A financial plan is a set of directions that tells you what you need to do to get from where you are today, financially speaking, to where you want to be in the future.  Everyone needs a financial plan.  Even if you are not sure what you want to do in the future.  All of your goals have a financial component to them, so planning for them now is a great way to achieve them.

Let's try this a different way.  Here is what a GOOD financial plan will have in it:

1. Details on how much you need to save now to pay for your goals in the future
2. A specific month by month payment plan to payoff all of your credit cards
3. A recommendation on how much term life insurance you need to buy to protect your biggest asset -- your ability to earn your income
4. A plan to get a real emergency fund.  You know -- cash that you use when you have an emergency
5. Guidelines on how much you can spend per month after you have done 1, 2, 3 and 4
6. Clear, simple and inexpensive product recommendations to implement 1, 2, 3 and 4
   

It helps you create a realistic plan for your financial life. By using the service, you will be able to:

• Figure out what to do right now to shore up your current finances, like paying off credit card debt or buying the right amount of insurance
• Define your goals and determine how to save and invest to give yourself the best chance to reach them
• Easily update and track your progress as you begin putting the pieces of your plan into action.

First-time users usually time 20-25 minutes to fully complete the process. This can be done in one sitting or over time—the service saves your information so when you log back in, you can pick up where you left off!

As a Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) with the SEC, we are required by law to have consistent, understandable and reliable financial planning and advice services.  Want to see our credentials?  Click here to open our Form ADV, part II.

First, you should get financial planning advice period.  Why you should do it online, more specifically with SimpliFi, is best answered with a list.  Here goes:

• You can take your time and it's free
• It is completely private, so you can share ALL (even those pesky credit cards) your information with Sophie
• Sophie makes no judgments about you because of where you are financially
• We're independent.  That means, we only make product recommendations based on what you need specifically.
• Financially planning is a deeply personal process.  Only you know what you want and therefore YOU are the best person to make your plan!

Since this is a planning service, we recommend logging in at least once every 3 months to update your progress towards your plan. However, if you have something big happen in your life—like getting a new job or a buying a new home—you should log in and update your plan to reflect your new circumstances.

SimpliFi Financial Planning is FREE!

We make money when you take steps to put your FIT List and GET List into action. If you navigate to one of our partner product providers and purchase a product that helps you implement one (or more) of your action items, SimpliFi receives a commission or referral fee. We only get paid when you take action.

No.  In fact, exactly the opposite.  We only recommend the products you need as a result of what you said you wanted.  Simple as that.

SimpliFi takes data security very seriously. We know that you are entrusting some important personal information to our care, and so we take every precaution to protect your information. Here are some of the ways we work to prevent security problems:

• We use bank-level security. At every level, we actively monitor security to ensure that your data is protected. We use 256-bit encryption (128-bit for older browsers) to protect data that is transmitted back and forth. The bottom line: it would be really difficult for a hacker to get his hands on your information.
• SimpliFi will NEVER ask you for your login password—this is yours and yours alone. No one at SimpliFi can see your password; in fact, we can only reset your password or send it to you via email, not tell you what it is.

Click the “Forgot Password?” link on the homepage and we will email your credentials to the email address on file.

We only collect information from you that we need to customize your advice. For example, we ask for your date of birth and your income so we can begin developing some baseline recommendations for retirement and savings/insurance needs. All account information used to aggregate your accounts is secure and safe with us, and will not be used for any other purposes.

Log in to your account and go the My Account page. Click on the “Delete My Account” button and confirm when asked. Your account will be deleted immediately and your data will be removed from our records within 72 hours.

Your Goal Point Average (or GPA) is a measure of how likely you are to achieve your financial goals. Just like school, your GPA can range from A+ to F, and the better your grade, the more likely it is that you will achieve your goals (because you will have to take less investment risk).

Your GPA is based on a formula that calculates how much your financial goals will cost over time and what you are currently saving to reach those goals. If you want to improve your GPA, you must either save more or pay off debts, or remove or lower the cost of some of your goals.

The service uses a combination of data analytics and common-sense financial planning concepts to determine your specific recommendations. By marrying the power of data analysis with tried-and-true financial planning expertise, we are able to give you realistic advice across your financial life: savings, debt repayment, insurance, and investments.

Your GPA is a measure of how much investment risk you need to take to achieve your goals, so the better your GPA, the less risk you have to take. Having said this, if you're GPA is less than an A--and it probably is--don't panic! Less than 10% of our users have an A. The average GPA for our users is a C, and the chances of achieving your goals with this grade are still reasonable. Obviously, if you have a lower GPA and you can find ways to improve it, you should--but don't think that you have to have an A+ to be safe. Also, if you save systematically for your goals and pay down your debts, your GPA will improve over time.

SimpliFi’s mission is simple: help as many people as possible create—and regularly update—a financial plan. Why? Because experts have figured out that if you have a written financial plan, you are 250% more likely to achieve your future goals! The simple fact is planning for your goals—not your investment choices or how much money you make—is the single most important factor in achieving them.

Sounds like a no-brainer, right? Well it’s not—yet. Only 5% of Americans have a written financial plan, so we have a long way to go to get the word out. For us, the benefits of planning are so powerful that we have dedicated our lives (and a good bit of our money!) to making this mission a reality. We think this is powerful stuff, and we are committed to getting people like you to think so, too.

In short, SimpliFi helps you create a realistic plan for your financial life. By using SimpliFi, you will be able to:

• Figure out what to do right now to shore up your current finances, like paying off credit card debt or buying the right amount of insurance
• Define your goals and determine how to save and invest to give yourself the best chance to reach them
• Easily update and track your progress as you begin putting the pieces of your plan into action.

SimpliFi is headquartered on 4th Street inthe heart of downtown Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Not right now, although we are considering offering country-specific options for Australia, Canada, and Great Britain.

Sophie is a Virtual Financial Advisor. Her job is to guide you through the service and make sure you can easily use the service to plan your financial life.

We love product suggestions -- seriously.  Our tool was designed for regular folks to use, so why not do the things you are asking for?  To send us a suggestion, Click here and submit your suggestion using our secure contact form.

Bugs happen.  And we want to know about them.  Please send us what you have found by clicking here and submitting your bug via our secure online contact form.  Once it's fixed, we will send you an email letting you know.

We typically will send a response within 48 hours and then will email you directly once your request is handled.