Summary:
- Managing money is a team effort, the right professionals can help.
- Some professionals you may consider include:
- A financial planner,
- An accountant,
- An estate attorney,
- A real estate agent,
- A loan officer,
- An insurance broker,
- And a mentor.
Financial Professional Diversification
In our series on diversification, we’ve covered the basics of various ways to diversify your financial life with income streams, tax strategies, and investments. For our final blog in this series, we’re going to talk about a different kind of diversification, focused on the various professionals you might have playing a role in your finances.
Various Pros to Work With
From planning for retirement to planning for emergencies, having a team of skilled professionals can give you confidence in your financial landscape. Each role brings unique expertise to the table, helping you make smarter decisions and potential avoid expensive mistakes to keep you on track for your goals. Here’s a look at some of the professionals who can help!
- Financial Planner: A financial planner/advisor helps you create a roadmap for your financial life. They work with you to clarify your goals and then recommend strategies to try to reach them. From investment management to retirement planning, a financial planner can help you make informed decisions, and feel confident about your financial future. Often the ‘hub’ of your financial decision-making, a financial planner will often work in tandem with these other professionals. Financial planners can:
- Help you identify short and long term financial goals.
- Create investment strategies that fit your goals and timelines.
- Provide guidance during big life changes, like marriage or retirement.
- Accountant: Accountants do more than just file taxes. They can help you manage bookkeeping and ensure you comply with tax laws. By identifying deductions, credits, and planning opportunities, a skilled accountant can help minimize your tax liability while maintain compliance with tax laws and regulations. Accounts can:
- Ensure compliance with tax laws and regulations.
- Spot opportunities for tax deductions or credits.
- Help small businesses with bookkeeping and payroll.
- Estate Attorney: An estate attorney specializes in planning for the transfer of your assets after your death. They draft wills, establish trusts, and guide you on minimizing estate taxes. Having a well-thought-out estate plan can prevent unnecessary legal hurdles and make it possible for your wishes to be carried out. Estate attorneys can:
- Create estate plan documents such as wills and trusts.
- Educate you about estate taxes.
- Help document your wishes for guardianship and asset distribution.
- Real Estate Agent: For a lot of us, buying and/or selling property is one of the largest financial decisions we make. A knowledgeable real estate agent guides you through the process, from understanding market trends to negotiating the best price. Real estate agents can:
- Provide insight into real estate market conditions.
- Negotiate on your behalf whether buying or selling property.
- Walk you through the purchasing/sales process, from listing to closing.
- Loan Officer/Mortgage Broker: Going right along with real estate transactions, a loan officer is the person who secures financing if you need it. They can:
- Walk you through the pre-approval process.
- Help you understand how much you can really afford
- Educate about various types of loans and the pros and cons of each, including loans like HELOCS!.
- Insurance Broker: Life is unpredictable, and an insurance broker helps you plan for the unexpected. They help you find coverage for health, life, disability, long term care, property, and other risks, giving you confidence that you won’t be caught off guard by unexpected expenses. A broker can:
- Educate about the complexities of insurance.
- Shop multiple carriers to find a great fit.
- Adjust your coverage as your life changes.
- Mentor: Not everybody who influences your finances is a licensed professional. You may have a trusted person in your life that provides perspective and advice to you. This might be somebody who has achieved goals similar to your own, has a range of life experience, and/or is somebody whose opinion you take seriously. They might:
- Provide accountability as you work toward your goals.
- Share real-life experiences to help you avoid mistakes.
- Share perspective that keeps you focused on what matters most to you.
A bonus: hearing the same advice from multiple professionals may give you confidence in them, whereas hearing differing opinions can lead you to ask clarifying questions. Let’s say your financial advisor suggests making a larger contribution to your retirement account before the end of the year. Later, during tax season, your accountant brings up the exact same idea. Hearing the same recommendation from two different professionals can feel reassuring. Alternatively, say your advisor encourages you to invest in a certain way, but your accountant raises concerns about how it could impact your tax situation. That kind of dissonance doesn’t necessarily mean one of them is wrong but it might signal to you a need for clarifying questions or a deeper conversation with them.
The Big Picture
Your financial well-being is multi-faceted, as is the team of professionals you may want on your side to maintain it. But you don’t have to hire all of these professionals at one time! You can take the first step by hiring one, maybe a financial planner to help you clarify next steps, or an accountant to help you with your taxes if they’re getting more complicated! Most any professional you start with can connect you to a team of others they trust.
If you need a referral to any of these professionals, you can always reach out to West Invest!