Fee Only Financial Planner service – We create Do It Yourself (DIY) Investors

We are happy to announce that we have revamped our Fee Only Financial Planner service to cater to those who are willing to learn and find the path of Do It Yourself (DIY). Let us share the process and what are the new things we have added.

When we first launched our service in the beginning of 2018, the response was overwhelming from our blog readers and we are thankful for their trust and belief in us. However, these four years were a learning curve for us and our service.

We strived a lot to give our best and at the same time learn something new from each of our clients. Hence, after a thorough interaction with our trustworthy clients, we have come up with these new changes which are more of an educative process rather than just a robo-advisory kind of process.

After taking feedback from many of our trusted clients, we designed this process which will help them to educate and guide them in a better way. The primary purpose of this whole new module is to EDUCATE first and then IMPLEMENT rather than the BLIND following of a planner.

Fee Only Financial Planner service – We create Do It Yourself (DIY) Investors

The complete process is already explained in detail on our webpage “Fee Only Financial Planning Service“. However, we thought to update these changes through a blog and present a flow chart for better understanding to our readers and new clients.

The whole fee-only financial planner service is divided as below.

# Introduction

We will set up a Google Meeting at a time that is convenient for both parties. This meeting shouldn’t last longer than 30 minutes. In this session, we’ll work to understand your needs while introducing the Goal Based Financial Planning Approach and outlining the steps we take.

# Engagement

Once you agreed with the process and fee, then we send you three documents.

a) “Client Engagement Letter” – It is a formal engagement letter (which is mandatorily required as per SEBI Regulations). If you agree with the terms of engagement, you shall take print of the letter, sign, and mail us the scanned copy.
b) “Sample Financial Planning Report” – This is a template of the financial plan we will provide at the end of Step 3. This will help you understand what the financial plan looks like.
c) Client Questionnaire – It is a template in excel format. Here, you will share all your current financial status like family details (financial dependents), goals, assets, liabilities, income, and expenses. In the same sheet, you have to answer the risk tolerance questions. You have to pay the full fee (bank details and UPI details shared with you in email). You have to send the scanned copy of the Client Engagement Letter and filled Client Questionnaire sheet. We will set up a 30-minute follow-up appointment as soon as you deliver these documents. We will work to better comprehend your data during this meeting, and we’ll also do our best to address any questions you may have.

# Planning Process

This process involves three steps. Educating, Planning, and Go-ahead.
a) Educating – Typically, we meet for three sessions of an hour each. In our initial meeting, we will go through the idea of asset allocation and the practises we employ. We will help you comprehend the products and how to build a portfolio in the second session. We will talk to you about insurance and tax planning at our third meeting.
b) Planning – Following these sessions, we will begin working with your data. The process of preparing and sending you the plan typically takes 1-2 weeks.
c) Go-ahead – You have to go through the plan shared and list your questions or doubts. The next meeting will go no longer than one hour. We will do our best to answer any questions or doubts you may have throughout this session. Once everything is understood, you may begin implementing.

# Follow up and Review Process

a) Follow Up

We will arrange a conversation that lasts no longer than 30 minutes once every three months (after our discussion on planning). We strive to ascertain your needs during this conversation and address any questions or concerns you may have. As a result, we will plan three follow-up calls during the course of the engagement. Please take note that this is not a portfolio review. But to assist you if you run into any implementation-related problems. You are welcome to get in touch with us at any time during the year if you have any doubts, inquiries, or changes to your financial situation.

b) Review

We follow the yearly review process. Even though we conduct follow-up meetings during the year, the review of the plan will be once a year.

Note – After the financial plan is delivered, you can contact us to discuss anything related to personal finance, investing, and your financial planning during this one year of engagement.

If your financial or life situation changes and there is a need for modifications in the plan, we will do additional sessions.

We tried to explain these steps with below two images for your better understanding.

FINANCIAL PLANNING PROCESS –

FOLLOW UP and REVIEW PROCESS –

Revised Fee Structure

Considering the effort we put in by educating you and doing the follow-up meetings, we have revamped our fee. Earlier the fee for resident Indians was Rs.15,0000 + GST (@18%) = Rs.17,700 and for NRIs, it was Rs.20,000 + GST (@18%) = Rs.23,600 for the first year.

Now we have revised this to Rs.25,000 (inclusive of 18% GST) for resident Indians and Rs.30,000 (inclusive of 18% GST) for NRIs for the first year.

From the second year onwards, the fee will be 12,000 (inclusive of 18% GST) for resident Indians and Rs.15,000 (inclusive of 18% GST) for NRIs.

The increase in the fee was imperative for us considering the almost 10 hours of effort we put in in the first year in the whole process of educating, delivering the plan, and doing the follow-up tasks with you.

If you noticed, we have introduced the concept of educating the clients and also doing follow-up meetings once in 3 months with the clients. These are value-added services that may really help our clients to choose their Do It Yourself (DIY) path at the earliest.

Conclusion – Our idea of financial planning is that clients must not follow planners BLINDLY. Rather than that, they must understand the whole concept of this financial planning through the process like education. Then they may be in a better position to implement the plan.

Hence, when you are hiring us, your main purpose should be to

• Clean up your earlier mess,
• Understand the process and simple steps of managing the money in a better way,
• Implement in such a way that it should be simple, easily implementable, least manual intervention, and avoid mistakes.
• Finally, be your own planner as early as possible.
• Hire us with this proper planning and make sure that when to disengage with us once you are confident of managing your own money. Because we firmly believe in the DIY concept. How many years have you rely on someone else to manage your money? In the end, it is not a ROCKET SCIENCE like the financial industry forces us to believe. Financial Planning is more of commonsense, behavior aspect and risk management than chasing the products, returns, news, or noise.

LOOKING FORWARD TO WORKING WITH YOU!!

NOTE – This new fee structure is applicable to new clients. For old clients, the existing old fee structure is applicable for renewal.