Financial Review: Assessing Your Current Position
Before we can plan for where you want to go, we need to understand exactly where you stand. The financial review brings every account, policy, and income source into one place so the strategy ahead is built on a complete and accurate foundation.
Evaluating Your Complete Financial Position
Most clients arrive with accounts, policies, and plans spread across multiple institutions, sometimes accumulated over decades. The goal of this step is to bring all of it into one place and evaluate it as a whole, so the plan ahead is built on a complete and accurate foundation.
Gathering Your Financial Documents
The review begins with collecting the documents and data needed for a thorough evaluation. We ask clients to gather account statements, tax returns, insurance policies, employer benefit summaries, estate documents, and any existing financial plans. The goal is to bring everything into one place so nothing is evaluated in isolation. If you are unsure what to prepare, your advisory team will walk through the specifics during the initial conversation.
Reviewing Accounts, Investments, and Contributions
We evaluate each account, investment, and contribution stream to build a detailed asset inventory. This includes retirement accounts such as 401(k)s, 403(b)s, and IRAs, as well as taxable investment accounts, savings, and any employer-sponsored plans. The review examines current holdings, contribution levels, cost structures, and how each account fits within your broader financial position.
Identifying Gaps and Opportunities
The review surfaces what is missing, misaligned, or costing more than it should. We look for cost-saving opportunities and points for improvement across your accounts, including redundant holdings, tax drag, overlooked employer benefits, and a beneficiary audit to confirm that current designations reflect your actual wishes. These gaps often go unnoticed when accounts are managed across multiple institutions without coordination.
Building a Complete Financial Picture
All accounts, liabilities, income sources, and insurance are consolidated into a unified view. This includes building a net worth statement and conducting a cash flow analysis that captures income, expenses, and savings rates across all sources. The complete picture assembled here becomes the baseline for the projections and scenario modeling in Planning and Forecasting.
What the Review Brings Into Focus
As the review takes shape, certain questions come into focus that directly influence how the plan ahead is built.
Account consolidation
Whether accounts held across multiple institutions could benefit from consolidation, and what that would mean for oversight, costs, and coordination.
Beneficiary alignment
Whether current beneficiary designations on retirement accounts, insurance policies, and investment accounts match your actual wishes and estate plan.
Cost structure evaluation
Whether existing investments carry unnecessary fees or expenses that reduce long-term growth, and where cost-saving opportunities exist within your current holdings.
Insurance and coverage gaps
Whether current life, disability, and long-term care coverage is adequate for your financial situation, or whether gaps create unprotected risk.
What a Comprehensive Financial Review Includes
A thorough financial assessment matters because it replaces assumptions with facts. Without an accurate picture of your accounts, income, liabilities, and insurance, projections are built on incomplete information and recommendations lack the context they need to be effective.
A complete balance sheet is the foundation of sound financial planning because it captures the full scope of what you own, what you owe, and what protections are in place. When a fee-only fiduciary advisor reviews this information as part of a coordinated financial situation evaluation, the resulting plan reflects your actual position rather than estimates. Every recommendation your CFP makes from this point forward is measured against the financial picture established in this step.
What We Often Uncover
Clients arrive at this step at different stages of organization. These are some of the patterns we see regularly.
Scattered accounts with no unified view
Clients with 401(k)s, IRAs, brokerage accounts, and insurance policies spread across multiple institutions often have no single view of their total financial position. The review brings every account into one coordinated picture for the first time.
Outdated beneficiary designations
Beneficiary designations made years ago may no longer reflect current wishes, especially after life changes such as marriage, divorce, the birth of children, or the death of a named beneficiary. The review catches these misalignments before they create unintended consequences.
Hidden fees in existing investments
Fund expenses, advisory fees, and transaction costs within accounts that have not been closely examined can quietly reduce long-term growth. The review identifies what is costing more than it should so those costs can be addressed in the plan.
None of these challenges are unusual, and none of them need to stay unresolved. The financial review is designed to surface exactly these issues so your plan starts from an accurate, organized foundation.
What We Focus on Depends on Where You Are
The accounts, benefits, and financial structures we evaluate look different for every client. What follows reflects the areas we focus on most closely for each.
Pre-Retirees
For clients in the Retirement Red Zone, the review focuses on whether the current portfolio, savings rate, and income sources are positioned to support the retirement timeline established in Step 1. Special attention goes to concentration risk and whether the current asset mix is appropriate as retirement approaches.
Business Owners and Executives
The review evaluates personal and business-related financial structures, including equity compensation, concentrated stock positions, deferred compensation, and how employer-sponsored retirement plans fit within the broader financial picture. Coordinating these elements is essential before projections can begin.
Individuals and Families
The review brings together accounts, insurance policies, estate documents, and retirement plans that are often spread across multiple institutions and advisors. Building that unified view is the foundation for coordinated planning across competing priorities.
What Our Clients Say
Have been with MWM since retiring in 2022 and it’s one of the best financial decisions I’ve ever made. They have solid investment strategies with expert analysis that adapts to the ever changing markets in order to grow your portfolio. This coupled with regular communications and support have made the financial side of retirement a piece of cake. So, check out MWM and make your life easy.
Cary Allen
The entire Marks Wealth Management team is great to work with. Since investing with them, my portfolio has steadily increased and reaffirms what a great decision it was to trust them with my portfolio.
Donnie Halloway
As an older retiree, I have depended on Charles and his team to help keep me as independent as possible. I am one of the few among my friends who doesn’t seem to have money worries. Special thanks to Catherine and Taylor for all your care.
Jan Dove
I’ve been with Charlie MWM for 11 years now and could not be more pleased. His staff is very attentive, knowledgeable and professional. In a word …outstanding!
Joe Karl
From Your Financial Picture to Planning and Forecasting
With your complete financial picture established, the next step is to look forward. In Planning and Forecasting, we model your retirement time horizon, cash flow needs, and income sources to evaluate how the decisions ahead may affect your long-term goals. The financial picture painted in this step creates the baseline for every projection we build.