Frequently Asked Questions
Expertise you can trust, advice you can understand.When We Talk About Clarity,
We Mean It
We believe confidence comes from understanding how decisions are made, how responsibilities are defined, and how your financial life is managed in practice – not in theory.
If you don’t see your question addressed here, we welcome a conversation. Transparency is a requirement of fiduciary advice, not an add-on.
Personal Client Questions
How Do I Get Started?
The best way to get started is to schedule a free consultation by calling 866-333-4726 or booking online.
This initial conversation gives you a chance to share your situation and goals while we explain how our services work and how we may be able to help. There’s no obligation – just an opportunity to see if we’re the right fit.
Where Will My Accounts Be Held?
Your accounts are held in your name at qualified custodians.
For most brokerage, Roth and Traditional IRAs, and Trusts that we manage, we recommend Schwab as the custodian.
You will be given an online login to:
- Approve requests electronically with the click of a button (wire transfer, inter-Schwab transfer, address change, and more)
- E-sign Schwab and Hurlow documents through DocuSign
- Deposit checks
- Open new accounts
- Manage paperless settings for documents (statements, tax forms, shareholder documents, trade confirmations)
What Are Your Fees?
Our fees are based on the value of the investments that we manage on your behalf.
You can read more about our pricing structure here.
How Would You Describe Your Typical Client?
We work with clients in three phases of financial growth.
Growth Phase
Clients in the growth phase are building a strong financial foundation and focusing on long-term goals such as retirement, education funding, tax efficiency, insurance protection, and estate planning.
Typical clients include high-earning business owners, corporate executives, and physicians whose financial lives are more complex due to income levels, liability exposure, business opportunities, and extensive employer benefits.
Transition Phase
Major life events – such as retirement, selling a business, receiving an inheritance, losing a spouse, or changing careers – often create complex financial decisions.
During these transitions, we help clients understand how changes affect cash flow, taxes, investments, insurance, and estate planning. Whether creating a tax-efficient retirement income strategy or preparing for the sale of a business, our role is to provide clear guidance, reduce stress, and help clients move forward with confidence.
Maturity Phase
In the maturity phase, clients have largely achieved their financial goals and begin focusing on legacy—how their wealth can benefit family, causes, and future generations.
We help design thoughtful giving and estate strategies, which may include donor-advised funds, family foundations, trusts, and lifetime gifting strategies that allow clients to see the impact of their wealth while they are still living.
Are You A Fiduciary?
Yes! We are an independent, fee-only advisory firm.
We act as a fiduciary, not a broker. Brokers may receive commissions and payments from third parties. The only fee we receive is from our clients, so we act as your independent and committed partner, placing your best interests above all else.
Most of our advisors are, or in the process of becoming, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professionals. To achieve this designation, financial advisors must meet the highest requirements in the financial services industry in terms of ethics, education, experience, and exam. We are committed to acting as fiduciaries, which means working in the best interests of our clients at all times when providing financial advice.
How Do You Work With My Other Advisors?
We coordinate with attorneys, accountants, insurance agents and other advisors.
By collaborating with your accountant, attorney, or other advisors, we are able to provide you with the most comprehensive financial planning advice.
Your Attorney
When you become a client, we will ask for your estate planning documents and review them to ensure you have the necessary documents in place. During our annual review, we will make sure your existing estate plan still meets your wishes. If not, we help prepare you to meet with your estate planning attorney. We review topics such as titling assets, beneficiary designations, funding your trust (if applicable), and more to ensure your financial plan coordinates with your estate plan.
Your Accountant
We ask for your tax return annually to review tax-savings opportunities. This helps us make investment decisions in the most tax-efficient manner. Here are some of the ways our tax review can benefit you;
- Projecting changes of income as you transition to a new job or into retirement.
- Planning withdrawals from your investment and retirement accounts without moving you into a higher tax bracket (unless discussed and agreed upon).
- Discovering eligibility for Roth or Traditional IRA, 401(k)/403(B) and a Roth 401(k)/403(b), or HSA contributions and making recommendations to maximize those benefits.
