College Aid Pro.  We are now helping our clients with high school age children shop and plan for college using College Aid Pro (CAP).  This is an excellent college planning tool.  There is no cost for using CAP with PlanVision and Jared Reinstein of PlanVision can assist you in this process!

Yes.

Yes, many of our clients do and many don’t.  Some prefer to just get started putting together their plan or even their investments.  But we definitely offer those to all new clients.  Mark Zoril and Jason Lynch do not offer introductory sessions.

Yes.  But as our business has grown and our model evolved, we have modified our pricing. It is still a great value!

As a PlanVision client, you will still auto renew at the end of the first year at $8 a month, which is $96/year, and can cancel any time.

You will receive two emails.  One which provides you with a unique link to log on to the private PlanVision Client site.  The other sends you the PlanVision ADV.  We are required to provide this to each client that purchases our guidance

Good question!  We would strongly recommend that you use your personal email instead of one associated with an employer.

Same fee for an individual or couple.  However, if you want to work with PlanVision separately from your spouse or partner (this happens quite a bit) it is two separate fees.  Some of our clients that are married or have a partner do their own thing, and in that case, if they both want to work with PlanVision, each would pay the fee separately.

Yes.  That’s it.  We don’t generate referral fees, assets under management charges, commissions or other fees.  

No.  Clients buy our guidance with a credit or debit card.

No!  And we don’t even want it.  For our clients that use eMoney, you don’t provide your SSN and you can even provide a different DOB if you want to.  You also can add your accounts manually to eMoney instead of syncing them. If you are an expat client and use interactive Brokers and link your account to PlanVision, we will have access to your account information.  You can setup your account directly with IB if you like.

Only if you use a link provided by Interactive Brokers to setup your account.  And if you do this, you can easily delink your account from PlanVision at any time.

You can cancel anytime.  As in the day after you buy.  You just send us an email.

Nothing gives.  We are good at this.  We have a very streamlined process and use technology efficiently to support our work.  Also, since we simplify investment guidance and planning (yes, many advisors imply that this stuff is incredibly complicated but it isn’t) we have the capacity to work with more clients on a daily basis.

It simply depends on how long you want our help.  We have clients that have been working with us since we started offering individual guidance under this current model.  Other clients just want help for a few months or one year. Some prefer help for a few years.

Nothing too scientific.  We wanted to help people that don’t have much extra money.  Also, we realized that if we use technology efficiently it doesn’t take much time to provide professional, personal guidance and we could service many clients and make a profit.  

We do!  Watch the video again.  In fact, there will occasionally be cases where people buy our service and misunderstand how we can help them or are not a match for our guidance.  We send their money back and let them know that we cannot help them.

Yes.  Your cooperation on this is critical and mandatory.  We cannot overstate how important our onboarding process is to helping us provide you personal guidance at an amazingly low price.  When you start with PlanVision, you will complete our quick introductory survey so we understand your background and how we can help you.  It is not too long – you can easily complete it in under 5 minutes and many will just take a couple of minutes to get it done.

In most cases yes.  However, even before you have a meeting with us, depending upon how you answer the questions, you can get started setting up a brokerage account or completing the eMoney information.

No limit.  We want you to feel comfortable that you can reach out to us without the meter running when you have a question. However, don’t abuse this.  The success of PlanVision depends upon our clients appreciating our business model.  Be respectful of our time. Don’t setup up 50 minute appointments every couple of months.  If you reach out to us every week or other week and want to have a session monthly, we will just send your money back.

Yes.  We have a secure sharefile system link on our emails and on our website you can use to send documents to us securely.  Also, if you use eMoney, you can drop documents in their vault. We record many sessions with of our clients and can send you the recording password protected using WeTransfer.

Yes you can.  However, before you do this, combine them all together in to one PDF!!!  You have to do this!!! Seriously. You can use smallpdf.com to get this done.  On our side, it takes forever to download several different PDF’s and is quite aggravating.  We have an audio explanation of this during our onboarding survey.

We try to get to them as soon as possible!!  We like to respond within a few hours and no more than a day.  In rare cases, we may take more than a day – but we don’t like to go past that.  Also, we might be a bit slower on weekends and US holidays and we even take time off every once in a while.

There are several types of clients that are not a fit for our model.  If you are interested in meeting in person, unless you live close to our office and want to drive here, you are not a match; if you are looking for a complicated portfolio with precise allocations like 7.8% small company stocks, 11.5% international government bonds, etc… we don’t do that (other advisors are happy to do this for you); if you are interested in speculation or discussion on what will happen in the markets in the short run, we won’t provide that; or if you want to have regularly scheduled quarterly or semi annual meetings, we are not a good fit for you.

Yes.  We rely on our clients to understand that the success of our $96 program relies on their ability to work with us in an efficient manner.   However, we believe that for the vast majority of consumers all over the world this is not much of a challenge!

To communicate with PlanVision, you need to be able to use email and/or join an online meeting by video conference.  Also, if you need to setup an account with a brokerage, you will likely need to do that online.  If we are doing planning with eMoney for you, you will need to be able to enter basic data into an online system.

