Frequently Asked Questions

Financial planning isn’t just the most important part of our process, it is our process. It’s what connects the dots between the numerous considerations involved with your personal finances: cash-flow, employee benefits, estate, investments, risk management, real estate, taxes, and more.

If you’re like most of our clients, you want to work with us because you’re a successful single, couple, or family who wants a team of highly-qualified professionals to create and implement strategies for your financial planning, investment management, and income tax preparation.

Our financial planning process is organized and thorough. It’s through the lens of your financial plan that we provide you with actionable recommendations and aid you in implementation. This includes the management of your investment accounts, the preparation of your tax return, and a credit for up to $300 of your implementation costs each year. 

That depends:

• If we manage your account(s) for you at TD Ameritrade or Schwab, generally we will follow a process that matches your investment time horizon, tolerance for risk, and need for income or growth with a portfolio of low-cost exchange-traded funds (ETFs). We’ll create an investment policy statement for you that we’ll offer to review semi-annually, and we’ll strategically rebalance your account on a quarterly basis.

• We also have a sub-advisor agreement with Betterment. If you use Betterment, Betterment can tell you all about the process. In general, Betterment’s use of low-cost exchange-traded funds (ETFs) with a focus on the things you can control — like the amount of risk you take — aligns with our firm-wide investment philosophy. Our agreement affords our clients a discounted fee of 0.15% when using Betterment.

We will work with you to evaluate your available plan options and help you invest your account(s) consistent with your investment policy statement. Because plans vary from employer to employer, we have two options to help with your workplace account.

1. We can provide you with a specific investment allocation that’s aligned with the target allocation in your investment policy statement. We’ll walk you through updating/rebalancing your account once a year.
2. We can use a third-party service called Pontera to directly manage your workplace account just like any other account we manage for you. Pontera charges you a fee of 0.25% for this service.

In all cases, we will do what we can to make sure that your investment portfolio is consistent with your needs across all of your accounts.

Income tax preparation is included for all ongoing Comprehensive Services clients at no additional charge. We do not outsource our income tax preparation services, so you can be confident in the process and your result.

If you work with another tax professional, we’re happy to collaborate with them. Depending on your situation, this may create more or less complexity but, in either case, we’ll work hard to provide you an exceptional experience.

Yes. We will work with you to properly plan your cash flow. We start by adding your information into our Budget Plan Worksheet. Then our team will analyze and develop recommendations for your unique situation to help you implement your financial plan and meet your financial goals.

The development of your initial financial planning analysis and recommendations is a three-meeting process. As an ongoing Comprehensive Services client, you will have access to unlimited meeting and consultation time, so the answer to this question can vary. We will proactively invite you to planning-topic consultations when they’re needed and an annual financial plan review each year. We’ll also prompt you for additional opportunities to get together when you need more help and join you at other meetings important to your finances. Scheduling is easy — just find a time that works for you.

In most cases, we charge a flat fee of $2,500 for an initial financial planning analysis and recommendations.  For ongoing Comprehensive Services, we will follow our standard fee schedule. In cases where truly unique or extraordinary complexity is involved, we will carefully consider how the specific complexities impact our service model and provide a custom services proposal that will transparently disclose our fee before beginning a working relationship.

Our flat fee for ongoing Comprehensive Services includes the management of up to $1,000,000 at TD Ameritrade or Schwab for no additional charge. For clients who request that we manage their investment portfolio in excess of $1,000,000, we charge an additional fee on a competitive schedule.

Optionally, clients can use Betterment, and Betterment will charge a discounted annual fee of 0.15% in addition to our fee.

If you use Pontera to allow us to directly manage your workplace plan account, Pontera will charge an annual fee of 0.25% of the amount you have invested on the platform in addition to our fee.

Yes. We will accept credit card or electronic funds transfer for the payment of fees we bill to you. For ongoing Comprehensive Services, this includes the debiting of accounts at TD Ameritrade, Schwab, Betterment, or another qualified custodian where we are permitted and you authorize us to do so.

Half (50%) of the initial financial planning fee is due when your client services agreement is signed. The other half (50%) is due when your initial financial planning analysis and recommendations are delivered. For ongoing Comprehensive Services, fees are billed monthly or quarterly. Generally, clients paying from their cash flow will pay monthly, while clients paying from their investment account(s) will pay quarterly.

Our client agreements require no term commitment, and you can cancel at any time without a penalty.

• If you cancel in the middle of a billing period and you pay your fee in advance, you will receive a refund based on the number of days remaining in the billing period. If you pay your fee in arrears, you will have a balance due.

• If you cancel, your investment accounts with Betterment, Schwab, and/or TD Ameritrade will be seamlessly migrated to the Betterment, Schwab, and/or TD Ameritrade retail platforms, respectively (at then-current retail pricing). We will no longer have access to or provide advice concerning any of your investment accounts.

• If you cancel, you will no longer be eligible to have your tax return prepared by Fort Collins Tax Service, LLC, and we will no longer provide you audit and/or correspondence examination representation.

• If you cancel, you will lose access to our personal finance learning modules, our client dashboard, and our financial planning app.

• If you cancel, you will no longer receive reimbursement for fintech/implementation.

We need your information because we’re required by our regulators to know who you are and we need to have at least a general idea about your finances as a starting point. Of course, we will let you know what’s new with us and send you our latest blog articles, but we will never sell your data to a third party or use it in any way that’s inconsistent with our privacy policy. Betterment, Schwab, and TD Ameritrade maintain a separate privacy policy, and you will need to agree to it if you invest with either.

We maintain a data security program and policy that we’re very serious about. We always use encrypted means to transmit and store your data. In addition to vetting our vendors for adherence to industry-leading data security practices, we also carefully implement our user access, including procedures for employee and contractor background checks, the use of multi-factor authentication, and need to know standards for data access.

Let’s chat. Schedule your free intro call.

Yes! We are able to work with clients in states where we are registered or exempt from registration. We are currently registered in the states of Colorado, California, and Louisiana, conditionally registered in the state of Texas, and exempt from registration in all other states. Working with Financial Planning Fort Collins, your search doesn’t need to be limited to the “best financial planner near me.”

Yes! In fact, we are so passionate about our unwavering fiduciary duty to our clients that we have trademarked the term “Your Full-Time Fiduciary™.” Some financial professionals act as fiduciaries when giving advice about certain accounts or products and not others. To prevent confusion for our clients, we never “switch hats” in this or any way.

As a fee-only firm, we are paid by our clients and only by our clients. We do not accept commissions from any other companies for any financial product sales or for anything else, so you can be confident that you’re receiving advice that fits and can improve your life — not our bottom line.

Successful singles, couples, or families who want a team of highly-qualified professionals to create and implement strategies for their financial planning, investment management, and income tax preparation will find extraordinary value in our Comprehensive Services.

One of our Certified Financial Planner^™ professionals will serve as your primary financial planner. We use an ensemble approach to provide extraordinary value to our clients, so you will also meet with other members of our team while we work together.

Your drive and success require a tight schedule; we know it! We’re also very ambitious and hard-working, but we enjoy some downtime every once in a while. While we’ll do our best to accommodate your schedule, we do not hold regularly scheduled meetings after 6 p.m. Mountain time on weekdays or after 4 p.m. on Fridays. In addition, we do not hold regularly scheduled meetings on weekends or on major holidays.

Fort Collins Tax Service, LLC, is our legal-entity name. 

In Fort Collins, a sight we see when looking toward the foothills is Horsetooth Rock. So the logo isn’t a blue umbrella but actually a silhouette of the rock formation that reminds us to go have fun outdoors.