How it works
A clear process, four planning meetings, and reviews that keep it current.
Nothing about the process is a mystery, and nothing about the cost is bundled or hidden. The numbers arrive with the recommendation, not after it.
To replace prediction with process.
No one can reliably predict markets, interest rates, or the next crisis, and betting your future on forecasts is how good money quietly gets lost.
A disciplined financial plan you can hold through any market does more for your wealth, and your peace of mind, than any prediction ever will.
The process
From the first call to a financial plan you act on.
It starts with a conversation, usually two, to make sure we’re a fit and to decide together. From there, the financial plan is built across four working meetings. After that, everything moves onto a fixed review calendar.
First, we talk
Intro call
A first conversation about what’s on your mind, what your situation looks like, and whether I’m the right fit. If I’m not, I’ll say so on the call.
A second conversation
A follow-up to answer your questions and walk through the scope and the fee, in writing. Then we decide together whether to go ahead.
The four planning meetings
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Discovery, Goals & Values
We start with what you actually want: your goals, your priorities, and what matters to you and your family. This is the foundation the whole financial plan is built on, before a single projection is run.
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Financial Snapshot
We build the complete picture: income, assets, corporate structure, debts, and existing coverage. Everything in one place, so the financial plan works from reality rather than estimates.
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Plan Presentation
I walk you through the financial plan, with this year’s decisions separated from the ones for later. You see the trade-offs on screen as we talk, and you keep the document.
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Plan Implementation
We put the financial plan into motion in priority order, starting with what matters most: accounts and contributions if you’re still building, or retirement income and the right withdrawal order if you’re drawing down, along with structure, insurance, and any financial decisions that are time-sensitive.
Four meetings is the minimum. More involved situations take more, and I’ll tell you which yours is. Once the financial plan is in place, reviews continue on the calendar below.
What ongoing looks like
A review calendar, so decisions arrive on a date.
Quarterly meetings, with the work mapped to the season it belongs in. Two calendars, because a business owner’s year and an employee’s or retiree’s year don’t look the same.
Business owners
Personal and corporate, on one calendar.
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Winter Meeting
Q4 investment review. RRSP and TFSA set for the new year, tax slips sent to your accountant, and the first personal and corporate instalment reminders.
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Spring Meeting
Q1 investment and insurance review. Notices of assessment retrieved, RRSP room updated, and the federal budget read for anything that changes your financial plan.
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Summer Meeting
Q2 investment review with a look at structure and estate. Compensation modelled for the year, salary against dividends, and mid-year instalments.
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Autumn Meeting
Q3 investment review. Compensation and dividends set before year end, passive income checked against the small business deduction, holdco distributions, and year-end tax planning.
Employees & retirees
Built around income, not just accounts.
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Winter Meeting
Q4 investment review. RRSP and TFSA for the new year, tax slips organized, and instalment reminders where they apply.
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Spring Meeting
Q1 investment and insurance review. Notices of assessment retrieved, contribution room updated, and the federal budget read for anything that affects you.
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Summer Meeting
Q2 investment review with estate and beneficiaries. For retirees, this year’s withdrawal order confirmed and pension income checked.
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Autumn Meeting
Q3 investment review. Year-end planning: RRIF minimums, CPP and OAS timing, TFSA room, and planning around the OAS clawback.
The software
Your financial plan is built in Conquest
Conquest Planning is Canadian software, with our tax rules, CPP and OAS built in rather than approximated. It changes how the meeting feels: you watch the trade-offs move on screen while we talk, instead of receiving a bound document three weeks later.
Options sit side by side
Salary or dividends. Retire at 62 or 65. Sell in three years or in five. Each version of the decision is modelled next to the others, with the numbers visible.
Updated, never rebuilt
When your income changes, a property sells, or the rules move, the financial plan updates in minutes. Reviews start from where you actually are.
Open to you between meetings
You keep access to the same financial plan I work in, with every assumption written down where you can read it.
On assumptions
Anything on screen comes from figures you and I enter together, each one listed in the financial plan. We stress-test it against tougher assumptions, higher inflation, lower returns, a longer life, so you can see how it holds. That maps a range of outcomes; it is not a prediction of investment results or a guarantee of any single one.
The cost
Published, and disclosed in writing.
A flat planning fee, an optional tiered fee if you move investments to me, and insurance commissions. Nothing bundled, nothing hidden.
Common questions
A few of the ones I hear most.
I already have an accountant. What do you add?
You keep them. I work alongside your accountant and lawyer, from the same financial plan document. Planning decides the direction for the year; your accountant and lawyer carry it out.
What’s the minimum to work together?
It depends. Financial planning has no asset minimum, for business owners or retirees, and the flat fee is quoted in writing before any work begins. Investment management, the optional second step, starts at $1.5 million in investable assets for retiree households.
Can we work together if I’m not in Victoria?
Yes. I meet clients in person in Greater Victoria and virtually across the provinces where I’m registered, in English and in French.