What Does a Financial Adviser Do?

What exactly does a financial adviser do?

When I talk to people and say I’m a financial adviser their eyes often glaze over! They might not have much idea what a financial adviser does, so what I tend to say instead is that I help people with their pensions or their investments.

If you’ve got any ISAs, any other savings or if you want to make investments, I can look after you. If you’ve got any pension pots built up over the years and are worried about them, or you’d like them to work a little bit more for you, I can arrange things to suit you better.

Once you get um into a position where things are under control for you, hopefully you can be better off – that’s essentially what a finance adviser does.

What services does a
financial adviser offer?

We can set up a pension for you. It doesn’t have to be the case that you reach a certain age and suddenly wonder how you will live when you retire. You might want to set something up now, or you already have something with your work. You might want to understand what you’ve got and if you’ll have enough in the future.

If you’re self-employed or you run a company, we can help with regards to company year end accounting and employee contributions etc. You might be in a situation where you’re affected by particular tax brackets – pension contributions can help you there, as well.

It all helps with what’s called your net adjusted income. That adjusted income is basically what you earn after everything’s gone out and you then make a pension contribution.

Bringing your net adjusted income down can put you in a lower tax bracket. Perhaps you’re in what’s called the 60% tax bracket, whereby your annual allowance is dependent upon what you earn. You could make a contribution towards your pension and get that annual allowance back. With pensions there’s an awful lot involved – and they can even help you pass something on to the next generation.

When should I see a financial adviser?

It depends upon what stage in life you’re at and what you want you to do at that stage. I often see clients when they are imminently approaching retirement, who would like to access their funds in a particular way. Or perhaps they’re looking at retiring towards the end of the next decade and want to see if they’re on track.

But really, financial advisers can help you at any stage in your life. You might want to set a pension up or get into a savings or investment regime. You might want to build up funds so that eventually you’ve got a pot that can work for you.

That could be at any age. It could be in your 20s, when you’re saving towards your first home. It could be a little bit later on in your late 30s or early 40s, when you’ve got a few work scheme pension pots. You might want to put them together to have a coherent plan.

What often happens is that we have an introduction to a client who , for example, wants to access their funds in a flexible way. We help with that and then because of the relationship, we get an introduction to their family and friends. Clients will often ask us to help their son or daughter out to save up for a first home. That happened to me last week, in fact.

Helping people is what it’s all about. Often clients come to me because they’ve not got a coherent plan. But we can pull everything together and make things work for them – ultimately making them better off. That has a big impact on their wellbeing. One of the key wellbeing factors is getting your finances in order, so if you feel confident in your financial situation and your plans, it can make a big difference to your life.