Wealth Management is more than Financial Planning ……

Wealth Management is becoming the new term for Financial Planning but I believe this is an incorrect use of the term.

A Wealth Manager is a term used to refer to a person who is trained and qualified to manage another person’s overall wealth.

Portfolio Management is only a small part of Wealth Management and in itself does not qualify an individual to be a Wealth Manager.

Currently, because Wealth Management has a good ring to it Financial Planners are starting to refer to themselves as Wealth Managers but again – this is an incorrect use of the term.

My ultimate responsibility at all times was to not only to build but also to preserve my client’s wealth.
Now, THAT is Wealth Management!

Since the early 1990s I sat for and passed the PFS (Personal Financial Specialist) exam administered by the American Institute of CPAs.  Since that time, I have been providing Wealth Management Services to my clients.

I believe that one of the chief problems in the financial industry and with financial advisors today is the lack of both experience and training.

Unfortunately, the public is not provided with an easy way to sort out or rank financial advisors or wealth managers.

CPAs are well educated and those who have practiced public accounting over a period of 10 years or more typically have more experience dealing with complex financial situations than the average person. These CPAs eventually develop, through experience, a sense of which plans may have a high probability of succeeding and which plans are doomed to fail from the beginning.

This CPA experience alone provides a significant amount of added value to a CPA Wealth Manager.

When choosing a Wealth Manager the client needs to address the issue of both experience and training. If they can find a CPA that has both 10 years or more of public accounting experience along with considerable experience and training in the financial field then they would do well to choose the CPA Wealth Manager over someone with less experience and training.