Tips on Choosing a Financial Planner

A financial planner can be an invaluable advisor to you as you work towards your financial goals and dreams. A good financial advisor can act as the quarterback for your team of advisors, working with your tax advisor, insurance agent, etc. to make sure the different parts of your financial plan are working together.

Most people could use some help keeping their financial house in order. When should you hire a financial advisor? Some people hire financial planners only when they need advice about a specific issue such as saving for college, paying down debt, or evaluating an early retirement offer. Others hire a financial planner to complete a comprehensive plan and monitor that plan on an annual basis. No matter what your reason is for hiring a financial planner, one of the greatest advantages of working with a financial expert is the added motivation you’ll have to achieve your financial goals.

One concern with hiring a financial professional is that anyone can call themselves a financial advisor. Unlike lawyers and CPAs – where you have to take an exam and have specific training before you can hold yourself out as a CPA or an attorney – there are no such requirements before you can call yourself a financial planner.

However, there are some designations in the financial planning field that help distinguish experienced, trained financial professionals from others who may not have any qualifications. Some of the designations to look for include:

Certified Financial Planner (CFP) – to be a CFP, you must meet an education requirement which shows that you are knowledgeable in all areas of financial planning, you must pass an exam, and you must have three years of relevant experience before you can hold yourself out as a CFP. CFPs must also abide by a Code of Ethics which are enforced by the CFP Board.

Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) – A CFA is a title given to someone who has passed an exam about investments and finance administered by the Financial Analysts Federation.

PFS – CPAs who have several years of experience providing financial planning for individuals can attain the PFS designation. CPAs who also have the PFS designation have extensive tax and financial planning experience, so they are a good choice for people with complex tax situations.

You should contact and interview several financial advisors before hiring one. Some questions you should ask include how are you compensated, do you have an area of specialty, do you have clients similar to me, how long have you been providing financial advice, etc.

Working with a Fee Only Financial Planner

You don’t have to be rich to work with a financial planner. Many people hire financial planners to help them achieve their financial goals and dreams, whether they have a million dollars or just a few thousand dollars saved. You’d be surprised at the number of people who have turned to financial advisors for help with retirement planning, investment advice, budgeting and debt management, tax planning and/or comprehensive financial planning.

There are many reasons why you might want to talk with a financial planner including:

– to learn how much you really need to save for retirement
– to determine the best investments to meet your goals
– to make sure you are getting all of the tax benefits you are entitled to
– to understand how much and what type of life insurance you need
– and many more…

You don’t need to wait until you have enough money or are ready to retire to work with a financial advisor. Young people just starting out can benefit from financial planning just as much as married couples preparing to retire in a few years can. Whether times are booming or we’re in a recession, whether you just need help creating a budget, saving for your children’s college education, or you have complex retirement planning needs, anyone can benefit from financial planning.

What Should You Expect When Working with a Financial Planner?

In general, a financial advisor will start by reviewing your current situation and helping you identify your financial goals. Once your goals and objectives are determined, a financial planner will prepare a plan that will help you achieve your financial goals through saving, investing, budgeting, etc. The plan should cover all aspects of your financial situation including cash flow and debt management, investments, retirement, taxes, insurance and estate planning. Other areas that may also need to be considered include saving for college, or business planning.

Once you have a financial plan in place, you should review it periodically to make sure you’re still on track to meet your goals. Your financial situation is always changing, so your financial plan should change as well.

What to look for When Choosing a Financial Advisor

There are many types of financial planners including fee-only financial planners, fee-based advisors or the traditional brokerage firm. Each provides different services, and more importantly, each is compensated differently. Brokerage firms typically sell you a product for a commission and their main service is investment advice. Fee-based advisors will generally provide more comprehensive financial planning, but their main service is managing your investments for you, and they earn a percentage of the assets managed for their compensation. Fee-only financial planners focus more on comprehensive financial planning, including retirement planning, investment advice, budgeting, tax strategies and estate planning. Fee-only financial planners typically charge an hourly rate or a project fee and don’t earn commissions on any products recommended.

In addition to services offered and compensation, you should also look at the advisor’s experience, qualifications, and their area of expertise before hiring them. While CFPs and NAPFA-registered advisors must have met certain education and experience requirements in order to use the credentials, other financial advisors may not have any experience or qualifications.

