Frequently Asked Questions

Why should I use a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® Practitioner?

A CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® Practitioner offers expert financial guidance, tailored plans, and objective advice to help clients achieve their goals. They cover holistic planning, investments, taxes, insurance, and more, providing a comprehensive approach. With a fiduciary duty, they prioritize clients' best interests, ensuring informed decisions, and adapting plans over time.

What standards does a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® Practitioner have to meet?

To become a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® Practitioner, individuals must meet education, examination, experience, ethics, and continuing education requirements set by the CFP Board. This ensures their competency and adherence to ethical standards. The CFP Board's Code of Ethics and Standards of Conduct requires all CFP® professionals to act as fiduciaries when providing financial planning services to their clients. This means they must always act in their clients' best interests, putting the clients' needs ahead of their own and avoiding any conflicts of interest that could compromise the advice given.

What are the benefits of using a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® Practitioner who is also a CPA?

A CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® Practitioner who is also a CPA offers comprehensive financial expertise with a focus on tax efficiency. They provide holistic financial planning, especially for complex situations, including estate planning. The combined knowledge enables coordination, risk management, and ongoing monitoring. Clients benefit from the integration of two respected designations, saving time and gaining trust in their financial affairs.

What does a comprehensive financial plan include?

Our clients can expect the following services dependent upon their individual needs:

Cash Management Planning – includes assistance in developing a spending plan, analyze and provide projections of future income needs, plan financially for life transitions, establish an appropriate emergency fund, determine debt management strategies
Investment Review – evaluate risk tolerance, analyze investment options given funding goals, values and time horizon, test asset allocation against historical market conditions, evaluate costs, tax efficiency and income potential of investment options
Retirement Planning – calculate retirement needs given desired age of retirement, lifestyle spending needs and other goals, analyze retirement income sources, create a distribution strategy that takes into consideration tax and penalties on withdrawals
Risk Management Planning – analyze the need for healthcare insurance, auto insurance, homeowners’ insurance, life insurance, disability insurance, umbrella insurance or other liability insurance
Estate Planning – assist you in working with an attorney to make sure the necessary documents are in place
Tax Planning – provide tax-efficient strategies, including monitoring capital gains and losses, analyzing tax advantages for charitable and retirement contributions, optimizing social security and retirement plan distributions, and managing tax efficiency within investment accounts

For more information, please refer to our Comprehensive Financial Planning Service List.

How many meetings can I expect?

We meet with our clients several times throughout the planning process. The types of meetings that Clients can expect, depending on their individual needs are:

Discovery Meeting – this initial and complimentary exploratory meeting serves as an opportunity to establish a relationship, build trust, understand clients' primary concerns and aspirations, assess the scope of engagement, align services with clients' needs, and determine if there is a good fit between the client and the services provided.
Client Meeting 1 (with additional meetings as necessary) – this next meeting will focus on defining clients' starting point, enhancing awareness of their unique perspectives, understanding beliefs and behaviors affecting their finances, clarifying true values and priorities, guiding them to envision their ideal lives, and setting meaningful and purposeful goals across various life aspects.
Client Meeting 2 (with additional meetings as necessary) – these meetings will summarize and clarify your values, goals, priorities, and concerns, address life transitions, present a draft of the financial plan aligned with your life vision, and discuss its implementation and monitoring. We will also explore strategies to maintain focus on your goals and priorities and proactively plan for future transitions.
Ongoing Planning Meetings – these meetings shall occur based on time of year and as clients’ financial life changes occur and will provide regular reviews of the True Wealth plan ensure its relevance to your changing circumstances, values, and priorities. We will also use these reviews to explore any new concerns, aspirations, or life transitions that may arise.

What if I can’t always meet in person?

We offer remote meetings through Google Meeting that allows us to conference within a secure space and share screens which we find helpful in providing plan advice. We also utilize a financial planning software called eMoney Advisor that offers clients a comprehensive financial view, goal tracking, scenario planning, budgeting, retirement planning, investment analysis, secure document storage, collaboration with advisors, educational resources, and strong data security.

How much does it cost?

We offer convenient, flat fee pricing and our fees are based upon the intricacy of the work to be performed and the time and resources it takes to perform the work. Our fee will be clearly described and outlined in our Financial Planning Agreement. We require a portion of that fee to be paid at signing our Financial Planning Agreement with the remainder of the fee due on a monthly, quarterly, or other agreed-upon billing arrangement. We utilize a secure and user-friendly billing platform called AdvicePay that allows you to pay via ACH or credit card.

See our Financial Services Overview & Fee Schedule brochure for more information.

What happens after my comprehensive financial plan is complete?

After the comprehensive financial plan is completed and provided to you, you may transition to an on-going planning client. As an ongoing planning client, you will receive services and benefits in the following key areas:
Proactive Planning

Assistance with Communication
Access to Resources
Monitoring and Keeping You Informed
Continued tax planning

On-going planning clients will be billed through AdvicePay at a fee that can be paid either monthly, quarterly, semi-annually or annually for these services but can cancel any time.

I’m interested, how do I get started?

We are excited about your interest in becoming a client, the next step is to either fill out our Contact Us form on our website, send an e-mail to info@whitmanwealth.com, or call our Office Manager, Allison Alexis at (904) 436-5223 to set up a complimentary discovery meeting.