What Is Financial Planning?

Some professionals use the term financial planning as a substitute for investment management. Those professionals manage stocks on your behalf and make recommendations for products that they sell.

But for us, financial planning is much more than your investment portfolio. While your financial advisor should manage your portfolio to help attain your goals, financial planning encompasses more than your stock-to-bond ratio. It integrates all the areas of your wealth, from taxes to cash flow.

Working with our wealth management firm in Kansas City, MO, you receive a Personalized Planning Blueprint™ that includes an array of topics:

• Customized investment recommendations

• Tax analysis and planning

• College funding

• Health care and insurance planning

• Employee benefits review

• Advice on stock options and restricted stock

• Estate and beneficiary review

• Charitable giving strategies

• Additional services for business owners including exit strategies and calculations of business value

Our team brings together all the topic areas that are relevant to you to help meet one objective: achieving and maintaining your prosperity. We start by discovering what that word—prosperity—means for you. And as your financial planners, we then create your unique Blueprint so that it helps transform your prosperity vision into reality.

The Financial Planning Process

To achieve your financial objectives, it helps to follow a defined process. This process creates a structure to fully understand your goals, build your financial plan, and implement strategies.

Although financial planners’ processes will vary from firm to firm, we use the following five-step process to uncover your financial obstacles and opportunities and build your Prosperity Planning Blueprint™:

1. It’s All About You

Your hopes and dreams. Your worries. What keeps you up at night. We collect your facts and figures, including important details that are often overlooked. We go above and beyond, taking time to understand your personal financial story and values.

2. BRINGING YOUR NUMBERS TO LIFE

Together we look at scenarios to envision your future. Our process is highly interactive and visual. What if you retire sooner? Or buy a second home? What happens if markets take a sudden decline? By looking at the possibilities, you can focus on the things you can control—like how much to save or spend, and how to invest wisely. You can have confidence that your financial plan is sustainable, even in a world of uncertainty.

3. WE PUT IT IN WRITING

Talk is cheap, but documentation is indispensable. Your Prosperity Planning Blueprint™ summarizes your facts and figures along with the recommendations created just for you. This helps ensure your finances are organized, coordinated, and maximized to meet your most important goals. Your Blueprint is a living document that is updated regularly, so it also serves as an essential reference for you or your loved ones in case of an emergency.

4. MAKING IT HAPPEN

We guide you every step of the way in implementing your plan. This includes fine-tuning your investment strategy, updating beneficiaries, and much more. We also proactively collaborate with other professionals to update wills and trusts, refinance mortgages, plug insurance gaps, and implement tax-saving strategies.

5. PROACTIVE UPDATES

An effective plan needs to keep up with a changing economy and life events. We monitor your investments, track your progress, meet with you regularly, and keep your Blueprint up to date. You also have unlimited access to a CFP® professional for any financial question that arises.

What Areas Does Financial Planning Address?

At Prosperity Planning, the financial planning objective is simple: to address all the areas needed to build on a client’s success and achieve prosperity. This means every one of our Prosperity Planning Blueprints™ is personalized to a client’s financial situation and needs.

It also means that we offer the education and experience to help address those varying needs. Our team members’ certifications include:

• CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ (CFP®)

• Certified Public Accountant (CPA)

• Certified Divorce Financial Analyst® (CDFA®)

• Certified Exit Planning Advisor (CEPA)

Each of our team members will draw on their expertise to help create your personalized financial plan—the Prosperity Planning Blueprint™. Some of the areas in which we commonly make recommendations include:

• Customized investment recommendations: We make recommendations to help achieve your goals based on factors such as your age, risk tolerance, and return needs.

• Tax analysis and planning: With an in-house CPA, we provide tax-centered financial planning so that you can use your after-tax dollars more effectively.

• College funding: Higher education will only get more expensive. We help you select the appropriate college-saving vehicles to reduce expenses when your child or grandchild goes to college.

• Health care and insurance planning: We work with you to select coverage to help mitigate risks to you and your family.

• Estate and beneficiary review: We recommend estate vehicles that can help accomplish your legacy goals while reducing taxes so your heirs can keep more of their inheritance. We regularly review your beneficiaries to make sure they still reflect your wishes.

• Charitable giving strategies: You may want to leave a philanthropic legacy after you pass, or you may want to actively support your organizations and causes now. We assess giving strategies that can help you accomplish your objectives.

• Services for business owners: We provide comprehensive planning, such as exit strategies and calculations of business value, to help business owners create more value, control, and flexibility in their company.

Get Started

What does your Prosperity Planning Blueprint™ look like? Schedule a 30-minute discovery call to discuss your situation and how we may be able to help.