The Wheelhouse Way – Our Annual Client Review Process

Written By: Anthony Striker, MBA – Senior Wealth Manger

As we enter 2025, I wanted to share with you what the annual review process looks like at Wheelhouse from an internal perspective. Each year, Wheelhouse client families have reviews with their Wheelhouse Wealth Manager that often range from 1-2 hours in duration. However, much more goes into the process than scheduling a meeting and getting together in the office with your advisor for a discussion. Here at Wheelhouse, we know that time in the office is important to your financial plan and future, so we are continuously tweaking things (we feel we can always improve!) to make sure that time spent is as valuable as possible when it comes to making investment recommendations, planning for retirements, and helping your family from the financial perspective with whatever transitions you may be going through or events you may be planning for. We do our absolute best to gather information prior to your meeting, answer your questions and present proactive recommendations during meetings, and complete notes and follow up for the meetings that are truly valuable for your financial well-being. Below is a quick look into the “Life cycle” of an annual review at Wheelhouse:

1. First, our Administrative Assistant, Diane Thiel, reaches out 6-8 weeks prior to your annual review month. She finds a time that works best for your family given your advisor’s calendar availability. The financial planning team is then notified of this upcoming visit.
   
   
2. Once your date and time are set, our financial planners reach out to learn what has changed with your situation, what your account values are outside of Wheelhouse, and how adequate your income is, especially if you are retired! This information gathered prior to your annual visit may be even more detailed if you are soon going through a transition such as retirement or having a current or major health issue in your family. We want to make sure that we have all our numbers as accurate as possible PRIOR to building your review documents and recommending any changes. The more information we gather before your review, the more productive your visit will be, as we are able to make proactive recommendations which aim to enhance your portfolio from an investment, tax, income, and estate planning perspective. If need be, the team will contact you more than once for this information, as we want the time you spend with your advisor in our offices to be as beneficial as possible. Our team can certainly make a plan for an annual review if some or all of this information is not obtained prior to your visit, but we have found that when we have more information prior, we are more confident with our ideas for your plan and there is less potential for confusion during and after your visit. We also want to know anything that our clients want to cover during their annual review, so we can have answers, discussions, or documents prepared for the day of your meeting to cover the things you are most concerned with.
   
   
3. Once your information is updated with current numbers, the financial planners can truly go to work building your plan. In this stage your Retirement Analyzer is updated, and a new Retirement Goals document is drafted. This document shows how your portfolio sits today from several different perspectives including risk allocation, account balances, income planning, tax planning, and estate planning.
   
   
4. In the meantime, your advisor communicates with your financial planner on what items may be best to change within your portfolio. This could mean adding or reducing risk, recommending a Roth conversion, or even changing how your beneficiaries are listed on accounts. After discussing this with your wealth manager, your financial planner will draft the Action Items document which details the recommended changes to your overall financial plan. The importance of this step is that while your financial planner may know the numbers perfectly, your Wealth Manager (advisor) knows you best, and can give insight into what suggestions you may be most comfortable with when it comes to your meeting, or if there is any other information outside of the norm that we would need to gather to make a proper recommendation.
   
   
5. Once the Retirement Goals and Action Items documents are fully drafted, they are sent to your Wealth Manager for review. The advising and planning departments go back and forth to make sure that the documents and recommendations are exactly what is needed for your unique situation on the information we have as well as the client’s potential comfort level with certain changes. Questions are asked to other employees, departments, or Rishi, to verify everything is as it should be. Plans are also discussed during our Financial Planning meetings on Monday mornings to make sure annual reviews for the upcoming three weeks are on track and all recommendations make sense given what we know about each client’s situation. This review ends with Rishi’s review and approval, as he continues to make sure he is hands on in the process with each client and sees how every dollar moves at Wheelhouse.
   
   
6. During your visit, you will spend 1-2 hours in our office (or on zoom or over the phone if you prefer) with your Wealth Manager and Wealth Coordinator. Your Wealth Manager will guide you through your current plan and give you options and recommendations for any changes to make to your plan based on conditions in the market or changes in your life.  Your wealth coordinator will be taking detailed notes during your visit and will serve as your personal liaison, available to assist with any questions or concerns that arise between meetings.
   

When a client is in the office, I always say it is the job of our Wealth Managers to make sure you leave your meeting as comfortable as possible when it comes to the dollar signs in your life. It is also so important to us for our Wealth Managers to speak in layman’s terms and NEVER have you feel as though their Wealth Manager is “speaking over your head”. We encourage you to ask questions until you understand the concepts being discussed, especially if there is a recommended change for your plan.

7. Finally, after your annual visit, your Wealth Coordinator will send you a full write-up of notes from your time with your Wealth Manager. This includes any “action items” that were either agreed upon during your meeting or still require further discussion or time for consideration. We feel it is integral for you to understand the changes recommended to you and encourage you to ask additional questions to your Wealth Coordinator after your meeting if you feel like there is any confusion with what was discussed. As needed, your Wealth Coordinator will involve your Wealth Manager and any other team members necessary to make sure your needs are met after your annual visit.
   

In seven steps at minimum, your plan sees 3 different departments, 6 different Wheelhouse employees, and 4-6 hours of back-end work outside of your visit with your Wealth Manager. That doesn’t even go into what the compliance and operations departments may be doing for your plan during the same weeks, as well as after your review meeting. Additionally, your portfolio and positions are continuously monitored between meetings by your Wealth Manager, Wealth Coordinator, and Financial Planning team.

I wanted to share this process mainly because we are very proud of how it serves and guides our clients. If you have been with Wheelhouse for a few years, we hope you have seen the team grow to benefit your service, including the proactivity and accuracy of your plan. You have probably heard us say that we want to grow “the right way” for our clients, and I hope that giving you a glimpse of how your annual review is prepared, shows our dedication to your financial well-being, as that is what we see each day by our team in the office. As a reminder, we are always trying to improve ourselves and our processes and welcome feedback to make things as easy as possible for you. If you have any questions about how our annual review process works, please give us a call today! We’re always here for you.