Financial planning
We offer the full range of financial planning and advice services to ensure comprehensive financial plans can be developed, implemented and then monitored to ensure they remain on track.
Financial planning is all about developing strategies, processes and actions to create, grow and protect wealth.
A financial plan consists of two elements – strategy advice and investment advice. These two elements encompass a range of aspects which interlink to create a comprehensive financial plan.
Financial planning is an on-going process therefore we work with our clients to assist them in understanding and managing their financial strategy in order to achieve their goals and we complement this with a portfolio management service.
Working Process of Personal Financial Planning
Step 1: Determine Your Current Financial Situation
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In this first step of the financial planning process, you will determine your current financial situation with regard to income, savings, living expenses, and debts. Preparing a list of current asset and debt balances and amounts spent for various items gives you a foundation for financial planning activities.
Step 2: Develop Financial Goals
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You should periodically analyze your financial values and goals. This involves identifying how you feel about money and why you feel that way. The purpose of this analysis is to differentiate your needs from your wants.
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Specific financial goals are vital to financial planning. Others can suggest financial goals for you; however, you must decide which goals to pursue. Your financial goals can range from spending all of your current income to developing an extensive savings and investment program for your future financial security.
Step 3: Identify Alternative Courses of Action
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Developing alternatives is crucial for making good decisions. Although many factors will influence the available alternatives, possible courses of action usually fall into these categories:
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Continue the same course of action.
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Expand the current situation.
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Change the current situation.
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Take a new course of action.
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Not all of these categories will apply to every decision situation; however, they do represent possible courses of action.
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Creativity in decision making is vital to effective choices. Considering all of the possible alternatives will help you make more effective and satisfying decisions.
Step 4: Evaluate Alternatives
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You need to evaluate possible courses of action, taking into consideration your life situation, personal values, and current economic conditions.
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Consequences of Choices. Every decision closes off alternatives. For example, a decision to invest in stock may mean you cannot take a vacation. A decision to go to school full time may mean you cannot work full time. Opportunity cost is what you give up by making a choice. This cost, commonly referred to as the trade-off of a decision, cannot always be measured in dollars.
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Decision making will be an ongoing part of your personal and financial situation. Thus, you will need to consider the lost opportunities that will result from your decisions.
Evaluating Risk
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Uncertainty is a part of every decision. Selecting a college major and choosing a career field involve risk. What if you don’t like working in this field or cannot obtain employment in it?
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Other decisions involve a very low degree of risk, such as putting money in a savings account or purchasing items that cost only a few dollars. Your chances of losing something of great value are low in these situations.
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In many financial decisions, identifying and evaluating risk is difficult. The best way to consider risk is to gather information based on your experience and the experiences of others and to use financial planning information sources.
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Relevant information is required at each stage of the decision-making process. Changing personal, social, and economic conditions will require that you continually supplement and update your knowledge.
Step 5: Create and Implement a Financial Action Plan
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In this step of the financial planning process, you develop an action plan. This requires choosing ways to achieve your goals. As you achieve your immediate or short-term goals, the goals next in priority will come into focus.
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To implement your financial action plan, you may need assistance from others. For example, you may use the services of an insurance agent to purchase property insurance or the services of an investment broker to purchase stocks, bonds, or mutual funds.
Step 6: Reevaluate and Revise Your Plan
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Financial planning is a dynamic process that does not end when you take a particular action. You need to regularly assess your financial decisions. Changing personal, social, and economic factors may require more frequent assessments.
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When life events affect your financial needs, this financial planning process will provide a vehicle for adapting to those changes. Regularly reviewing this decision-making process will help you make priority adjustments that will bring your financial goals and activities in line with your current life situation.
Portfolio management
Regularly reviewing the investments held in your portfolio, to ensure they continue to perform in line with expectations and remain suitable given prevailing market conditions, is essential.
We maintain both comprehensive client data and investment portfolio information within our client data management system enabling us to analyse portfolios quickly and efficiently and advise you accordingly. This information is also used to determine opportunities and the effect of legislative changes thus permitting us to provide proactive and timely advice to our clients.
Our portfolio review services also provide clients with the opportunity to maintain on-going and open discussions on investment matters and to receive market reports and commentary.
Tax Planning
Tax planning is a legal way of reducing your tax liabilities in a year. It will help you to utilise the tax exemptions, deductions, and benefits in the best possible way for minimising your tax burden. However, it should be done in a legal manner.
What is Tax Planning?
Tax planning is the analysis of one’s financial situation from a tax efficiency point of view so as to plan one’s finances in the most optimized manner. Tax planning allows a taxpayer to make the best use of the various tax exemptions, deductions and benefits to minimize their tax liability over a financial year. Tax planning is a legal way of reducing income tax liabilities, however caution has to be maintained to ensure that the taxpayer isn’t knowingly indulging in tax evasion or tax avoidance.
