Finance Review

What is a Financial Review?

A financial review is an attempt to bring your financial arrangements in line with your personal circumstances and objectives, and external conditions.A financial review consists of the following steps:

1. On the basis of your present circumstances and objectives, and prevailing economic conditions, sketch out the optimal configuration of your finances.
2. Detail your actual current financial situation.
3. Make any necessary changes.

I’d strongly recommend you do 1) before 2) so your current position doesn’t influence the theoretical ideal.

Income vs. Assets

Our financial situation consists of two components – income (the money received per unit time) and assets (the stock of money and other valuables we possess). What follows is primarily concerned with assets, although a similar process can and should be conducted for income and expenditure; ie ascertain your income, work out how it would best be spent, how it is currently being spent, and implement any necessary changes.

How Often?

Conducting a financial review too often can lead to excessive tinkering and/or anxiety. Failing to do so often enough may fuel financial inefficiency. For most people carrying out this procedure once or twice a year is appropriate.

Financial Review Tools

It’s perfectly possible to carry out a financial review with pencil, paper and (maybe) a calculator. However, numerous computer packages can ease the task ranging from a standard spreadsheet, to specialist free and commercial software.

Constructing the Optimum Mix

Start by setting aside your “rainy day” money. Ideally this should be between 3-6 months living costs with the exact amount determined by your confidence about the future. This money is to tide you over should disaster strike and should be kept readily available, preferably in an interest-bearing instant access deposit account.

Finally, having taken care of the bare essentials, consider the allocation of what remains. These funds can be distributed between cash, bonds, stocks and other asset classes such as real estate (including your home!). There is no unique solution. The right mix for you depends on:

• your financial goals (retirement, buying a house, putting the kids through college…)
• your attitude toward risk
• your age (generally the older you are the more conservative you should be towards risk)
• personal preferences (you may be inclined to investing in a certain stock/sector)

Within broad categories such as stocks and bonds consider more specifically how your funds should be spread. For most people it probably makes sense to keep the bulk of their stock investments in trackers such as ETFs, but you might want to use some money for specific stocks.

Assessing the Current Situation

In this stage you need to work out your actual financial position. Check the balance on all your deposit accounts, and the capital value of bond and stock holdings. Note the type and value of all insurances held and the current worth of your pension fund. Make a realistic valuation of your real estate holdings – based on sold (rather than asking) prices.

Make Necessary Changes

Ideally you should now have two figures against each category – the ideal and the actual. Your actual situation and the theoretical ideal are constantly changing. It’s impossible to keep both exactly aligned. The key task is to identify areas of greatest discrepancy and consider making changes to equalize them. Before making changes, consider the costs of the proposed change alongside its benefits. Change only where the benefits clearly exceed the costs.

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