What is Financial Planning?
Financial Planning is
Wealth Planning
Safety Planning
Tax Planning
Investment Planning
Financial Planning is not
Our Services
Why you need a Personal CFO:
A Chief Financial Officer, or Financial Director, is someone whom a CEO can trust to take care of their financial affairs, letting the Chief Executive get on with what they do best. At Navigator, one of our jobs as financial planners is to fulfil this role for our clients and their families.
‘Your personal CFO’ is a suite of services Navigator tailors to each of our wealth management clients, ranging from financial planning and investment to tax and business contingency advice.
In practice, this means our clients get five things from us:
- A coordinated, life-long financial plan
- A lasting personal relationship with a highly-qualified financial planner with relevant experience
- An evidence-based investment approach with a proven track record
- A pro-active service which combines regular meetings with the ad-hoc access they need
- A breadth of focus extending beyond individual clients to their families and businesses
Sounds good? Why not find out a bit more.
In addition to our wealth management offering, we run a separate specialist unit:
- A proposition supporting people receiving personal injury compensation
That’s the big benefit from my perspective – knowing that someone’s looking after it all, and managing it properly, so I can get on with my business.
Business owner
Personal CFO
Navigator don’t just look at things in financial terms, they look at things in financial terms relating to the life and the plans you have.
Management consultant
An introduction
All great businesses need a great CFO (Chief Financial Officer). It’s not just about keeping control of the company’s finances. Much more important, it’s about delivering the vision – making sure that the company has the resources to achieve its long-term goals.
At Navigator Financial Planning, we advise individuals, not businesses. But our aim for our clients is exactly the same: to make sure you have the resources to achieve your long term goals.
I’m David Crozier, founder and principal of Navigator. My promise to you – and all our clients – is that you can expect a distinctively different and valuable relationship with this business: we’re here to act as your personal CFO.
David Crozier CFPcm
Founder & principal
- WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF A PERSONAL CFO?
- WORKING FOR YOUR FELLOW-DIRECTORS AND COLLEAGUES (OR YOUR FAMILY, AS THEY’RE BETTER KNOWN)
- WHAT WE CAN OFFER AS PART OF A PERSONAL CFO SERVICE
- HOW WE GET PAID
The answer is simple. Navigator CFO clients almost all fall into one of three groups:
- Entrepreneurs and owner-managers
- Senior executives
- Partners, consultants and other senior professionals
Our clients are highly successful, intelligent people, hugely committed to their work. All are short of time. All have hopes and aspirations for their own futures – and also, almost invariably, for their close families’.
And all need support in order to define their hopes and aspirations precisely, and to formulate and implement a plan to make sure they are achieved.
That’s the most important thing they get from us.
Along the way, they get something else too: we take all the hassle of looking after their finances off their shoulders and make sure things get done, not just talked about.
In essence, those are the two things they can expect from their relationship with their personal CFO. We help them build a plan and achieve it over the years. And along the way, we de-stress their financial lives. The financial planning process we follow in order to deliver these outcomes is explained in this overview.
Let’s take this CFO idea just one step further. If we provide the CFO, then that makes you the Chief Executive. But then there will usually be other key players involved in this enterprise.
We’ve talked of your financial plan, and the actions necessary to achieve it. But across our client base, the plan is hardly ever to do with a single individual, and almost always to do with a broader family group – a partner, children, parents and in today’s complicated families very often a number of others in relationships that include words like “step-“, “ex-“ and “-in law.”
Across the family members and generations, the range of key challenges can be extremely broad.
- For your children, it may be the costs of education, and then of owning a home and starting on adult life;
- For your parents, it may be dealing with the practicalities of later life, and ultimately with inheritance;
- For you and your wife, husband or partner, it may be trying to hang on to the plan for the future you want, amidst all the challenges of meeting your responsibilities to all the others.
We’re ready to help tackle all the issues that you and your family face, now and into the future.
