5 Simple Steps To Prepare For An Annual Review With Your Financial Adviser

Your annual review meeting with your Financial Adviser is a valuable opportunity to understand where you are with your finances. You can look at your financial strategies and see how they are working for you, adjust any goals, and ensure you're on track with your immediate and long-term plans. It’s a useful exercise even without preparation – but preparing well for your annual review meeting can make it more productive for you.

Make sure you are ready to take full advantage of your meeting by following these five simple steps.

1. Review your accounts and investments

Your Financial Adviser should send through all your recent statements and updated values for all the accounts they have access to in your plan, including savings, investments, and pensions. This provides a clear picture of your current financial situation as your Financial Adviser understands it.

Firstly, make sure you carefully review all the information your Adviser has sent and check all your account information is accurate and up to date. Gather any other relevant financial information on your current income and expenses and for any accounts and investments outside your plan. This will make sure you and your Adviser are looking at the full picture. Knowing your numbers helps ensure you understand your finances better. Keeping proper track of your income, expenses, and savings can help you and your Adviser make more informed decisions, at the right times.

2. Know what your objectives for the meeting are

Work out what you would like to achieve from the meeting beforehand. This doesn’t mean we expect you to come to us with a list of what to invest where, when, or why. Think about what your key objectives for the year might be. This could be planning for retirement, increasing your investments, or working out how to make the most of an upcoming sum of money you are expecting to receive.

Be specific and realistic about the financial resources you will need for the short term (one year), medium term (5-10 years), and long term (10+ years). This will help your Adviser recommend the best strategies and create a sustainable and flexible plan to help you achieve your goals. If you’re worried about things like the value of your pension fund or have new income coming in and are not sure what to do with it, consider how these should factor into your plan.

3. Come prepared with questions

There is no pressure to have a formal, structured agenda for your annual review, but it is a good idea to at least have an idea of the points you would like to cover. Think about any questions you have and jot them down to ensure they don’t get overlooked. This will keep the meeting focused and make sure you don’t miss the opportunity to discuss the things that matter to you. It’s easy to forget the most important question you wanted to ask when you’re talking about other things!

Your Financial Adviser wants to give you the best experience and provide the most valuable advice you can receive. If you have certain expectations and a clear idea of what you want from your annual review but haven’t articulated them to us, it makes it harder for us to meet your needs. Help us support you by telling us what you expect.

5. Let your Adviser know of any recent or future changes

Life events like a career change, salary increase, redundancy, or inheritance can significantly impact how you approach your financial strategy. Informing your Adviser of these changes when you know about them allows them to help you adjust your plan accordingly. This also applies if you are expecting a major expense – maybe you want to send your children to private school and they are approaching that age, or you intend to relocate for work, for example. Making sure you keep your Adviser up to date means they can take a more proactive approach and craft a more adaptable financial plan.

Remember your annual financial review is for you

The annual review with your Financial Adviser gives us the opportunity to report to you on where you are, one year on. If you can bring any additional information to the meeting that would help us do our job better, we can help you ensure your financial plan is tailored precisely to your needs. Your annual financial review is an opportunity for you to ensure your financial plans align with your goals – and that you are continuing to move in the right direction.

Annual reviews with Paula Bicknell Wealth

At Paula Bicknell Wealth we prepare carefully for this annual meeting. We will review and forward you all the information we have on your accounts and finances and how things have performed over the previous 12 months. We will have questions ready to ask - so if you haven’t prepared, all is not lost. But to get the most out of us, and your time with us, it helps if you have taken the opportunity to look through all the information we send you. If you also gather anything else necessary and consider what you might need to tell us and what you would like to get out your review, even better. 

If you need any further guidance ahead of your annual review, remember we are always available to answer any questions you may have, so please get in touch. There is a strong link between financial wellbeing and mental health – so let’s make it count!

The value of an investment with St. James's Place will be directly linked to the performance of the funds you select and the value can therefore go down as well as up.  You may get back less than you invested.

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