The key question you should ask yourself is which one is best:

Financial Advice or Financial Planning?

Clients that get financial advice often end up treating their financial programme like a shopping trip. They simply progress through life collecting policies. It is very much an event driven exercise.

For example, you may have children so you buy some life assurance or see an advert and buy an investment policy etc.

Because it is event driven the advice is reactive/problem solving, and will almost always result in a policy being sold to you (or doing the research yourself and you buying the policy without advice).

The problem with this is that there isn't any form of measurement that takes place until it's too late. You reach the checkout, i.e. retirement, and have to hope you have enough in your trolley to last you for the rest of your life.

Or worse, something goes wrong on the way to the checkout ? illness, accident etc and you have to rummage in the trolley in the hope that you have something in there to deal with the problem.

In simple terms it is a retail service and the people that provide it get paid according to what they sell (assuming they are paid by commission and not by fees from you).

Having said that, a financial advice service may be appropriate for your needs now before you progress to a more comprehensive financial planning service.

Financial Planning is much simpler and more effective.

The first step is to work out what your objectives are, making sure you spend time to work out both your needs and your wants. The next step is to work out how far all your existing plans and investments will go towards achieving your objectives.

Cashflow forecasting software is then used to build the framework of your financial plan, marrying up your objectives with your current and future sources of income.

Cashflow modelling is crucial as it gives your Financial Planner a context within which advice can be provided because it highlights any areas of vulnerability. More importantly, it gives you a context within which you can make decisions as the effects of various scenarios can be modelled.

This could be termed your own financial map for the future. On many occasions clients are better off than they imagined and surprised with the results, meaning they can make more accurate financial decisions.

As you can probably see, financial planning is much more proactive and holistic/comprehensive. The problem is that it only works properly if it is impartial. You need to have the confidence that all your options have been considered; writing a will for Inheritance Tax planning versus purchasing an insurance product is a good example of this.

Indeed, it may be the case that you already have enough money to achieve your goals in life so the best strategy may be to spend more.

Equally, if by measuring your worth against your objectives it is shown to be a very rosy picture, you could reduce the risk with your existing investments. This protects you from the volatility present in many portfolios.

Commission or Fees?

If your adviser only got paid if they sold you a policy, you may well question the impartiality. Even more worrying is that ongoing reviews and monitoring is essential to make sure your planning remains on track.

If your adviser only gets paid when he/she sells you something, can you really rely on the ongoing attention to your planning needs?

The Financial Tips Bottom Line:

So to summarise, financial planning is more proactive, holistic and comprehensive, and may be a more appropriate proposition for your needs than financial advice. Getting impartial advice is the key, and this can be achieved with a fee based financial planning service. If you deal with an adviser, remember to ask them what financial planning services they offer.

If they only provide a financial advice service, maybe it's time to interview other advisers that DO offer the type of service that you're looking for.

Copyright 2006 Ray Prince