Two other things.  Yes, we really need to mention these!!  First, you need to be somewhat organized.  You need to remember that you have a meeting with us and check your emails and respond to them when we reach out to you.  Not immediately but eventually.  (Some people struggle to do this)!  Second, you need to be able to follow instructions.  Really!  We provide written and video instructions on setting up brokerage accounts and using eMoney.  They are quite straightforward.  But if you cannot follow instructions, you will impede our ability to work with you.

Yes.  But we limit them to as many as you can provide.

Yes!  We are hardly objective, but we think it is a great idea to buy someone a professional advisor for 12 months a small flat fee that will review their situation, educate them about how to invest for their future, and help them develop a plan.  And you wouldn’t have to worry about the advisor taking advantage of them and selling any products or investment plans.

When you buy the service you can indicate during checkout who the gift is for and provide their email.  In addition you can send us a separate email and indicate it is for someone else and we will follow-up accordingly.

Yes.  They are in the footer.  Also, when you purchase our guidance the Terms and Conditions are linked there and you will need to indicate that you have read them even if you haven’t.

This would not be good!  Please let us know.  You can use the info email at the top of the page.  And thanks if you do that!

You can email us using the info email in the footer or header.

No.  We offer a money back guarantee if we cannot help you or if you are not a match for our guidance.

We use Zoom.  It works well for us but we can also use skype and other platforms. 

Everything runs off of our appointment system.  It is likely that we cannot visit in the next day or two (however, there are times when appointments are available that soon).  Normally you have to look out a week or two. While this sounds quite immodest, we are good at our work and take it seriously.  There is significant demand for our guidance and we have many clients.  We certainly aren’t sitting around killing time.

If you are going to do a full plan using eMoney, there is typically a wait of 2 to 3 weeks or so from the time you have your eMoney clean up session to the actual planning meeting.  But this will vary a bit throughout the year depending upon vacation schedules and our volume of new client onboardings.

We are on task in our meetings.  We enjoy being social with our clients, but we also want to make sure that we cover all the information we need to during our client sessions!

Likely yes but no guarantee on this.  Most of our clients schedule meetings with us that are just fine for their schedule.  It might depend upon how soon you want to meet and what time zone you are in!  You might have to meet with us later at night or in the morning or during your work day.

NO!  And please, please do not ask!!  We have clients setting up appointments with us every day and time slots that become available due to cancellations.  It is impossible for us to maintain a list of clients, in order of those that request, to contact in the event that an earlier time opens up.  Maybe some other businesses do this, but it is completely impractical for PlanVision.

Sometimes, but we try and avoid this if possible.  With our large volume of clients we cannot support allowing our clients to have multiple appointments.  You can setup a subsequent appointment after we complete your outstanding meeting.

To be as efficient and responsive as possible, many times we answer emails and provide guidance through recorded video messages to our clients.  This enable us to explain ideas thoroughly and our clients don’t have to wait for meetings and can watch the responses on their own time schedule.

Yes!  Unless you don’t want us to.  But we definitely recommend it.  You receive a link to view a copy of the recording in addition to a transcript and a summary.  The recording is stored securely using the Fathom Notetaker system.

This is perfectly fine!  We can help you put together a plan and don’t need to review your investments.  On the other hand if you just want to review your investments and don’t need to do a full plan that is fine as well.

PlanVision does not give professional tax advice.  You will want to hire a tax advisor for that.  However providing tax planning guidance is a part of the process for many of our clients.  Jason Lynch is a CPA.

We always discuss the tax implications of our clients’ investment decisions and consider how their different savings options will impact their taxes.  You can’t provide financial guidance without understanding how tax laws impact investment decisions.

Yes!  We run these types of scenarios all the time for our clients.  It is standard for us to review distribution strategies and make recommendations for our clients.

The people at eMoney can roll their eyes at this one.  There is no comparison. These online services provide nice budgeting and tracking and account coordination tools.  But when comes to long term projections, programs like eMoney, regarded as a top of the line financial advisor planning program, are so much more sophisticated in their range of planning and forecasting capabilities that it’s not comparable.  eMoney does provide some expense tracking, but this is not what it is built to do and is not the reason you would use eMoney.

No!  Many of our clients don’t and our international clients cannot link their accounts.  BUT IF YOU STILL WANT TO HAVE A GREAT PLAN WITH PLANVISION YOU DO NOT HAVE TO LINK YOUR ACCOUNTS!  For the most part it is easy to update your accounts manually and we can still use the system for planning if accounts are not linked.  Thousands of our international clients use eMoney without linking accounts and so do many of our American clients.

Some of our clients enter their information in a day or two.  Others take months. eMoney is user friendly. 

We have developed the eMoney Tracker.  This online tool acts as a checklist you can use to stay organized and track your progress towards completing the information.  You submit it once you have finished entering your information into eMoney.