The 7 Baby Steps of Financial Peace

In this age of “information overload,” many Americans possess the knowledge to develop and maintain successful financial lives. Through a quick online Google search or by listening to so-called “financial talking heads,” Americans have access to split-second information to answer most any financial question. Yet regardless of easy access to financially sound advice, many are burdened with crippling debt, habitual overspending, and scarce savings. Perhaps the more recent financial ills of Americans may be attributed to the following financial choices made by consumers: (1) The lack of a monthly budget manifests into reactive buying habits instead of proactive spending habits. Put more succinctly, the average consumer might say, “Money just slips through my fingers and I don’t know where it all goes.” (2) Easy money through savvy financial marketing of credit offers facilitates unaffordable buying power. It’s also likely not an accident, that we have all grown accustomed to being referred to as “consumers.” It begs the question: Why are we not referred to as “savers” or “investors?” The very connotation of the term “consumer” assumes that Americans will buy and spend and not restrain and save. Since the main-stream American has easy access to information pertaining to sound financial choices, yet so many have not followed these principles, an apparent disconnect appears to exist between financial knowledge and the application of that knowledge into every-day financial lives. So it would appear that Americans perhaps suffer from a case of too much information and too little financial education. As an example, read about John, an 18-year old who is ready to depart for college.

Like many teenagers, John’s primary financial education has been nearly non-existent in the school classroom. Rather, John’s financial education has been shaped through marketing advertisements from print, online, and television media-which has bombarded him with messages of affording the unaffordable through so-called “easy” financial terms. Our story begins with John on-track to graduate with honors from high school. He is accepted to several colleges but forgoes a full in-state scholarship to attend his out-of-state choice, UNC Chapel Hill. To afford his dream college, John takes out $12,000/year in subsidized student loans. In his eyes, John’s choice was quite simple: He could stay close to home to go to college or attend his dream college at UNC Chapel Hill. Because of easy access to extreme amounts of student loan debt, John’s unaffordable dream is transformed into reality. And because the acquisition of debt is made so easy through student loan programs, the debt is not a major deciding factor in John’s choice. Before John leaves for college, he also buys a new car. The easy financing offer includes 72-month financing and no money down. His Dad cosigns the loan and Dad’s rationale is that he is helping John “establish credit.” In 4 years, John graduates from UNC Chapel Hill and his debt total is $58,000 ($48,000 from student loan debt and $10,000 remaining on car loan). John is keenly aware of his debt load and he also knows that his student loan repayment will begin promptly 6 months after graduation. So needless to say, he looks forward to his first paycheck.

Through his connections at UNC Chapel Hill, John lands a good first job but his excitement is turned to shock when he looks at his first paycheck. He takes the paystub to H.R. and asks, “Who is FICA and what did he do with my money!” Regardless of the hard lesson in taxes, John is excited to have his own money and he wants his apartment to look good. John visits the local furniture store and charges $3,000 to the store credit card-which promises 12 months “same as cash.” John has also grown tired of his “college car” and decides to trade it in for a new one. He learns what it means to be “upside down” when he goes to trade-in his college car but through the liberal financing terms of the dealership, he’s permitted to roll the negative equity of his trade into the new car loan. Whereas many of John’s financial decisions to this point have resulted in debt, John realizes that he needs to save some money as well. So he’s quite happy to learn that his company offers a matching contribution through a 401k plan. John signs-up and feels good that he’s saving money for the future and getting “free money” in the way of a company match.

But 6 months after graduation, the bills come due. John is faced with starting student loan repayments but in order to keep the payments low and afford his auto and credit card payments, John chooses the interest-only option, as advertised by the student loan company. The result of all this debt spending is that in only 4-5 years following high school, John’s financial condition is quite poor. But life seems fine to him-thanks in large part to the promise of easy financing of an unaffordable lifestyle.

Our story continues as John meets Mary, the girl of his dreams. They quickly fall in love and decide to get married. Rings and the honeymoon are bought on credit as the parents pay for the wedding (by taking out a loan on their own 401k plans). John and Mary also find the house of their dreams and are happy to learn that the financial terms of the mortgage company include no down payment. Even the closing costs are rolled into the mortgage-meaning John and Mary won’t even have to write a single check to move into their dream home. With their incomes stretched paper-thin, John and Mary decide to temporarily opt out of their health insurance plans. They plan to restart their health plans when their income increases from expected salary raises. With the accumulation of a mortgage payment, student loan repayments, credit card bills, and car payments, John and Mary begin arguing over their finances. Unable to afford all their minimum payments, John cashes-out his 401k but he elects not to have any taxes withheld upon withdrawal (401k withdrawals are subject to taxes and a 10% IRS penalty). When he files his tax return, he doesn’t have the money to pay the taxes and penalties. And to top it all off, Mary has news for him. She’s pregnant.

