First, our process for providing asset management begins with the establishment of your personal and financial goals, investment objectives, investment time horizon, and risk tolerance.

Next, we will work with you to develop a written Investment Policy Statement, which clearly shows how your money will be allocated across the various asset classes. The most important asset allocation decision that you will make is how much of your money to invest in fixed income (or bonds) and how much to put in equity (or stocks). Once you have completed and signed a written Investment Policy Statement, we help you to put your policy into action.

Third, we will help you to open new accounts at a discount brokerage firm and to transfer your investments and retirement accounts to this new custodian. We will fill out most of the paperwork for you so that this lengthy and time-consuming process will be as simple and easy as possible.

Finally, we invest and manage your assets on a discretionary basis, which means that we have your permission to made trades without consulting you prior to each transaction. As it states in our Investment Advisory Agreement, we will always make investment decisions that are consistent with your Investment Policy Statement.

We will conduct monthly account reviews to determine if your investment portfolio is significantly out of tolerance with your desired asset allocation (as indicated in your Investment Policy Statement). If your portfolio is out of tolerance, we may rebalance the portfolio to your desired asset allocation. Our decision to rebalance is based on many factors, including your cash flow needs, the degree to which your portfolio is out of tolerance, tax consequences, and trading expenses. Portfolio rebalancing (as discussed in our key investment principles) has the effect of reducing the risk of your portfolio and increasing your long-term rate of return.

Keystone Financial Planning will send you quarterly performance reports. These reports will show your current account holdings (by asset class), the actual performance of your portfolio (by asset class) during the most recent one-year period, and the actual performance of your whole portfolio since we started managing your assets. These reports will show all of your accounts as one portfolio group, which helps you to see how all of your accounts are doing. In addition, you will receive monthly account statements and trade confirmations directly from your brokerage firm.

Following the end of the year, we will provide a report showing any realized gains or losses you had in your taxable account(s). In order to prepare this report, we will track the cost basis of your taxable securities (beginning with the day you hire us). You will find that the information in this year-end tax report will make it much easier to prepare your tax return.

We offer you the option of having your quarterly management fees deducted directly from one or more of your brokerage accounts. Most of our clients prefer this payment method because it saves them from having to write a check every quarter. Whether you pay us directly or have your fees deducted from your brokerage account(s), you will receive a quarterly bill (or statement) that shows how our management fee was calculated.