our financial planning process
At Propel Financial Advice, we adopt a “goals-based financial advice” process to help provide you with high quality financial advice tailored to your required needs.
In order to be able to provide the most suitable advice possible, it is critical to understand what your short, medium, and long term goals are. We can then assist you in developing a strategy that will provide you with the best chances of reaching your goals.
At all stages of the advice process it is encouraged for you to ask any questions. Our role is to help educate you in order for you to make important financial decisions with confidence.
The advice process is typically completed via a series of meetings as outlined below:
MEETING 1: DISCOVERY
In this stage of the advice process, it is all about understanding you, understanding your short, medium, and long term goals and quantifying them.
For example:
Short Term Goal:
Typically a goal you wish to achieve within a 2-year timeframe.
Eg, Purchase a new car for the sum of $100,000 in 18 months’ time.
Medium Term Goal:
Typically a goal you wish to achieve within a 3-5 year time frame.
Eg, Renovate the family home in 5 years, with expected capital outlay of $350,000
Long term Goal:
Typically a goal you wish to achieve in a period greater than 5 years.
Eg, Retire at age 65, with an income of $100,000 per annum and an additional $25,000 per annum for travel. Or if you're already retired, invest my retirement savings of $2.5 million to generate an income that supports my desired retirement lifestyle.
In addition to outlining your financial goals and objectives, it is also important to understand your current financial position to see where you are today. This is an essential step in delivering high quality advice.
Throughout the discovery process we establish your comfort levels and understanding of general financial matters such as cash flow, investing, superannuation, estate planning. Getting a feel for this assists us in guiding you through the advice process, and helps familiarise you with important financial matters.
We also discuss Investment Risk, and work through a risk profiling process to help identify and understand your tolerances to certain risks. This is particularly important so that we can provide you with advice and recommendations that you will be comfortable adopting.
MEETING 2: PLAN PRESENTATION
Once we have taken the time to understand your needs via the discovery stage, we then conduct relevant research and modelling to develop strategies suited to your particular situation to help formulate high quality advice. Once this is complete we meet again for our Plan Presentation Meeting.
At this meeting, we present to you our advice and recommendations in a clear and concise document known as a “Statement of Advice”(SOA). This meeting is a typically a further conversation from the previous discovery phase, as we refine your particular needs, and provide education around the relevant financial strategies suited to you.
This is where the advice comes to life. We take the time to help you understand in the simplest of terms the recommendations provided to you and why we recommend these strategies.
This is a great time for you to ask any questions about the strategy as well as any areas you are seeking to clarify your understanding.
At the end of this meeting, the advice document is yours to take away and read through and further digest the recommendations detailed within it.
Recommendation
I have known and trusted Luke as my financial advisor for many years now. He has always been proactive in looking after our best interests, and has always met his commitments to us - always and without exception.
~ Allan Golding
MEETING 3: IMPLEMENTATION
Once you have taken time to read and understand the recommendations contained within the SOA, we meet again to discuss any questions you may have.
Once you are comfortable with the recommendations outlined within the SOA, we then move towards implementing the recommendations. Depending on the advice being recommended this would typically require some forms to be completed and signed, which we will guide you through.
After this meeting we see that all the agreed strategies being adopted are implemented as agreed, so you don’t have to worry about processing paperwork.
MEETING 4: POST IMPLEMENTATION
In some, more complex situations, where a client makes considerable changes to their current financial arrangements, it is recommended to have a final meeting to ensure that everything has been correctly implemented and that you understand how everything is now working and are comfortable with the changes.
It is also a further point to allow you to ask any questions and continue to build your financial understanding / education.
MEETING 5: ONGOING REVIEW
At implementation stage we will discuss and agree on an approximate timeframe for our next scheduled review (typically 6 or 12 months’ time). At this meeting we will recap on our original financial goals and objectives, discuss if these goals remain current, and if there are any additional goals and objectives that need to be considered.
We also discuss any changes to your circumstances since our last meeting, and consider the impacts to your financial position and current strategies.
We look at your current performance and check in to see if you remain on track to achieve your stated goals.