Canonical definitions for key terms, standards, and concepts within the Advice-Only™ Methodology.
Looking for the formal definition of Advice-Only™ financial planning? See the canonical definition below (or the expanded page: Definition of Advice-Only™ Financial Planning).
Structural Terms
Structural Separation
Definition: The formal division between financial planning and all forms of implementation, including product sales, portfolio management, and referral compensation.
Purpose: Minimizes structural conflicts by ensuring planning recommendations cannot be influenced by downstream financial incentives.
Scope: Any situation where the advisor implements or profits from implementation within the same relationship violates structural separation.
Advice-Only™ Financial Planning
Definition: A fiduciary planning engagement defined by structural separation: the advisor does not custody client assets, does not implement recommendations or execute transactions, does not manage assets with discretion, and does not receive product-, platform-, referral-, or asset-based compensation—so advice is delivered without implementation-linked incentives.
Purpose: Establishes Advice-Only™ as an auditable architecture of fiduciary objectivity, not a fee label or service scope.
Scope: If the advisor custodies assets, executes implementation, manages assets with discretion, or receives product-, platform-, referral-, asset-based, or other implementation-linked compensation within the same engagement, it is not Advice-Only™ as defined here.
Fee Structure Firewall™
Definition: A structural rule prohibiting product commissions, AUM fees, referral kickbacks, or any compensation tied to implementation.
Purpose: Ensures the advisor’s only financial incentive is to deliver accurate, objective planning.
Scope: Applies regardless of disclosure; incentive neutrality is required, not merely disclosed conflicts.
Zero-Influence Environment™
Definition: A planning context where no external financial incentives can influence recommendations.
Purpose: Ensures the planning process remains free from product, portfolio, or referral considerations.
Scope: Includes both direct and indirect incentives, such as business-model pressures and future AUM pipelines.
Two Masters Problem
Definition: A structural conflict where one professional serves two competing interests—typically clients and revenue derived from product or asset management.
Purpose: Explains why impartiality is structurally compromised when the advisor profits from specific client decisions.
Scope: Extends beyond commissions to include AUM-based advice and any incentive tied to implementation.
Conflicted Pipeline
Definition: Any business arrangement in which the advisor, their firm, or their affiliates can financially benefit from the client implementing the advisor’s recommendations — including through asset management, product sales, referrals, platform incentives, or revenue-sharing.
Purpose: Identifies business structures that convert advice into sales, such as asset-gathering pipelines.
Scope: Includes AUM models, commission channels, referral agreements, platform kickbacks, lead-routing systems, or any structure where advisor revenue depends on what the client does after receiving advice.
Implementation Independence
Definition: The requirement that the planning process operate independently of any implementation channel or revenue opportunity.
Purpose: Prevents planning from becoming a sales-preparation process.
Scope: Applies where the advisor’s financial interests are directly tied to a specific implementation channel, including separate entities under common ownership.
Planning-Only Engagement
Definition: An engagement where the advisor provides analysis and recommendations but does not execute trades, sell products, or manage assets.
Purpose: Creates a clean structural boundary that protects fiduciary objectivity.
Scope: The engagement ends where implementation begins; coordination may occur, but not for any implementation-based compensation.
Engagement Completion Boundary
Definition: The required termination point of an Advice-Only™ planning engagement once agreed planning questions have been answered and recommendations delivered, after which no implementation, execution, monitoring, or asset management may occur within the same engagement.
Purpose: Establishes a formal stopping rule that preserves structural separation and prevents advice from converting into implementation or sales activity.
Scope: Any continued involvement beyond this boundary requires a new, explicitly defined advisory agreement.
Structural Conflicts
Definition: Conflicts created by a business model’s incentive structure, not by the advisor’s ethics.
Purpose: Shifts attention from personal intentions to system design.
Scope: Includes any compensation structure that rewards certain recommendations over others.
Our Truths
Definition: The foundational doctrine of the Advice-Only™ Methodology, outlining the non-negotiable standards that govern the client relationship, including fee transparency, structural separation, minimum engagement components, and documentation practices.