- Anticipating taxation on your social security benefits.
- Understanding how the sale of appreciated stock will affect capital gains taxes.
- Determining the benefits of municipal bond income versus corporate.
- Recommending Roth conversions when appropriate and explaining how will this affect the current year’s anticipated tax return.
- Establishing retirement plans for your business (when appropriate).
Your Insurance Agent
We ask for copies of your property and casualty insurance declaration pages, as well as information about life, disability, and health insurance. While we do not sell insurance, we want to make sure your income and assets are protected in case of an unforeseen event.
How Do My Accounts Transfer?
Before your accounts transfer, we hold a planning meeting to review the process.
Before Transfer:
We hold a planning meeting where we:
- Make recommendations
- Discuss financial planning issues
- Confirm your investment strategy
- Review “what-if” scenarios
The Implementation Process:
After the planning meeting, accounts begin to transfer. We then:
- Make investment changes
- Coordinate with other advisors
- Create action plan to:
- Continuously monitor your investments
- Check-in periodically
- Schedule focus meetings as necessary
- Review and update the plan at least once a year
What Investments Will You Choose For Me?
We choose investments based on market research, personal tax situation and your risk profile.
Market Research
Our investment strategies are backed by academia and have a long track record of success. We filter through the noise, misinformation, and emotion in order to make reasoned investment decisions.
Personal Tax Situation
We build portfolios that optimize tax-favored accounts, and we use mutual funds and ETFs with below average costs.
Your Risk Profile
We help you determine the appropriate amount of risk based on your goals and needs. Our analysis answers the following questions:
- What is the return you need to accomplish your goals based on your financial plan, goals, and future cash flow needs?
- What is your time horizon for using the money?
- How much short-term portfolio volatility can you tolerate? What is your comfort and experience with down markets?
We heavily emphasize using low-cost investments, such as Vanguard and Dimensional Fund Advisors. However, we are not married to any mutual fund company or custodian. You are our client, and therefore, you are our only focus.
How Do I Know I'm Getting The Best Value Possible
Our transparency makes it easy to know exactly what you are paying and the services you receive.
Our mission is to provide clients clarity, confidence and comfort through tailored, objective and conflict-free advice.
We define value in three ways: investment returns, financial planning services, and low-cost investment vehicles.
Investment Returns
We use academic research to select investments, effectively diversify your portfolio and manage risk. We have established a quality investment process, with the goal of higher than benchmark risk-adjusted returns. While we anticipate market volatility and cannot guarantee returns, our methodology has been proven over the long-term.
Financial Planning Services
- Organization: We will help clarify your financial situation using our proprietary CFO GUIDEBOOK™ to create your customized, comprehensive plan. Your online CFO Center™ keeps track of all your accounts, goals, and progress in one place.
- Accountability Partner: We help you prioritize your goals, provide recommendations on the steps you need to take, and review your progress towards achieving your goals regularly. We proactively engage with you to discuss any potential life transitions that might alter your financial plan. We create the necessary action plans to address and manage them accordingly.
- Objective Advice: As humans, we are all at risk of making emotionally driven financial decisions prompted by fear or greed. Our investment process removes those emotions by objectively conducting research and relying on protocols to determine when to buy and sell.
- Low-Cost Investment Vehicles: Some financial advisors hide costs within the products they sell. We pride ourselves on choosing low-cost investments. Our advisory fees are never hidden or embedded in products.
If you are unsure what you are paying your current advisor, we are happy to prepare a fee comparison for you. Our fees are benchmarked annually against our peers to ensure that we are industry-appropriate.
Business Client Questions
What Are The Potential Tax Benefits Of A 401(K)?
Opening a 401(k) provides tax benefits to the employer and employees.
Business benefits
- Employer contributions are tax-deductible.
- Assets in the plan grow tax-free.
- Plan options are flexible.
- Tax credits and other benefits for starting a plan may help reduce costs.
- Retirement plans can attract and keep better employees, which reduces new employee training costs.
Employee benefits
- Employee contributions can reduce current taxable income.
