• 703.768.7679
  • 6621 Wakefield Drive, Suite 113 Alexandria, VA 22307

What is the Wesling Financial Planning Services Approach?

Are We a Good Fit for Each Other?

It is our pleasure to host a one-hour evaluation session with you to address your financial planning needs. This session aims to determine how close the fit is between your needs and the services of Wesling Financial. If we both agree there is a good fit, we sign an engagement agreement and a fiduciary oath to proceed. What determines this fit? Your expectations, our services, the personal chemistry between you and your Wesling Financial planner, and the suitability of our fee structure to your unique situation. Please phone to schedule this introductory appointment.

Getting Started-The Engagement Agreement

Once we decide to move forward, you'll see how our Engagement Agreement clearly explains our joint responsibilities. The Engagement Agreement includes your schedule of Financial Services with complete descriptions and fees. You receive the benefit of a clear and unambiguous approach to satisfying your financial planning and tax preparation needs.

Our engagement may be for comprehensive financial services, under a retainer approach; hourly financial planning services to develop a financial plan or to address specific financial questions; or tax planning, preparation, or representation. The Engagement Agreement will be tailored to describe the scope, responsibilities, expectations, timelines, and associated fees for your specific scenario and needs. We will proceed only after the Engagement Agreement is signed by both you and us.

Comprehensive financial planning will include all of the steps below. We apply the LIFE financial planning and advisory approach. Steps are tailored for hourly clients. For example, a client may only wish to have us develop a financial plan to understand their current financial situation and to make initial recommendations. We may also conduct limited financial planning engagements to answer specific questions, such as related to divorce, social security, tax planning, college funding, insurance policies, inheritance, or retirement distributions.

Your Financial Plan

A comprehensive financial plan addresses your heart’s core goals. It is not a 100-page boat anchor! Developing a financial plan may seem straightforward, but the underlying complexities can quickly reveal themselves. For example, what seems like a straightforward election on an IRA beneficiary form can become problematic if a new spouse was not listed as a beneficiary, while the ex-spouse inherits a large IRA. With a dedicated financial LIFE advisor at your side, you can avoid such missteps.

When you work with Wesling Financial, we jointly develop a comprehensive financial plan that identifies your goals and lays out a prioritized list of actions you need to take to achieve those goals. This plan addresses each component that contributes to your financial health and evaluates how each one affects your goals. Your plan reflects the consideration of the following areas:

  • Your Goals—Both Life Goals and Financial Goals
  • Timeframes
  • Budgets
  • Net Worth
  • Investments
  • Taxes
  • Insurance
  • Retirement Plans
  • Estate Plans
  • Monte Carlo Analysis
  • Saving for education
  • Planning a major purchase
  • Business start-up considerations and entity types

Developing Your Financial Planning Team

Further, this is a living plan that does not sit on the shelf. The plan guides you to the next step toward meeting your financial goals, whether it is to contact an estate attorney, tax accountant, insurance agent, or other immediate need. And here's the best part-you don't take that next step alone! A key differentiator of Wesling Financial's approach is that your advisor accompanies you to these important next step appointments, whether at the offices of the service provider or in the Wesling Financial offices.

This is a critical service, because at the beginning, most of our clients have a general understanding of what is in their plan. Some clients may not have a deep understanding of how details of the plan interconnect, such as the relationship between charitable giving and estate taxes. Together with your Wesling Financial planner, you and the service provider can ensure you receive the best products and services to implement your plan. Further, the service provider may have ideas or specific knowledge to improve the plan, benefiting you and achieving the fulfillment of your goals.

Monitoring

Once the products are in place to support your financial plan, Wesling Financial enters the monitoring phase of the engagement. Monitoring of your service providers and investments (if you choose Wesling Financial to arrange the investments through a low-cost broker-dealer such as Fidelity or Schwab) commences as soon as the investments are arranged to support your risk profile. We contact you to make sure you are receiving all the appropriate paperwork and documents from the service providers, that these documents are in good order, and that you understand them. This provides you with confidence that your plan is being implemented as you direct and that you are not alone in this process.

We provide quarterly reports, as part of our engagement. Learn more about the types of enagement reports we provide.

Quarterly Meetings

We also plan quarterly meetings to help assess progress towards your goals. If Wesling Financial is monitoring your investments, we produce portfolio performance summaries as part of the quarterly review. If another firm is monitoring your investments, then you must ensure Wesling Financial receives statements and trade confirmations. We welcome the representative from the investment firm to these quarterly appointments to review their portion of the plan.

As with the investment representative from an outside firm, the providers of your financial plan's products and services are also invited to quarterly reviews, as appropriate. Wesling Financial encourages all of our clients to invite their product and service providers to attend these appointments. It is so important to us to provide you with a comprehensive and integrated approach to achieving your goals that we reduce your fee by 10% in each quarter a product or service provider attends the quarterly meeting. Wesling Financial's comprehensive Financial Planning Approach ensures that you have investment advice with the fewest conflicts of interest and the most disclosures possible, along with a complete set of knowledgeable service and product providers.

Year End Review

At the end of the engagement year, we sit down for a comprehensive review. We discuss each part of the plan and its implementation and perform an evaluation against expectations and benchmarks. Together, we conduct a full review of upcoming events in your life (pay raises, changes in marital status, births, major purchases, contemplated job changes, or any other source of impact to the plan or your outcomes). This could result in the need to update parts of your plan or change services, products, or providers. If this is the case, we review the proposed updates with you and your service and product providers, and then, with your approval, update your plan for the coming year.

Service NAPFA & Registered
Investment Advisor
Certified
Financial
Planner™
Estate
Attorney
CPA Insurance
Agent
Stockbroker
Fiduciary "On Your Side"
Truly Comprehensive
"With You" Implementation
Investment Planning
Retirement Planning
Estate Planning
Taxes Planning
Insurance
College / Major Purchase