Financial planning, and the process of creating a financial plan, has changed extensively over the nearly 50 years since the first class of CFP certificants. As while in the early years, the “financial plan” was primarily used as a way to demonstrate a prospective client’s gaps and establish a need (for which the advisor could sell a solution to implement), financial planning then evolved into being a ‘value-add’ to support an ongoing client relationship, and now increasingly is becoming the purpose of (and primarily value proposition in) the client relationship in the first place.
To better understand these trends, in 2018 we released the first Kitces Research study on “How Financial Advisors Actually Do Financial Planning”, which examined how financial planners today are actually executing their financial planning processes, delivering their financial plans, what technology tools they are using, and how they are compensated.
Our 2018 report revealed several key findings, including how many meetings it takes to create and deliver a financial plan, how advisors are collecting the requisite data from clients, the tools they use to conduct their financial planning analyses and plan creation, the way technology is used to deliver the plan itself (where the majority of planners use planning software interactively, but also still use Word and Excel to supplement their financial planning software), and the time it takes for the whole planning process to come together. In fact, our research found that overall, financial planners spend only 19% of their time meeting with clients at all, while they spend 26% of their time preparing financial plans and other meeting preparation for their client meetings (along with almost 17% of their time on business development!).
A lot has changed since 2018, though, and as the financial planning industry, tools, business models, and regulations have changed, so too has the financial planning process itself. New technology tools have come, major financial planning software releases have occurred, new regulations have been proposed, and the industry continues to evolve.w
Accordingly, we’re excited to announce the second Kitces Research study, which will once again examine the process that financial advisors go through to create and deliver a financial plan. Similar to the study we conducted in 2018, this research will not only seek to identify current benchmark data for creating the financial plan itself (as well as best practices most effective for financial advisors), but will also specifically explore how the delivery of plans is changing in response to the rapidly evolving landscape of the financial planning industry itself.
So whether you’re frustrated that your financial planning software doesn’t “do” what you need it to in order to demonstrate its value, or are simply looking for ideas to refine your financial planning process to be more time-efficient or cost-effective (or valuable and able to command a higher price!), I hope you’ll take a few minutes to participate in this year’s Financial Planning Process survey and help the world better understand what real financial planners actually do!