Find a Financial Planner

By Kristi Vaughan

You know you need help meeting your financial goals but where can you find it? One good source is a financial planner. Financial planners can help you with planning for retirement, saving for a child’s college education or even deciding whether buying or renting a house is a wiser use of your money.

What is a financial planner?

Loosely speaking, a financial planner is anyone who helps you with your finances. Accountants, insurance agents, stockbrokers and even lawyers have used the term. Financial planners are those people who work with you to help you meet life goals through proper management of your finances.

Financial planners can specialize in certain areas or be generalists. So too do are there financial planners who work on a fee-only basis, commission-only basis or combination of the two.

There are several professional designations that a financial planner might have. These include National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA) professional, Certified Public Accountant/Personal Finance Specialist (CPA/CFS), Chartered Financial Consultant (ChFC) or Certified Financial Planner (CFP®). Only those who have passed the test and practice requirements of the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards can call themselves certified financial planners. NAPFA-registered Financial Advisors are fee-only comprehensive financial planners.

What is the financial planning process?

According to the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, there are six steps to the financial planning process that every planner should follow:

  • Establish and define the relationship between you and the planner
  • Gather your financial data, including your goals
  • Analyze and evaluate your financial status
  • Develop and present you with financial planning recommendations or alternatives
  • Help you implement the recommendations
  • Monitor the recommendations and make recommendations for change, as necessary

How do I select a financial planner?

As with any service, start by asking your friends, colleagues and others whose opinion you respect. See if they have ever used a financial planner and, if so, what their experience was like. Think, too, about what you are seeking from the relationship and whether it matters to you whether your planner is fee only or if he earns commissions.

Both the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors and CFP Board of Standards offer checklists of questions you can use when interviewing prospective planners.

It is best to talk with several prospective planners so you can make an accurate comparison.

First meeting

Once you select a financial planner, or financial advisor, you will need to provide key financial documents. These include, but aren’t limited to, information about:

  • Retirement savings accounts such as 401(k), IRA, or annuities
  • Employer-sponsored pensions, deferred compensation and stock options
  • Recent tax returns
  • Earnings statements
  • Bank statements
  • Brokerage statements
  • Listing of assets
  • Insurance, including life, homeowners, auto and umbrella
  • Estate planning information including wills, power of attorney and living trusts

So, now that you know what a financial planner does and how to find one, what are you waiting for? It’s time to get on the road to your financial future.

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