Comprehensive financial planning

Financial planning is a planned and systematic approach to provide for the financial goals that will help people realise their needs and aspirations, and be happy.The objective of financial planning is to ensure that the right amount of money is available at the right time to meet the various financial goals of the investor.

A “goal-oriented financial plan” is a financial plan for a specific goal e.g. related to the aspiration to make the son a doctor. An alternate approach is a “comprehensive financial plan” where all the financial goals of a person are taken together, and the investment strategies worked out on that basis.

The costs mentioned above, in today’s terms, need to be translated into the rupee requirement in future. This is done using the formula A = P X (1 + i)^n

For eg.,:

If you are incurreing expences of Rs 50,000 p.m. today and you’d like to know the future requirement of your future expences, then the formule will be :

Assuming the expected rate of inflation is 10% p.a.

50000 X (1 + 10%)^3

which is Rs.- 66500

The year-wise financial goals statement throws up the investment horizon. It would be risky to expect the first three to five years expenses to be met out of equity investments being made today.

What are the financial plannig steps?

1.  Establish and Define the Client-Planner Relationship
2.  Gather Client Data, Define Client Goals
3.  Analyse and Evaluate Client's Financial Status
4.  Develop and Present Financial Planning Recommendations and / or Options
5.  Implement the Financial Planning Recommendations
6.  Monitor the Financial Planning Recommendations