This library contains worked applications of the Advice-Only™ verification architecture. It shows how the governing methodology, Standards of Practice, and verification criteria apply to specific engagement structures, evidence patterns, and disputed boundaries.
The library contains two different kinds of case records: Documented Engagements, which report evidence-based findings concerning one documented engagement, and Illustrative Stress Tests, which use generalized or stipulated variations to show how changed facts could alter the application.
Two Types of Verification Cases
Documented Engagements
These records examine one identified, documented financial-planning engagement or bounded advice cycle.
They are based on an evidence inventory, reconstructed chronology, professional criterion findings, materiality analysis, and the evidence-sufficiency rules in the governing Verification Standard.
Possible determination: Conforms, Does Not Conform, or Unable to Determine.
Illustrative Stress Tests
These records use stipulated, pattern-derived, case-derived, market-derived, or composite-derived facts to test how different structures would be treated.
Illustrative Stress Tests originate from real-world engagement patterns, but the published variations are not presented as the complete historical record of one formally assessed engagement.
Application status: Illustrative application only; no formal Engagement Conformance Finding.
Why the distinction matters: A modeled variation can test a rule, but it cannot establish what occurred in a real engagement. A formal determination requires an identifiable engagement and sufficient supporting evidence.
Published Verification Cases
2026
| Intake ID | Class | Structural Question | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| AO-IS-001 | Pattern-derived with stipulated variations | May the same advisor or firm provide asset management before, during, or after an Advice-Only™ planning engagement? |
One variation may satisfy the tested criteria, one likely would not, one is outside the assessment’s scope, and one requires investigation. |
What the Case Library Examines
A compensation or service label does not, by itself, establish how a financial-planning engagement operated. Terms such as fee-only, hourly, flat-fee, subscription, project-based, and no-AUM may describe important characteristics, but verification requires examination of the complete engagement structure.
The cases may examine:
- the specific engagement or bounded advice cycle;
- economic, referral, relational, platform, and future-business incentives;
- how the advice was formed and whether implementation outcomes could influence it;
- completion, portability, and independently usable advice;
- implementation authority, activity, optionality, and client control;
- later services and professional-provider selection;
- truthful representations concerning the engagement; and
- the chronology and documentary evidence supporting the application or finding.
The unit examined is the identified engagement or stipulated structure—not the advisor or firm as a permanent professional identity.
How to Read the Cases
How to read a Documented Engagement
A Documented Engagement reports what the available evidence establishes concerning a single identified engagement or advice cycle. It ordinarily includes:
- the assessment scope and engagement period;
- authorization and anonymization information;
- an evidence inventory;
- a reconstructed chronology;
- established, conflicting, and unresolved facts;
- criterion findings and reasoning;
- an overall determination;
- what the determination does not prove; and
- facts or evidence that could have changed the determination.
How to read an Illustrative Stress Test
An Illustrative Stress Test conditionally applies the governing materials to controlled facts. It ordinarily includes:
- a central structural question;
- the source basis and stipulated assumptions;
- facts held constant across the variations;
- changed facts in each variation;
- illustrative treatment under the governing version;
- evidence a real engagement would require;
- facts that would change the treatment; and
- scope and limitations.
It does not issue a formal finding concerning an identifiable client, advisor, or firm.
What facts do not determine the outcome by themselves?
Client request, authorization, preference, consent, satisfaction, disclosure, advisor reputation, and professional intent may all be relevant evidence. No one of those facts automatically establishes conformance.
The complete economics, conduct, chronology, client control, documentary record, and governing criterion must be considered.
Scope and Limitations
No public verification case should be interpreted more broadly than its stated case format, source basis, governing version, and result or application status.
Documented Engagement limitations
- A determination applies only to the identified engagement or advice cycle.
- It does not certify or endorse the advisor or firm generally.
- It does not establish that every engagement by the same advisor conformed.
- It does not guarantee the technical quality or suitability of every recommendation.
- The public summary does not reproduce the complete confidential assessment file.
Illustrative Stress Test limitations
- An illustrative treatment is not a formal Engagement Conformance Finding.
- Generalized, modeled, composite, or stipulated facts do not establish what occurred in an identifiable engagement.
- The treatment may change when the assumed timing, compensation, authority, evidence, or client-control facts change.
Limitations applicable to all cases
- The cases do not approve, rank, or rate advisors or firms.
- They do not replace applicable legal, regulatory, tax, accounting, or professional requirements.
- They do not silently amend the Formal Definition, Standards of Practice, Verification Standard, or Engagement Conformance Assessment.
- Interpretive lessons requiring a governing change must proceed through formal governance and version control.