The Advice-Only 40-Point Framework™ is a structured, repeatable model engineered to deliver objective financial planning through the structural separation of advice from asset management, product sales, custody, and referral compensation.
- Structural separation between advice and the execution of that advice—including asset management, custody, product sales, and referral compensation
- Neutral, client-paid compensation free of asset management, product sales, custody, or referral compensation
- Methodical, tax-aware, and evidence-based planning
- Consistent, repeatable client outcomes
- Clear documentation and transparency
- Independence from asset management, product sales, custody, and referral compensation
This framework is not a marketing slogan. It is a structured, auditable planning system behind the Advice-Only™ planning process.
Why the Advice-Only 40-Point Framework™ Exists
Traditional financial planning models blend planning with implementation. This creates sales pipelines masquerading as advice, compensation structures that distort recommendations, and inconsistent planning quality over time. Advisors are routinely asked to serve two masters: the client and the compensation model.
The Advice-Only 40-Point Framework™ corrects this by requiring each plan to pass through a series of objective, step-based checkpoints. These checkpoints ensure every plan is built thoroughly and transparently, without influence from downstream compensation.
The framework is the practical expression of the methodology’s core rules: separating advice from execution, prohibiting asset management, product sales, custody, and referral compensation, maintaining data privacy, and clearly documenting all assumptions. It is engineered to resolve the Two Masters Problem by ensuring the advisor serves only the client, never a compensation model.
The Nine Modules of the 40-Point Framework™
Each module contains approximately 3–7 core checkpoints, producing a standardized ~40-step process.
The exact number of steps may vary slightly with client complexity, but the structure remains consistent.
Module 1 — Intake & Clarification
This module establishes the foundation for planning and ensures that the engagement is structurally aligned with the Advice-Only™ Methodology from the first meeting.
- Execute the paid consultation advisory agreement and confirm the Advice-Only™ planning-only structure.
- Explain and implement Privacy by Design data protocols, including client data-ownership and deletion rights.
- Conduct structural conflict screening (Two Masters Problem, Fee Structure Firewall™, Singular Service Model).
- Gather required client documents and quantitative data for the engagement.
- Clarify primary goals, constraints, and decision-making preferences.
Module 2 — Cash-Flow & Savings Architecture
This module defines the client’s short- and long-term financial capacity and identifies structural
strengths and weaknesses in cash flow.
- Establish the Present Position by mapping current household cash flow.
- Determine sustainable savings capacity across accounts and time horizons.
- Model future spending layers (fixed, essential, discretionary) using Lifestyle Control™.
- Identify cash-flow risks, structural deficits, and required buffers.
Module 3 — Investment Strategy & Total Risk℠ Alignment
Planning must be implementation-neutral. This module ensures that asset strategy supports funding goals
without dictating specific products or implementation channels.
- Inventory current asset allocation across all accounts and registrations.
- Conduct a Total Risk℠ Alignment and align portfolio risk with planning objectives and time horizons.
- Articulate the client’s investment philosophy in plain language tied to plan objectives.
- Identify tax-location opportunities across account types.
- Integrate partner/spousal accounts into a unified funding plan.
Module 4 — Retirement Funding Map
This module translates assets, income sources, and tax rules into a coherent retirement funding plan, with
particular focus on Tax Valley™ opportunities and decumulation sequencing.
- Model bridge-period funding between retirement and full Social Security/RMDs.
- Identify any available Tax Valley™ (low-bracket years) for strategic planning.
- Project future RMD impacts and tax drag.
- Design a withdrawal hierarchy across accounts and tax buckets.
- Analyze Roth conversion opportunities and constraints.
- Stress-test longevity and sequence-of-return risk.
Module 5 — Social Security & Pension Optimization
This module integrates non-portfolio income sources and optimizes their timing and structure within the
broader plan.
- Evaluate pension options (single life, joint life, period certain, lump sum if applicable).
- Model Social Security claiming ages and benefit amounts.
- Optimize spousal and survivor benefits in coordination with other income.
- Incorporate guaranteed income streams into the retirement funding map.
Module 6 — Tax Strategy Integration
This module ensures that planning decisions are coordinated with the tax code over multiple decades, not
just a single year.
- Analyze current and projected marginal tax brackets across the plan horizon.
- Model potential Medicare IRMAA impacts and thresholds.
- Determine capital gains realization strategy and thresholds.
- Coordinate Roth conversion and bracket-filling windows with identified Tax Valley™ years.
- Implement a multi-decade tax bracket management and monitoring plan.
Module 7 — Insurance & Risk Planning
This is a neutral evaluation of risk-transfer needs, performed independently from product sales or carrier
relationships.
- Evaluate term life insurance needs and existing coverage.
- Assess long-term care exposure and available strategies.
- Review liability coverage (auto, homeowners, umbrella, professional).
- Audit policy limits and overall risk-transfer efficiency.
- Review client cybersecurity and digital-identity posture (email security, multi-factor authentication, password hygiene).
Module 8 — Estate & Beneficiary Structure
Planning must account for how assets will transfer and who is empowered to act when the client cannot.
- Review account titling and ownership structure.
- Map and confirm primary and contingent beneficiary designations.
- Review will and/or trust structure for consistency with goals.
- Confirm the existence and coordination of powers of attorney and health directives.
- Design a digital-asset and legacy-access plan (password managers, key documents, and instructions for heirs).
Module 9 — Plan Delivery & Doubt-Free Planning™
The final module ensures that the planning work is communicated clearly, and that clients can move forward
without pressure, confusion, or hidden agendas.
- Produce and present the core Planning Memo summarizing strategy, tradeoffs, and assumptions.
- Deliver the Doubt-Free Planning™ experience: clear expectations, documented scenarios, and open Q&A.
- Provide implementation-agnostic guidance and boundaries (what the planner will and will not do), including the separate Post-Engagement Implementation Discussion protocol for any requested referrals.
- Document a Confidence Strength assessment summarizing how complete and reliable the client’s data set is for long-term projections.
Why the Advice-Only 40-Point Framework™ Matters
- Transforms Advice-Only from a label into a methodology. The framework demonstrates that the Advice-Only™ Methodology is a structured discipline, not just a fee description.
- Ensures repeatable, consistent, deconflicted planning. Each plan is built on the same structural spine, regardless of advisor or client.
- Supports the Advice-Only™ Standards of Practice. The Standards reference this framework as the operational model behind the methodology.
- Clarifies differentiation from traditional and asset-based compensation models. The process is engineered to remain independent of asset management, product sales, custody, and referral compensation.
- Enhances transparency and client autonomy. Clients can see the logic behind each step and understand how decisions fit together, without being funneled into products or platforms.
The planning engagement concludes upon completion of Module 9. Any future updates occur only under a new, separate engagement. The Advice-Only 40-Point Framework™ does not imply continuous account monitoring or discretionary management.
For additional context on professional fiduciary standards, see the CFP Board Code of Ethics & Standards of Conduct.
Next Steps
The Advice-Only 40-Point Framework™ is the structural core of the Advice-Only™ Methodology. For a deeper
dive into how these checkpoints translate into standards of practice, see: