we may come to our second meeting prepared to make progress.

Proprietary software allows us to present you with financial models that clearly and concisely illustrate your current situation and projected future asset growth – creating a visual road map of your situation decades into the future.

By exploring the subjective issues surrounding your wealth, we’ll narrow the universe of available strategies down to the salient few that feel like a good fit. We look at strategies a la carte, and in concert, illustrating how a decision in one part of your estate can dramatically impact other areas.

At the end of the process, we’ll meet specifically to revisit where we started, how far we’ve come, and ensure you’re pleased with the direction your plan is taking.

Data Collection

With your input, we gather all of the necessary paperwork to determine your current financial position. This would include most recent investment statements, income taxes paid, any life insurance, wills, trusts and other pertinent documents that give a clear picture of your present status and existing planning. Specifically, we look at all areas of your financial plan and pull them together in a cross-disciplinary manner.

Determine Objectives

Financial data is important, but each individual’s goals, fears, and needs are an important component to how their planning gets done.

We will lead you through a process to help identify and crystallize your objectives, and assess your risk tolerance. We fully analyze and evaluate your personal situation taking into consideration lifetime planning issues such as lifestyle income and needs, and maintaining control over assets. An integral part of this process includes discussions of estate distribution alternatives for tax efficient transfer of assets to your heirs, while protecting the assets from divorce, remarriage, death, liability, bankruptcy, and all other predators.

Identify Problems

Now that we have a truer picture of an individual client by combining objective financial facts with personal goals and needs, we can reconcile the differences between existing planning and objectives by developing specific strategies for consideration.

In our presentation of your individualized financial models, or “financial road-map”, the long-term adequacy of your current financial resources and plans will be clear. We will discuss the pros and cons of differing acceptable strategies.

Develop Recommendations

Based on your own preferences, we’ll recommend specific planning strategies to help you reach your goals. We will show a comparative analysis of the different planning strategies that may be considered to put you in a better position to make wise decisions, making implementation much easier. You will be truly instrumental in determining which combination of strategies make you most comfortable. This provides more comfort to the client, knowing that we aren’t forcing them into a pre-packaged plan.

Implementation

Once we have agreed upon the appropriate planning strategies that will be implemented, we will coordinate the work of other necessary advisors, such as attorneys, or CPAs in order for you to realize a working plan. You may use your existing advisors, or any of our recommended professionals to supplement your current advisors as needed. Where applicable, we will oversee analysis of differing financial products, ensuring their design is consistent with your individual needs.

Update/Review

As with any sophisticated planning, financial planning requires periodic maintenance and review. Your plan should have the flexibility to expand or contract as the tax laws change, health changes occur, or you simply change you mind. We advise that you ensure the plan is current and up to date.

Need A Personal Financial Officer?

Gone are the days when individual advisors, operating in separate disciplines, offer the most advantageous way to handle planning for those who’ve spent a lifetime of sweat equity amassing significant net worth.

We believe that affluent families are inadequately served by the traditional advisor network of individual specialists. From our very beginnings we have advocated a cross-disciplinary approach to financial planning at the highest level.

Our goal is not to replace your existing trusted financial advisors. We honor the relationships you have with your current CPA, attorney and others. Yet this traditional approach may accidentally bypass crucial integration of disciplines, inadvertently leaving too much of one’s planning to chance.

Just as a Chief Financial Officer pulls everything together for a business, we advocate the placement of a “Financial Planner” on your planning team. Contact us today to learn more!

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