After reading John and Mary’s financial plight, this story may sound quite familiar as many stories have been written of homeowners who have been foreclosed or been forced into bankruptcy. And these occurrences were magnified during the Great Recession. The overuse of easy financing facilitates an unaffordable standard of living. And this “house of cards” easily crumbles through financial emergencies such as job loss. As mentioned earlier, it would appear that a lack of financial education, not financial knowledge is at least partly to blame for financial challenges faced by our young couple, John and Mary.

With the apparent need for financial education in our country, a man by the name of Dave Ramsey has heeded the call through his solution, known as Financial Peace University (FPU). FPU consists of a 13-week class taught through churches and community centers across the country. And the most important elements of the FPU class focuses on Dave Ramsey’s 7 baby steps. The following is a brief summary of the 7 baby steps taught through Dave Ramsey’s FPU class. But this summary is no substitute for attending FPU, which is highly encouraged.

Baby step 1 recommends a $1,000 savings for an emergency fund. This first baby step is the most important in my view. It represents a “line drawn in the sand.” It is a conscience decision to recognize that financial emergencies will occur again. Yet, with a $1,000 saved for emergencies, the emergencies perhaps won’t seem as pressing. Perhaps even more important, Dave Ramsey encourages the development of a preliminary, first-time budget. And he recognizes that the first-time budget is likely to fail. But through trial and error, he emphatically addresses the need to create a budget in order to faithfully plan how to spend and account for every dollar before pay-day arrives. Through diligent trial and error, Dave will encourage you to review the budget every month, especially between married couples. This type of systematic planning may eliminate many arguments over money-because both partners must first agree on the budget each and every month.

Baby step 2 recommends debt pay off using the “debt snowball.” This baby step constitutes several commitments. As the old saying goes, “If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.” Regarding credit card debt, consider for a moment that your plastic credit cards symbolize the spade on the end of a shovel. Every time you use credit cards, that shovel digs a deeper financial hole. The solution is simple, but many resist this solution. Dave recommends that you cut up your credit cards. That’s how you “throw away the shovel” and stop the madness of digging a deeper financial hole. Dave believes that until you’ve made this commitment, your steps to financial peace will be made in vain. I agree that this concept may seem radical to some, and also, some “talking heads” are adamantly opposed to eliminating the use of credit cards. But it’s hard to argue with the sound financial principle that if you can’t afford something, you shouldn’t buy it. Eliminating credit cards and so-called “easy credit” offers from your financial life also eliminates the tool that facilitates an unaffordable lifestyle. Once you have cut-up credit cards, Dave then encourages you to begin your “debt snowball.” The debt snowball concept recommends that you pay off the lowest balance first. And once you have eliminated one debt, apply that payment to the next debt in order to pay it off more quickly. Through his FPU class, Dave claims that the average family eliminates $5,300 in debt while building $2,700 in savings (Source: Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University class). At the successful completion of the debt snowball (all non-mortgage debt paid off), Dave Ramsey encourages the use of an envelope system for your daily spending. So if you follow his teaching, your everyday spending should consist of: cash, automatic payments (for monthly bills) debited from your checking account, and lastly, a debit card.

How to Sharpen Financial Competence for Directors and Executives

Financial competence is not a static variable, in that it is something that is ever-changing, and the skills associated with being financially competent must be sharpened consistently. The fact is that failure to have financially competent decision makers can be highly destructive to an organization. What is meant by “financially competent” goes well beyond being able to identify credits or debits or being able to properly read financial reports. Being financially competent should focus on one’s ability to break down the financial information provided in those reports and analyze how they should be used to determine the financial path of the organization going forward.