Purpose: Defines the ethical and procedural commitments that anchor the Advice-Only™ framework.
Scope: Applies across all planning engagements, advisor conduct, and educational outputs.
Singular Service Model
Definition: A structural requirement that the planning engagement remain exclusively focused on analysis, education, and recommendations, with implementation fully excluded from the core service.
Purpose: Ensures that clients receive advice—not sales preparation—throughout the planning process.
Scope: The service remains singular and complete once advice is delivered. Any implementation discussion, coordination, or referral may occur only after the planning engagement has formally concluded and must be governed by a separate, client-initiated agreement.
Advice-Only Methodology & Process Terms
Advice-Only™ Methodology
Definition: The repeatable planning process used to produce Advice-Only™ advice, including required diagnostic steps, documentation standards, and engagement boundaries.
Purpose: Establishes a repeatable, standards-based process for producing Advice-Only™ recommendations—separate from all forms of implementation.
Scope: Anchored in the 40-Point Framework™ and Advice-Only™ Standards of Practice.
40-Point Framework™
Definition: A diagnostic planning system composed of approximately 40 checkpoints across nine structured modules.
Purpose: Ensures consistent, thorough planning regardless of advisor or scenario.
Scope: Checkpoints may expand or contract slightly with client complexity.
Framework Fidelity
Definition: The requirement that all planning recommendations be supported by specific checkpoints within the Framework.
Purpose: Prevents arbitrary or advisor-biased recommendations.
Scope: A plan that omits core checkpoints lacks fidelity.
Process Integrity
Definition: The consistency and transparency of the planning workflow from intake through delivery.
Purpose: Ensures reproducible quality and clear reasoning.
Scope: Violations include undocumented assumptions or incomplete steps.
Documentation Integrity
Definition: Clear, consistent documentation of all assumptions, calculations, and recommendations.
Purpose: Supports transparency and auditability.
Scope: Applies to planning memos, tax projections, modeling outputs, and scenario comparisons.
Planning Memo
Definition: The core written deliverable summarizing strategy, tradeoffs, assumptions, and next steps.
Purpose: Communicates the plan in a structured, client-readable format tied to the 40-Point Framework™.
Scope: Must reflect Framework checkpoints and Standards compliance.
Present Position
Definition: The factual, math-based assessment of a client’s current financial reality following the Paid Consultation and preceding scenario modeling.
Purpose: Establishes an objective baseline before evaluating strategies or alternatives.
Scope: Includes cash flow, balance sheet, tax exposure, benefits, and household risk factors.
No Holds Barred Planning
Definition: A professional standard applied during the Paid Consultation in which the advisor provides specific, fiduciary guidance rather than withholding recommendations for future sales.
Purpose: Eliminates sales gating and ensures clients receive meaningful value from the first interaction.
Scope: All advice must remain structurally independent from any implementation channel.
Lifestyle Control™
Definition: A planning technique that evaluates lifestyle preferences and spending behaviors as co-equal inputs to mathematical modeling.
Purpose: Aligns financial strategy with personal values by integrating subjective lifestyle factors into objective planning frameworks.
Scope: Applied during needs-and-wants profiling, savings planning, and retirement modeling.
Solicitor Meeting
Definition: A meeting conducted strictly outside the core Advice-Only™ planning engagement in which implementation options or referrals may be discussed at the client’s independent request.
Purpose: Preserves structural separation by ensuring planning is never influenced by future implementation opportunities.
Scope: May occur only after the planning engagement has concluded (advice delivered). No implementation discussions, referrals, or execution assistance are permitted during the planning engagement. If implementation support is later requested, it must be client-initiated and governed by a separate agreement.
Assumption Transparency
Definition: Explicit disclosure of inputs used in projections and recommendations.
Purpose: Ensures clients understand the logic behind each planning choice.
Scope: Includes returns, inflation, spending, tax brackets, and timing assumptions.
Scenario Integrity
Definition: The requirement that scenario comparisons use consistent assumptions across all options.
Purpose: Prevents misleading or biased presentations.
Scope: Violations occur when assumptions differ in ways that favor a particular outcome.