We review and clean up the information and you will then have a 15 to 30 minute meeting with Christian Rieck or Jason Lynch.  In this session they will answer your questions and prepare the information with you so it is ready for your planning meeting.

You then schedule a 30 or 50 minute session with Mark to go over the plan and more follow-up sessions as necessary.

No.  These aren’t necessary.  We think you should meet with an advisor when you have a reason for a session.   But having regularly schedule sessions is not a good use of our time nor do we think these are particularly useful for our clients.  On the other hand, we are happy to visit with you any time you would like.

If we are reviewing your investments, or developing recommendations, or completing your plan we typically don’t get this done immediately.  It will likely take anywhere from 3 to 14 days.  We realize this is a big range, but it depends upon the complexity of your request and how many other cases we are working on at the time.

No.  You will onboard yourself to the planning system – but we will help you along the way if you have questions.  You will receive excellent, thorough instructions on how to do this!!  The vast majority of our clients do not struggle at all on this, but you have to follow our instructions to do it correctly.

Unfortunately no.  You would want to pursue that with an advisory or estate planning firm that has experience and competence in this area.

Oddly enough, there are a few countries in the world in which you will either need a VPN or possibly use your employer’s server to access eMoney.  These countries are Hong Kong, Thailand, Czech Republic, and Slovenia.  There are surely a few more countries, but these are the ones that we know of.

Yes.  We are by no means experts on all things college planning.  But we can certainly provide guidance on how to think and plan as well as save for college.  Also, we provide access to College Aid Pro (CAP) at no additional cost.  CAP is an excellent planning tool that our clients can use to shop and budget for college as their children are in their high school years.  Jared Reinstein works with our clients using CAP.

Yes we can.  We are good at this and have lots of experience.

There is no “deal” with Andrew.  I don’t pay him and he doesn’t pay PlanVision.  We connected a few years ago through an online reporting service.  Andrew learned about our business and put PlanVision on his website.  He likes what we do and promotes it to expats and others that want to follow the same approach that he has used over the years. I have been impressed with his commitment to helping people and getting out this important message.  He is doing great work!

Yes.  Yes – depending upon the brokerage you use.  We can provide tips on how you can get your account setup correctly. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Not all of our clients need to open up an Interactive Brokers account, but if you do we have an extensive account setup video along with other shorter videos our clients use to use to get going with an IB account.  We also have a PDF instructional tip sheet we provide as well.

Also, IB can be very picky about verifying address for account approval.  We will help you through this process but can’t guarantee that your account will be approved if you do not have a document that satisfied their request.  If IB does not work, you can use another broker.

Currently, Americans cannot use brokers like Interactive Brokers and Schwab UK and trade in the US.  They can open up accounts with US providers like Vanguard, etc… but will need to use a US address.  Canadians can use an international brokerage account, just cannot trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange.  But, they can setup investments in USD, OR GBP, or EUR on the UK or European exchanges and have a nice global mix with Canadian exposure.

Of course not!  You can invest in whatever you want.  We recommend low-cost index funds or ETF’s and think you should use them as well, but what you invest in is your decision.  Many of our clients have other assets such as properties, cd’s, other bank accounts, fixed or variable annuities, private businesses, etc…  You are hiring us to provide our professional opinion on how you should invest your money.  We will also provide perspective on other investments you may be considering. (Turns out people like this).

We don’t offer “portfolios”.  We don’t manage money. We help people like you setup simple portfolios using target date funds, other all in one funds or ETF’s, a few index funds, etc…  We believe that people should try to get market based returns less very small fees.

Yes!  At this point, investors here in American and worldwide can setup low-cost, broadly diversified portfolios which should give them a better chance for long term success than more complicated, hard to understand strategies.  We have no interest in overdone portfolios with clever asset allocations. There are plenty of other advisors that will build more complex portfolios for you. 

Don’t take a simple process and make it complicated.  There is no perfect portfolio with precise asset allocation fine tuned to the dollar for maximum tax efficiency.

Mark Zoril invests all of his money in a Vanguard 2045 Retirement Date Fund.  I don’t track my performance, don’t compare it to other portfolios, and rarely even look at my account. I don’t know “how it is doing.”  I am very happy with this and have been doing it this way for more than 10 years.  

No.  We don’t have any interest in stocks or sector investments.  You can buy them if you like but we certainly will not recommend any to buy or how much to invest in them.

Not in the conventional sense.  Through podcasts, interviews, video blogs, etc… we provide ideas and information to our clients about investing and financial planning.  However, it has nothing to do with market updates, or economic forecasts, or any of that type of gibberish.

Sure – if you really want to.  However, we are not interested in stories about market predictions or unique sector opportunities, etc…

No.  Investing is not this complicated.  You can construct a portfolio however you like, but we are not going to spend time with you doing an exhaustive review of your investments or discussing the latest theories in asset allocation.  We have no interest in this.

We don’t need to see the multiple spreadsheets you have built to track and monitor your investment performance.  They are fine for your purposes, but not for ours. You can have a great, simple portfolio and we can help you accomplish that or move in this direction.