- Contributions and investment gains are not taxed until distributed.
- Contributions are easy to make through payroll deductions.
- Interest accrues over time, which allows small, regular contributions to grow to significant retirement savings.
- Retirement assets can be carried from one employer to another.
- The saver’s credit may be available to some employees.
- Employees can improve financial security in retirement.
Source: https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/plan-sponsor/benefits-of-setting-up-a-retirement-plan
What Type Of Retirement Plans Can I Set Up For My Small Business?
The type of retirement plan that fits your business will depend on your goal and the number of employees.
Small businesses may choose to offer their employees IRA-based retirement plans, defined contribution plans, defined benefit plans, or a combination of offerings. Here is the list of options to consider with links to the IRS for each description.
| IRAs | Defined Contribution Plans | Defined Benefit Plans |
|---|---|---|
| SIMPLE IRA Plans (Savings Incentive Match Plans for Employees) | 401(k) Plans | Pensions plans |
| SEP Plans (Simplified Employee Pension) | Simple 401(k) Plans | Cash Balance Plans |
| Payroll Deduction IRAs | Profit-Sharing Plans | |
| Money Purchase Plans |
Do I Have To Change Recordkeeper?
No, we can work with nearly any recordkeeper.
We routinely analyze the costs and services of over a dozen leading record keepers to understand and make appropriate recommendations for our clients.
When you engage our firm, we will do a cost comparison of your current record keeper with other options to help determine if it makes the most sense to stay with your current record keeper. The number of participants (both past and present employees with account balances), and the average account size per participant determines the cost to run a plan, but some record keepers are more cost effective for larger plans.
How Are Investments In The Retirement Plans Managed?
There are two options for investment vehicles.
Option 1: Build Your Own Portfolio
- Recommended for investors with knowledge and experience.
- Will require periodic “rebalancing” of assets to reduce risk.
- Not professionally managed.
Option 2: Target Date Funds
- Recommended for inexperienced and “hands off” investors.
- Pre-built funds that correspond with your projected retirement.
- No “rebalancing” required — invest and forget.
- Professionally managed.
- Just select the fund that corresponds with your projected retirement, e.g. “Target Date 2045” or “Retirement 2045”
When Are 401(K) Contributions Fully Vested?
Being “vested” in a retirement plan indicates ownership.
According to the IRS, “each employee will vest, or own, a certain percentage of their account in the plan each year. An employee who is 100% vested in his or her account balance owns 100% of it and the employer cannot forfeit, or take it back, for any reason. Amounts that are not vested may be forfeited by employees when they are paid their account balance (for example, when the employee terminates employment) or when they don’t work more than 500 hours in a year for five years.
Employee contributions
An employee’s own contributions to the plan (for example, employee elective deferrals deducted from salary) are always 100% vested, or owned, by the employee.
Employer contributions
Different vesting requirements apply to employer contributions depending on the type of plan the employer sponsors.
SEP and SIMPLE IRA (and other IRA-based) plans require that all contributions to the plan are always 100% vested.
Qualified defined contribution plans (for example, profit-sharing or 401(k) plans) can offer a variety of different vesting schedules that are determined by the plan document. These can range from immediate vesting, to 100% vesting after 3 years of service (as defined by the plan, generally 1,000 hours worked over 12 months), to a vesting schedule that increases the employee’s vested percentage for each year of service with the employer. This sounds easy enough, but it can get complicated. Employers can choose to use different methods of counting service.
What Are The Advantages Of A Retirement Plan?
There are three major advantages to retirement plans.
What Are the Advantages?
- Automatic savings: Pay yourself first.
- Free money: Employer contributions
- Huge tax advantages:
| Pre-Tax Contributions | After-Tax “Roth” Contributions |
|---|---|
| Pay no tax when you earn it | Pay tax when you earn it |
| Pay no tax while it grows | Pay no tax while it grows |
| Pay (lower) tax when you take it out | Pay no tax when you take it out |
What Is A Safe Harbor Plan?
With a Safe Harbor 401(k) plan, the company is required to provide a contribution.
