Your Entire Financial Life, All in One Place: Introducing Our Enhanced eMoney Financial Planning Experience
Managing your finances can become complicated quickly. You may have a checking account at one bank, a savings account somewhere else, retirement accounts through work, investment accounts at multiple institutions, a mortgage, car loans, credit cards, college savings accounts, and other financial obligations.
Looking at each account separately only tells part of the story.
That is why Strategic Investment Services is excited to expand the financial planning experience we provide through eMoney, giving our clients access to a powerful financial planning platform designed to bring their financial lives together in one place.
See Your Complete Financial Picture
One of the most valuable features of eMoney is its ability to connect and organize financial information from multiple institutions.
Clients can connect eligible external accounts, allowing them to view more of their financial life through one centralized financial dashboard.
That may include:
Checking and savings accounts
Investment and brokerage accounts
401(k)s, IRAs, and other retirement accounts
College savings accounts
Mortgages and home loans
Auto loans
Credit cards
Other loans and liabilities
Other investments and financial assets
Instead of looking at investments without considering debt, savings without considering spending, or retirement accounts without considering other goals, eMoney can help us look at how the different pieces of your financial life fit together.
The result is a much more complete picture of where you stand today—and where you may be headed.
Track Accounts Held Outside of Strategic Investment Services
Financial planning should not stop with the investments your financial advisor manages.
Many people have retirement plans through their employer, old 401(k)s, outside brokerage accounts, bank accounts, real estate, and other assets or debts held elsewhere.
eMoney's account aggregation capabilities can bring eligible outside accounts into your financial picture. This gives you and your advisor a more holistic view when discussing your financial plan.
We believe that is important because good financial planning requires understanding much more than a single investment account.
Turn Financial Goals Into an Actual Plan
Knowing how much money you have is useful.
Knowing whether that money is capable of accomplishing what you want it to accomplish is far more valuable.
Through eMoney, we can build financial plans around specific goals, including:
Retirement Planning
We can evaluate your retirement goals, expected retirement age, savings, investments, income sources, estimated expenses, and other factors to better understand your progress toward retirement.
Rather than simply asking, "How much money have I saved?" we can begin addressing the bigger question:
"Am I on track to live the retirement I want?"
Education Planning
For parents and grandparents who want to help pay for a child's or grandchild's education, we can incorporate education expenses into the overall financial plan.
This can help determine how education savings fit alongside retirement and other priorities rather than treating each goal independently.
Short-Term and Long-Term Savings Goals
Not every financial goal is decades away.
You may be saving for:
A new home
A vehicle
A vacation
An emergency fund
A major purchase
A wedding
Starting a business
Home improvements
Other personal goals
Adding these goals to your financial plan can help us determine how today's financial decisions may affect both your immediate priorities and your longer-term financial future.
Monitor Spending and Build a Better Budget
Financial planning isn't only about investments.
Cash flow matters too.
eMoney provides spending and budgeting tools that can help clients better understand where their money is going. When eligible bank and credit accounts are connected, clients can gain greater visibility into spending habits and cash flow.
That can help answer questions such as:
How much are we actually spending each month?
Are we consistently saving enough?
Are certain expenses increasing?
How much money is available to put toward our goals?
A financial plan becomes much more useful when it reflects what is actually happening in your financial life.
Track Your Progress Over Time
Your financial plan shouldn't be something we create once, print out, put in a drawer, and forget about.
Life changes.
Income changes. Markets move. Families grow. People change jobs. Homes are purchased. Children go to college. Retirement gets closer. Goals themselves can change.
eMoney allows us to continually revisit your financial picture and monitor your progress toward your goals.
When something changes, your financial plan can change with you.
Explore "What If?" Scenarios
Financial planning often involves making decisions without knowing exactly what the future will look like.
What happens if you retire earlier?
What if you save more every month?
What if your retirement expenses are higher than expected?
What if you want to buy another home?
What happens if investment returns are different than anticipated?
Financial planning tools within eMoney allow us to model different assumptions and scenarios so that you can better understand the potential impact of important financial decisions before making them.
Certain planning analyses can also use Monte Carlo simulations, which evaluate a financial plan across many potential market scenarios rather than assuming the exact same investment return every year.
These tools don't predict the future. They can, however, help us better prepare for a range of possible outcomes.
Securely Store Important Financial Documents
Another valuable feature available through eMoney is secure document storage.
Clients can use the eMoney Vault to keep important financial documents organized and accessible through their portal.
Depending on your needs, this can provide a convenient location for documents related to your financial planning relationship and help reduce the need to search through old emails, filing cabinets, and folders whenever information is needed.
Access Your Financial Information Through Your Client Portal
eMoney's Client Portal gives clients an accessible place to view their financial information and stay connected with their financial plan.
Rather than waiting until your next annual review to think about your finances, you can periodically check your accounts, goals, spending, and financial progress.
That turns financial planning from an occasional meeting into an ongoing process.
Better Information Can Lead to Better Financial Conversations
Technology by itself isn't financial advice.
The real benefit of eMoney is what we can do with the information it brings together.
If we have a clearer understanding of your assets, liabilities, savings, investments, spending, income, and goals, we can have much more meaningful conversations about your financial future.
Instead of discussing one account at a time, we can step back and ask:
What are you trying to accomplish—and are all the pieces of your financial life working together to help you get there?
That is the type of financial planning experience we want to provide at Strategic Investment Services.
Financial Planning Is About More Than Your Investment Portfolio
Investments are important, but they're only one part of your financial life.
Your savings, debt, spending, retirement goals, family priorities, major purchases, education expenses, and other financial decisions are interconnected.
Our expanded use of eMoney allows us to provide clients with a more comprehensive planning experience built around that bigger picture.
If you're already a client of Strategic Investment Services and would like to learn more about your eMoney financial planning tools, contact our office and ask us about setting up or reviewing your financial plan.
If you're not currently working with us, we'd be happy to show you what a more complete approach to financial planning can look like.
Your finances shouldn't feel like dozens of separate accounts. They should be one coordinated plan built around your life.
eMoney is a third-party financial planning technology platform. Features, account connectivity, data availability and functionality may vary by financial institution, account type and the services enabled by Strategic Investment Services. Financial planning projections are hypothetical and are not guarantees of future results.