When tax planning is done inside the frameworks defined by the respective authorities, it is fully legal and in fact a smart decision. However, using shady techniques to avoid tax payments is illegal and you may get into trouble for doing so. Tax saving practices include tax avoidance, tax evasion and tax planning. Out of these tax planning is the only legal manner of reducing your tax liabilities. The government offers the different opportunities to save on taxes with the intention of reducing tax burden on a taxpayer through legal income tax planning methods.
Corporate Tax Planning:
Corporate tax planning is a means of reducing tax liabilities on a registered company. The common ways to do this includes taking deductions on business transport, health insurance of employees, office expenses, retirement planning, child care, charitable contributions etc. Through the various tax deductions and exemptions provided under the Income Tax Act, a company can substantially reduce its tax burden in a legal way. Once again, tax planning should not be confused with tax avoidance and all the planning should be done within the framework of law.
Increasing profits for a company results in higher tax liabilities. As such, it becomes imperative for them to devote enough time on tax planning to reduce the liabilities. With proper tax planning, the direct tax and indirect tax burden is reduced at times of inflation. It also assists in proper planning of expenses, capital budget and sales and marketing costs, among others. A good tax planning results out of:
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Disclosing correct information to relevant IT departments.
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Not being ignorant of applicable tax laws as well as court judgements regarding the same.
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Legal tax planning should be done which is under the purview of law.
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Planning must be done with business objectives in mind and should be flexible enough to incorporate possible changes in the future.
Types of Tax Planning:
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Purposive tax planning: Planning taxes with a particular objective in mind
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Permissive tax planning: Tax planning that is under the framework of law
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Long range and Short range tax planning: Planning done at the start and end of a fiscal year respectively.
Tax Saving Objectives:
The primary objectives of your tax planning should be the following:
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Reduction in overall tax liability
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Economic stability
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Growth of economy
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Litigation minimization
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Productive investment.
Our approach
Financial advice doesn’t come from corporates…… it comes from consultant.
Our experts work hard to understand your needs and aspirations, and then work with you to develop financial solutions structured specifically to meet them.
Of course, goals will not be achieved if the plan is not implemented. We work with you to ensure your plans are put into action. We also support your plan by providing ongoing advice and services to ensure you remain on track to achieve your goals.
We strive to develop long term relationships with clients, always built on honest, two-way communications, as working together will always lead to better outcomes.
How we work
You will work one-on-one with your adviser who will deal personally with you on an ongoing basis.
You will also meet and benefit from the input of other members of our team.
Each team member is highly qualified and highly experienced. By taking this team approach,
we can ensure that our clients benefit from the unique combination of complementary skills we offer.
Individual solutions
Technical skills
Research and market information
Special market offers
Assistance with implementation
How we work with you
“We LISTEN what you want for your present and future, then we CREATE PLAN TOGETHER to get you there”
We dig hard to find out what you are really looking for in a financial plan and from us. Only when we have a solid understanding of you and your goals can we start developing financial solutions that are tailored to your specific needs.
Once a strategy is developed, we will work just as hard to help you fully understand the advice we give, demystifying what can, at times, be very complicated issues. The advice will also cover how our plan can be implemented.
Of course our relationship does not end when your strategy has been agreed to and implemented. We understand that your needs and objectives will change as your personal circumstances change over time – which is why we work with you to regularly review your strategy and portfolio to ensure it remains on track to meet your goals.
What we do differently
Personal Financial Services provides advice based on the core principles of integrity and trust. Our focus is on working with you, for you.
We are privately owned, professionally managed and have an environment of continuous development.We believe that only physical money to invest is not enough to reach goals.Most of consultants fail in this part of psychological behaviour of investing. We take it seriously, so that we have a special evaluation method to identify your money attitude.
We offer a range of financial services which enables us to develop comprehensive financial strategies and investment portfolios – and as our core service offering is strategic advice there is no need to purchase investments to be a valued client. Our fee structure reflects this focus.
Our team based approach ensures clients have direct access to advice and assistance when they need it.
By providing expert timely advice backed by research and a strong service culture we aim to build long term professional relationships with our clients. Experience shows that working together leads to better outcomes.
Fees
Personal Financial Services operates on a fee for service basis.
We work with you to determine what advice and services are required. We also develop a timeframe to ensure we meet any time constraints and attend to the urgent and important matters first.
Our fees are determined based on the level of complexity involved in the advice required and the level of services required. Naturally our fees are agreed with you before we undertake any work on your behalf.
The manner in which we determine fees ensures that you pay for work undertaken on your behalf at a cost that is both competitive and appropriate to the scope and complexity of the work we do for you.