| Initial meeting | Initial no-obligation chat to work out the variety and extent of your financial planning needs |
| Discovery meeting | Gathering all the details we need to build your financial plan once you’ve made any decision to work with us |
| Financial Planning meeting | Investment planning, lifestyle compass (Helping you achieve the things that are most important to you without jeopardising your financial security) |
| Execution of recommendations | Making sure that all necessary actions are taken to execute your plan iniially |
| 45-day meeting | Follow-up meeting to confirm your financial plan is in place, and that your expectations have been met so far |
| Regular progress meeting | Regular meetings to review your financial plan and progress towards your goals |
| Phone and email support | Someone to talk to if you need us urgently, or if you’d just like to bounce ideas off us |
| ‘Remove the Hassle’ | Paperwork co-ordination e.g. details from fund providers |
| Second Opinion Service | Free consultation for family or colleagues you refer with a financial planning matter |
| Keeping you informed | Six monthly performance reports, on-line access to your investment portfolio valuation and a quarterly newsletter in addition to The shipping forecast [link to signup] |
| Professional Connections Network | Ensuring your affairs are dealt with by the right professionals as part of a co-ordinated strategy. Working with your existing accountant or solicitor, while opening up access to our network of specialists |
| ‘GSD’ – Getting Stuff Done | Making sure that all necessary actions are taken to execute your plan on an ongoing basis |
| WealthPath TM | A rolling programme of meetings addressing all the key areas of your finances on a regular basis |
| Lifestyle Compass | Helping you achieve the things that are most important to you without jeopardising your financial security |
| Financial Log TM | Your personal file combining all areas of your financial life into one integrated strategy |
| Philanthropic planning | If it’s part of your plan, helping you make the most efficient impact on your community or the world |
| Personal tax strategies | Making use of allowances, exemptions, and tax-planning vehicles to minimise your income and capital gains taxes |
| Profit extraction strategies | Planning the most efficient way to take funds from your business |
| Intergenerational planning (including IHT) | Ensuring that as much of your wealth as possible transfers to those to whom you want it to go |
| Tax-privileged investment | Arranging annual ISA, pension and other tax efficient contributions as appropriate |
| Fund & provider research | Ensuring accurate asset allocation, safe custody and reliable administration, while minimising costs and taxes |
| Intelligent Investor Programme | Ongoing research into academic theory and financial evidence from the last 6 decades |
| Portfolio rebalancing | Keeping your investments in line with your risk profile |
| Investment coaching | Support and guidance to stay the course and achieve a successful investment experience |
| Investment of new money | Using the most suitable vehicle for your circumstances and in line with your financial plan and risk profile |
| Safety review | Regular checks to ensure all areas are covered and that costs are controlled |
| Business contingency | Helping you organise your business to protect your interests in the event of serious illness or death, yours or a business colleague’s |
| Family contingency | Making sure your loved ones are protected in the event of serious illness or death |
| Keep it in the family | Ensuring your assets stay in the right place in the event of (for example) matrimonial issues arising, or long term care being required |
Navigator will always put your interests first. Charging a fee means we aren’t trying to sell you investment products in order to get paid – we get paid for looking after you, and giving impartial advice; end of story. We never charge for our first meeting; it is only ever an initial no-obligation chat to work out the variety and extent of your financial planning needs.
Initially
The initial planning and implementation fees cover all of the services listed above under ‘initially’. This is one-off fee based on the complexity of a client’s specific needs and circumstances. With these services, we’re largely being paid for:
Building the financial plan – our experience, expertise and intellectual property built up over many years and applied to our clients’ personal circumstances to provide them with a bespoke strategy
Accurate implementation of that plan – the cost of our time and the professional responsibility that goes with it. As even the best strategies can be undone by poor implementation, this is a key part of our initial work.
On an ongoing basis
The annual management and review fees cover all of the services listed above under ‘on an ongoing basis’. This may be a % funds under management or an agreed ongoing fee. With these services, we’re largely being paid for:
Access and coaching – making ourselves available to you for support, acting as a professional sounding board when you need us.
Reducing the hassle – the time and worry you save from us getting things done for you.
Investment management – the research, analysis, technology and time needed to rebalance your investments correctly.
Regular progress meetings – the time and expertise to ensure you’re progressing towards your goals, and explore where changing circumstances or objectives require tweaking of your plan.
The Process
Objectives
Money can’t buy you happiness, stability or health. But working out what your short, medium and long term goals are will help you arrange your financial plan in a way that increases, as far as possible, the chances of reaching those goals.
How strongly you want to achieve those goals and how quickly you want to reach them will dictate decisions taken in your financial plan. Most importantly, these are life goals, rather than financial goals. Financial planning is not about making as much money as possible – it’s about getting the returns you need to reach your life goals, using the resources you have and the risk you’re prepared to take.
Resources
A proper financial plan needs an understanding of the resources you have, what they’re worth and what they’re likely to be worth in the future. This might range from your pension and how much cash you have in the bank, to the value of your business or property.
Once an understanding is gained of your assets and liabilities, how close you are to achieving your financial goals can be worked out.
Risk
Financial planning aims to reassure you, as far as possible, about your future. As a result, not only do you need to take into consideration the direction in which your objectives require you to go, you also need to bear in mind the level of risk you are prepared to take in order to reach those financial goals.
Although taking more risk will increase the likelihood of you reaching your goals more quickly, this may not be something in line with your psychological attitude. Taking on risk that you are not prepared for in order to make gains you don’t need fundamentally undermines the point of a financial plan.
Plan
Once your objectives, resources and risks are understood, a financial plan can be built. This has four key components – planning for cashflow needs, planning how to invest your money, planning your affairs in a tax-efficient manner and planning for your financial safety or that of your family and business in the event of your illness or death.
Implement
Creating the right financial plan is not enough. Getting things done is equally important. Activities such as making the investments you’ve decided upon and getting the insurance needed to cover your safety needs are crucial steps towards making sure your financial plan is a living, working document.
Review
Things in life change. As a result, financial planning can’t be a one–stop shop. Ongoing review is needed to ensure that the components of your financial plan – such as your tax, safety, and investment choices – are meeting your ongoing needs. Additionally, where there have been changes to your objectives, resources or risk attitude, these must be accounted for to maintain the integrity of your plan.