Tax & Retirement Planning Terms
Tax Valley™
Definition: A period of unusually low taxable income before required minimum distributions or full Social Security benefits, enabling strategic tax planning.
Purpose: Identifies ideal windows for Roth conversions and bracket management.
Scope: Not all clients have a meaningful Tax Valley; it depends on income timing.
Bracket Management
Definition: Multi-year coordination of taxable income, conversions, and withdrawals to minimize lifetime tax burden.
Purpose: Optimizes long-term tax outcomes, not just single-year efficiency.
Scope: Includes federal/state brackets, IRMAA, and capital gains bands.
Income-Layer Compression
Definition: When multiple income sources begin simultaneously, pushing the client into higher brackets.
Purpose: Highlights the need for sequencing and proactive planning.
Scope: Common at RMD age, Social Security onset, or pension activation.
Withdrawal Hierarchy
Definition: The optimal sequence for drawing assets to balance taxes, risk, and longevity.
Purpose: Reduces tax drag and extends portfolio longevity.
Scope: Must align with the Retirement Funding Map module.
RMD Drag
Definition: The increasing tax burden created by rising pre-tax balances and required minimum distributions.
Purpose: Supports early Roth strategies and Tax Valley™ opportunities.
Scope: Varies with growth rates, age, and pre-tax concentration.
Longevity Stress-Testing
Definition: Modeling of cash-flow sustainability under extended lifespan and poor market sequences.
Purpose: Protects against premature depletion.
Scope: Connected to allocation, withdrawal rules, and income timing.
Client Experience Terms
Doubt-Free Planning™
Definition: A communication standard in which planning conclusions are documented, explained, and stress-tested so that avoidable ambiguity is minimized.
Purpose: Reduces uncertainty by pairing clear written recommendations with structured education and open Q&A.
Scope: Focuses on the clarity of information and reasoning; individual client feelings may still vary.
Transparent by Design™
Definition: The principle that every recommendation must be observable, explainable, and traceable to documented assumptions.
Purpose: Ensures clients can understand and validate the reasoning behind every decision.
Scope: Requires consistent documentation, transparent data, and aligned scenarios.
Total Risk℠ Assessment
Definition: A structured self-profiling method used to evaluate both financial and lifestyle-related risk factors during the needs-and-wants phase.
Purpose: Reveals client-specific risk drivers that traditional risk tolerance questionnaires may overlook.
Scope: Integrates spending stability, preference alignment, income reliability, and long-term uncertainty.
Privacy by Design
Definition: A structural principle ensuring that client data remains private, minimally collected, never sold, and always deletable by the user.
Purpose: Protects the planning relationship from becoming a data-extraction pipeline for marketing or lead generation.
Scope: Applies to all advice, assessments, platform tools, and communications.
Confidence Strength
Definition: A dynamic measure of how complete and reliable a client’s financial dataset is based on their interaction with assessments and inputs.
Purpose: Indicates the confidence level associated with automated or semi-automated planning outputs.
Scope: Used internally for report generation and model precision scoring.
Client Autonomy Alignment
Definition: Designing the plan in a way that maximizes client choice and reduces reliance on the advisor.
Purpose: Encourages implementation independence and avoids advisor-dependency.
Scope: Achieved through clear next steps, neutral implementation options, and reusable planning materials.
Platform & Ecosystem Terms
Advisor-Instructor
Definition: A licensed financial professional who writes educational content or courses for the Advice-Only™ platform and is available to be hired by the learner for one-to-one planning.
Purpose: Allows clients to work directly with the expert who educated them, fostering trust and consistency between the learning and planning phases.
Scope: Applies to advisors who meet platform standards for both educational and planning engagements.
Merit-Based Ranking
Definition: The algorithmic system used to display advisors on the platform based on objective metrics such as course activity, originality, responsiveness, and client engagement, rather than pay-to-play placement.
Purpose: Fosters organic competition and a level playing field for advisors while helping clients discover active, engaged professionals.
Scope: Ranking inputs and weightings may evolve over time as platform data and standards mature.