Goal Discovery

We start by identifying your goals. Once identified, we prioritize those goals into:

• must be met "needs" such as ordinary recurring living expenses
• would like to have "wants" such as home improvement or college planning
• and if there's money left "wishes" such as travel plans or second homes

Prioritizing goals helps clients understand whether they are attainable, and if not, trade-offs toward their achievement, such as saving more versus working longer versus taking more risk in a portfolio to pursue higher returns.  

While we will point out possible goals based on your stage of life, the intent of goal discovery is to determine what is important to YOU, and what makes your plan unique. 

A Comprehensive View

Many clients come to us because they are stuck in the traditional brokerage model where the investment portfolio is centric to the planning relationship. We reject the notion that planning starts with the portfolio. 

Planning starts with our clients' goals, which ultimately informs the portfolio management decisions. Planning shuold be comprehensive, incorporating all aspects of a client's financial and tax situation, along with their varying investment time horizons, cash flow needs, and tolerance for risk. In addition, it's important to give consideration to estate and legal needs, insurance gaps, education funding requirements, and health issues, where applicable. 

This comprehensive view informs our recommendations, which we help our clients implement in a simple, transparent fashion.  

We Are Fiduciaries

Many clients assume that every "Financial Advisor" will act only in their best interest. Unfortunately, much of the financial services industry operates only on a suitability standard which does not require advisors to act in the best interest of clients. 

Opus Financial Solutions is an independent Registered Investment Advisor (RIA). As an RIA without any affiliation to a broker/dealer or insurance agency, we are required by law to operate as fiduciaries to our clients, acting objectively in our clients' best interest when we evaluate financial circumstances and make financial recommendations. Beyond the regulatory requirement, all three of the advisors of Opus are CFP practitioners and are held to a high fiduciary standard by the CFP Board of Standards.

While there are regulatory requirements to act in a client's best interest, the more important concept is that we choose to make objective recommendations that are in a client's best interest because it is the right thing to do, and we would do so even if the regulatory requirement did not exist.  

Our comprehensive planning approach is a natural complement to being a fiduciary as a deeper understanding of client goals and needs provides the necessary context for objective decisions.