Our Planning Process

“Your chosen lifestyle drives your planning approach.”

As a client of a WHK Financial Services advisor, we start with your lifestyle and goals, and then work backwards to your current situation. This provides you with a clear plan of the investments and decisions you need to make to reach your goals.

How do we do it?

Lifestyle:
We analyse your desired lifestyle, along with your current scenario, tax position, age and overall issues – this pinpoints your goals and your commitment to reaching them.

Outcomes:
We determine the results you need to live your desired lifestyle in retirement with the capital you have available and the work you are prepared to commit to between now and then.

Strategy:
We position your portfolio strategy according to proven investment strategies designed specifically to meet the intended lifestyle. How? We assess a mix of risk and return, tax and correlation.

Risk Level:
You are in control of the planning. You review the level of risk versus reward and any trade-off to accept the results of the plan.

WHK Financial Services advisors focus on good planning and a disciplined and structured approach. We believe it is important for clients to understand what they are doing with their money and security and our advisors commit to guiding clients through complex areas and increasing their knowledge of financial planning.

This ensures that WHK Financial Services clients have sufficient knowledge to allow them to make informative decisions about their financial future, in conjunction with their advisor.

The financial planning process generally involves the following steps:

1. An interview where the advisor will collect and discuss your personal and financial details, and identify and review your lifestyle and financial goals
2. Identify any financial problems or deficiencies between where you are now financially and where you want to be.
3. Ascertain which strategies will and won’t work, according to your own barriers and perceptions. This is commonly known as undertaking a “risk profile” and will ascertain the types of investment you are most comfortable with making. This often involves a trade off between risk versus reward. We adopt the WHK Circumstance and Attitude Philosophy outlined below.
4. Devise a technical strategy and prepare written recommendations and plans .
5. Implement the agreed recommendations.
6. Revise and review the plan to ensure it stays up-to-date and relevant to the economic climate and your changing lifestyle.

WHK CIRCUMSTANCE AND ATTITUDE PHILOSOPHY
The WHK Circumstances and Attitude Philosophy is a unique approach to portfolio construction and as you will see, it revolves around ensuring that your income needs are met year in, year out.  It is essentially a two-step process that enables us as your adviser to provide structural recommendations based on income generation, with specific recommendations that can be amended or adjusted to suit your investment attitude.

Circumstances
It has been a common misunderstanding that a portfolio is only secure if it is heavily exposed to fixed interest based investments. Whilst there is less prospect of a negative return over shorter time periods, in the long term the lowest returns we would expect from shares, property and infrastructure investments are roughly the same as the lowest return we would expect to receive from cash and short term deposits.

Shares, property and infrastructure investments have historically provided significantly higher long-term returns than the returns from fixed interest. Consequently, the proportion of your portfolio, which should be allocated to cash and fixed interest, depends on the amount you need to draw from the portfolio for your lifestyle and any major expenditure in the next ten years.

Attitude
Whilst circumstance alone should determine a suitable asset allocation, your attitude to risk of capital losses and the possibility of not achieving expected benefits must be considered. 

In doing so it is noted that your attitude can vary over time dependent upon your knowledge, experience and market conditions. 

The process of determining your attitude to your investments is a combination of education and agreement.  Whilst circumstance can lead us to the correct recommendation to assist you to achieve your goals, your attitude, if not addressed, may result in you failing to maintain those recommendations or achieve “Peace of Mind” in holding the assets.

Your WHK Financial Services Financial Planner

Any financial services advice is provided via Representatives authorised to WHK Group's Australian Financial Services Licensee: Investor Financial Planning Pty Ltd (AFSL No 238244).

WHK Financial Services provides our advisors with the infrastructure to service you, including software, research on managed funds and other products, ongoing professional education, legal and compliance services and more.

Our advisors have committed to:

• Providing their clients with a full time and committed financial planning resource
• Ongoing professional development at Professional Development Days and the Annual Conference. These are training sessions that ensure your advisor complies with RG146 and FSRA requirements as required by law.
• Provide their clients with a range of financial planning services, including brokerage, insurance, research, planning and more.

WHK Financial Services advisors strive to provide innovative and effective plans that fit in with their clients’ financial goals and risk profile. Our advisors seek to provide alternatives and ensure their clients are educated and comfortable with the recommendations made.

As a client of a WHK Financial Services advisor, you are part of a committed and innovative network of leading planners around Australia. We are a transparent company and are proud of our track record and reputation.