The six steps involve the following:

1. Gathering the Data

To make appropriate recommendations on your financial future, it is important to understand your present financial position, your financial needs and objectives. This information is gathered via a thorough data collection process.

2. Identifying Your Goals

An integral part of the planning process is the identification of your goals and objectives. You should consider:

• the income and asset levels you are seeking
• placing your investments in a secure manner
• future education expenses
• upgrading the family home
• protecting your occupational income through adequate death, disability and income protection cover
• estate planning: writing a will and appointing a power of attorney
• accumulating assets to a defined level by a defined date
• maintaining an agreed level of investment accessibility and flexibility
• maintaining your lifestyle against inflation rises.

3. Identifying Financial Issues

An analysis of your financial situation and financial goals is completed to identify whether your current financial assets are enough to achieve your financial goals and objectives.

The type of financial issues we look for include:

• Will you have enough to retire on
• Will you and/or your family be protected if you are unable to work due to sickness accident or death
• Are you saving any money after all your expenses
• Are your estate elections in place and accurate to your wishes
• Do you have a large capital gains tax issue
• Are your assets at risk due to a business involvement

It is these issues that are considered in the preparation of your financial plan as we look for ways to achieve your stated goals and objectives.

4. Preparing Your Financial Plan

Having identified your goals and objectives, assessed your financial situation and identified any financial issues, our next step is to design an overall strategy. The strategy we recommend will take into account what resources and means you have available and how they can be used to your benefit. The areas addressed during strategy design are budgeting and cash flow, tax planning and tax structuring, personal, business and strategy risk, investment portfolio design and ongoing management, debt sourcing and structuring and estate elections and arrangements. When preparing the financial plan we may use multiple meetings to talk through our concerns thoughts and ideas. Our aim is to work with you tailoring a plan that will achieve the outcomes you desire. Through this consultative process we arrive at a recommendation that you are most likely to implement. It is important to note that our authorised representatives have a fiduciary duty to recommend the most appropriate strategies to achieve your stated goals and objectives. In some cases our strategies may seem beyond what you are willing to do. Where this is the case we work with you discussing each concern, further tailoring the final strategy with which we proceed.

5. Implementing Your Financial Plan

Once the financial plan is complete, you have read it through and we have discussed the strategy and all its parts, it is your decision whether to proceed with the advice. If you wish to proceed then the next step is to implement the advice. Typically the implementation of our strategic advice is via a series of steps that are completed in a set order. Some steps are completed by you and others by us. In the end, the success of our strategy will be determined by how well it is implemented and for how long it is adhered to.

6. Reviewing Your Plan

Our world is in constant change! In a financial context that can mean investments over and underperforming their benchmark, legislative changes creating new opportunities (and closing down others), careers, families and relationships shaping how we spend or save a dollar. Where you spend your time can dictate the success of areas you are ignoring. Whilst spending the time and money to create your own financial plan is to be commended the work doesn’t stop there. Like most things in life, if you don’t maintain them they will not last very long and therefore cannot be relied upon when you need them most. We’ve found that the key to any successful financial plan is the review of your situation, moving with speed when action needs to be taken and maintaining a clear focus on the goals to be achieved.