Furthermore, a person must be able to understand how risk factors into the financial decision making matrix and how that risk should affect the courses of action taken by the company. These are the things that separate competent financial management from incompetent financial management. This is likely a major reason why roughly 21% of all CEOs serve in a financial oversight position prior to becoming a CEO and why almost a third of CEOs have served in a financial capacity at some point in their careers. It is also important to realize that the outcome of certain situations has no bearing on the competence of the decisions that have been made. The fact is that poor financial leadership can still yield success from a periodic standpoint. In the same manner that an unskilled Poker player can have a run of “good luck” and win big in a night of gambling, so to can incompetent financial managers “GET LUCKY”.

The problem with depending on luck to manage the financial infrastructure of an organization is two-fold:

1. Luck does; and will always run out at some point in time
2. Financial management isn’t gambling; especially when considering what’s at stake whether it is the shareholders, the market, the employees, or the customers; there is simply too much at stake to make financial management a “Coin Flip.”

To ensure that the key decision-makers are financially competent it is incumbent upon management to analyze the knowledge of these individuals and provide opportunities for them to update and hone their skills as it relates to financial management. The good news is that most organizations generally select the financial decision-makers within their organization by doing a thorough search; this generally allows them the opportunity to select the person that they feel best can handle the position.

Furthermore, most organizations that utilize committees to help manage operations have a financial management committee (as it is considered to be the most common among companies with three or more committees). The problem is that many companies don’t understand the position enough to fully handle this search, so they end up hiring people that have had past success without determining whether the source of that success was luck or skill.

If the current global economic calamity has taught us anything; it has taught us this: When the economic climate is advantageous to organizations it is much easier to seem competent than when things go bad. In a good economic climate decision-makers can take huge risks and if they win they are superstars; if they lose there are generally opportunities to mitigate that loss (either by acquiring debt capital; increasing sales, or raising equity funds just to name a few).

In a bad market we have discovered that THE SAFETY NETS ARE GONE; and risky decisions have real consequences. In this market we are finally paying the price to learn that there is a real difference between corporate sponsored gambling and effective financial management. What we need to do now is train current and future financial decision-makers about what makes an executive financially competent, and what does not. This will produce more effective financial decision-makers and more importantly it will provide a future asset for companies that will assist them in diverse market situations; NOT JUST WHEN TIMES ARE GOOD.

The solution: The following are some of the steps that key decision-makers need to take in order to assist the company in building a more competent and more effective financial management infrastructure.

1) Your executive Finance team: To have a financially competent executive team; YOU NEED A TEAM; there is ALWAYS an inherent danger in leaving major financial decisions to a few individuals. The fact is that we are talking about money; and when that is the subject then many times self interest replaces corporate interest in the decision making hierarchy. Furthermore a company that has a properly chosen team of individuals to make decisions provides a system of checks and balances which mitigate the risks associated with these decisions.

2) Training Courses in Finance: Another conduit would be to get a day or two day workshop in financial training where current decision makers receive tutelage in financial decision making from an application standpoint instead of an academic or theoretical standpoint. Bringing in people that have a history of being competent financial managers will be helpful. But also teaching examples of how poor decisions have destroyed companies would be helpful as well. Many course offer sound coverage of financial topics of importance. However, it is important to check background, experience and credentials of the trainer before embarking on a course.

3) Get a Coach or Corporate Consultant: Coaching at executive level has proven to be popular in many parts of the world. Experts believe that the value an executive coach (whether it is a successful consultant, former executive, or entrepreneur) adds, significantly impacts progression and drives performance to a higher level. There are many coaches available but you need to ensure you get a coach who will listen to your concerns at the same time offer the right and relevant professional advice. With the advent of the internet, organizations also offer virtual coaching support.

4) Have self-analysis meetings: At least once a year all organizations should seek to have a meeting with all people involved in the financial decision making process (executives, senior financial/accounting personnel, board members, etc.) and simply have a brain-storming session that focuses on the direction of the organization; future financial needs, current financial position, etc. These meetings have a way of bringing issues to light that otherwise would stay in the dark; and furthermore you want all of these people to work well with each other, and this is a good platform to start from.

While most organizations believe that the decision making aspect of their financial infrastructure is at least competent; the fact is that many organizations aren’t aware of what constitutes competence as it relates to financial decision making. The fact is that, no matter where your organization is located, the WORLD HAS CHANGED for companies; to stay prosperous companies must focus on sustainability and not luck; they must focus on consistency and not major peaks. Financial competence has little to do with an education in finance, it has everything to do with how your executives can use that information and analyze the health and the future of the organization. Those that understand this are in an advantageous position; those that don’t are playing with fire.