A 401(k) plan can be created at any time during the year. However, a Safe Harbor 401(k) plan must exist for a minimum of 3 months in its initial plan year, which means it must be established no later than October 1st to qualify for that calendar year.
With a Safe Harbor 401(k) plan, the company is required to provide either a 3% non-elective contribution to all eligible employees or a matching contribution of up to 4%. Company contributions are 100% vested to the employees immediately. By following these rules, owners and other highly compensated employees are able to save the maximum allowable amount from their salary, up to the IRS annual contribution limits (with a higher catch-up contribution limit available for those age 50 and older).
How Much Does It Cost To Set Up And Administer A 401(K) For My Company?
Fees depend on the assets in the plan, number of employees, type of plan, and number of locations.
Learn more about our pricing structure for business clients here.
What Is The Difference Between Roth And Pre-Tax Contributions?
Make a tax-savvy choice when choosing between Traditional and Roth contributions.
Traditional (pre-tax) contributions are taxed when you withdraw the money, while Roth contributions are taxed immediately. Therefore, choose such that you end up paying taxes while in the lowest possible tax bracket. Use the following guide.
My tax bracket this year is (higher/lower) than my projected tax bracket will be at the time funds are withdrawn.
If higher than choose traditional (pre-tax contributions). If lower than choose Roth.
What Is The Maximum Annual Contribution To A Retirement Plan
Depending on the plan, the employer and employee may both make contributions, but the amounts vary.
There are two limits that apply to contributions annually:
1. A limit on employee elective salary deferrals. Salary deferrals are contributions an employee makes, in lieu of salary, to certain retirement plans:
- 401(k) plans
- 403(b) plans
- SARSEP IRA plans (Salary Reduction Simplified Employee Pension Plans)
- SIMPLE IRA plans (Savings Incentive Match Plans for Employees)
2. An overall limit on contributions to a participant’s account. The limit applies to the total of:
- Elective deferrals (but not catch-up contributions)
- Employer matching contributions
- Employer nonelective contributions
- Allocations of forfeitures
Deferral limits for 401(k) plans
The limit on employee elective deferrals (for traditional and safe harbor plans) is subject to annual cost-of-living adjustments set by the IRS each year. Current limits can be found on the IRS website at irs.gov.
Generally, you aggregate all elective deferrals you made to all plans in which you participate to determine if you have exceeded these limits. If a plan participant’s elective deferrals are more than the annual limit, find out how you can correct this plan mistake.
The limit on employee elective deferrals (for traditional and safe harbor plans) is subject to annual cost-of-living adjustments set by the IRS each year. Current limits can be found on the IRS website at irs.gov.
What Are The IRS Reporting Requirements For A 401(K)?
Plans subject to ERISA must file information annually.
An administrator or sponsor of an employee benefit plan subject to ERISA must file information about each plan every year.
A Form 5500-EZ may generally be filed for a plan that provides benefits solely for an individual (and spouse) who wholly owns a trade or business; or partners or partners (and spouses) in a partnership. The following IRS chart outlines which forms must be filed for 401(k) plans.
| ITEM | EXPLANATION | DUE TO: |
|---|---|---|
| Form 5500, Annual Return/Report of Employee Benefit Plan or Form 5500-EZ, Annual Return of One-Participant (Owners and Their Spouses) Retirement Plan PDF with applicable schedules and independent auditor’s report, if applicable. | An administrator or sponsor of an employee benefit plan subject to ERISA must file information about each plan every year. | IRS/DOL: By the last day of 7th month after the end of the plan year. |
| Form W-2, Wage and Tax Statement PDF and Form W-3, Transmittal of Wage and Tax Statements PDF | Reports wages and the amount of elective deferrals for a 401(k) plan. | Employees: By January 31 following the calendar year. IRS: by February 28 following the calendar year. |
Additional reports may be required under various circumstances including reporting distributions, rollovers, and income tax withheld from distributions.
If you would like help getting started with a 401(k) plan for your small business, schedule an introductory call with an advisor today.