Our 6 Stage Process

1. Discovery Meeting

We will meet with you for around 50-60 minutes entirely at our expense and with no obligation on your part to proceed further. We will listen to what you want from a professional adviser, help you articulate your financial goals and ask about your current arrangements. This will establish whether we can be of service to you. If we believe we can deliver value for money, we will explain how we can help you and the costs of our services. If we reach mutual agreement we can quickly move to the next stage.

2. Goal setting and data gathering

If engaged, we will need to gather as much information as possible about your current financial arrangements, personal circumstances and your attitude to investment risks. This often involves us contacting the providers of your plans and policies to obtain up to date information on valuations, terms and conditions and benefits. Our comprehensive discussion with you provides insight into your goals and your existing situation and helps us to tailor our financial planning process to meet your particular needs. This includes: 

• your financial goals and needs 
• your income & expenditure 
• valuation of your assets & liabilities 
• your insurance policies and investment funds 
• types of asset held in your investment funds 
• your attitude to investment risk
• your priorities 
• any other relevant data affecting your plans

3. Analysing and Evaluating Your Situation

Analysis of data we gather enables us to evaluate whether your resources are working most effectively. As part of this process, we examine the taxation and other implications when considering whether alterations to your existing arrangements represent an appropriate strategy.

4. Meeting to Discuss Issues, Implications and Commitment

This meeting will provide you with a clear view of how effectively your current arrangements are leading you towards the financial milestones and lifestyle you wish to achieve. Our discussion will establish both the potential for making changes designed to improve the probability of achieving your goals as well as your attitude and commitment towards making changes required.

5. Detailed Design and Construction

When identifying the precise detail of how your arrangements could be better organised to achieve your stated goals, our recommendations will: 

• be based on our impartial, expert opinion
• take account of your attitude to the relationship between risk and reward.

We will meet with you to present and discuss our advice and agree any actions you wish to take.
We can arrange all necessary steps to ensure your decisions are implemented thoroughly, accurately and in a timely fashion. A great plan badly implemented becomes a bad plan. So, we will: 

• deal with all necessary paperwork
• liaise with your other professional advisers 
• deal with changes to existing arrangements 
• keep you informed of our progress 
• contact you when arrangements are completed to confirm what has been done and emphasise the documentation you need to retain
• explain how our on-going review service provides you with peace of mind

The reasons for our recommendations and the actions you decide to take as a result of our discussions will be confirmed in writing, giving you a permanent record of the advice you received. 

6. Ongoing Monitoring and Review

The financial planning process is not a “one-off” event. We believe regular review meetings are the only way we can keep each other up to date with developments in your circumstances and other factors influencing the progress and performance of your plans. In between meetings you will have access to our team whenever you have any queries. We will also make contact if we have news or ideas relevant to your strategy.