Before building recommendations, we help organize the key parts of your financial life so they can work together more effectively. We set up your client portal so you can view your financial picture in one place. We help open and organize investment accounts, coordinate with tax and estate planning professionals when needed, and address practical protections such as cybersecurity precautions.

What happens in this phase:

• Your client planning portal is set up and ready

• Investment accounts are opened and organized

• Tax and estate planning coordination or referrals are made where needed

• Cybersecurity precautions are reviewed and put in place, as appropriate

• Your annual review schedule is confirmed

This is where we take an honest look at what your retirement may actually require: your income sources, assets, expenses, cash flow, and liabilities. Then we focus on a key question: is this enough to support the retirement you want?

We build your retirement income plan around your spending goals, using the resources you have today and reasonable planning assumptions. After working with many retirement-focused clients, we’ve found that thoughtful planning can help bring greater clarity to the transition from saving to spending.

The goal is to give you a clearer planning target so you can make decisions with greater confidence.

What happens in this phase:

• Full review of income, assets, expenses, and cash flow

• Income sufficiency analysis

• Debt and liability review

• Retirement income strategy and bucket planning

• RMD projections to help you plan ahead

Once we understand your income needs, we develop an investment strategy designed to support them over time. The focus is not on chasing returns, but on building a portfolio aligned with your goals, time horizon, potential tax optimisation opportunities and appetite for risk.

We review your current investments, evaluate your risk tolerance, and create an asset allocation approach intended to help your portfolio stay aligned as markets and circumstances change. We also establish a rebalancing process and review schedule to support ongoing oversight.

What happens in this phase:

• Risk tolerance assessment

• Review of current investments

• Asset allocation strategy

• Portfolio selection and construction

• Rebalancing policy and ongoing review schedule

Taxes can be a significant drag on retirement income, and tax planning is often overlooked until key opportunities have narrowed.

Rather than reacting after year-end, we plan proactively for what’s ahead — identifying potential tax-saving opportunities, coordinating distribution decisions, and building a strategy intended to improve tax efficiency over time.

For many clients, this is an important part of the planning process. It’s integrated into the plan from day one and coordinated with your tax professional where appropriate, rather than addressed only during tax season.

What happens in this phase:

• Tax return analysis and planning review

• Identification of potential annual tax-saving opportunities

• Tax-loss harvesting, where appropriate

• Roth conversion analysis and tax-aware planning, where appropriate

• Tax timing and tracking throughout the year

A strong retirement plan is not just about accumulation and income. It should also help protect what you’ve built. In this phase, we review insurance coverage, beneficiary designations, long-term care and disability considerations, and property or business exposures to identify potential gaps and improve coordination across your plan.

We also help make sure the people and causes you care about are reflected in your plan & or and account designations based on the information available at the time of review. This phase is designed to help you prepare thoughtfully for the unexpected and support a more resilient retirement strategy.

What happens in this phase:

• Insurance review across major coverage types

• Beneficiary designation review for applicable accounts

• Long-term care planning considerations

• Disability coverage review Property, casualty, and business risk assessment