Reasons for Working With a Fee-Only Advisory Firm

When you hire a financial advisory firm, you have some expectations from them on how you can save, invest and grow your hard-earned cash. The financial advisor should be professional, independent and provide sound financial advice. You might not get what you signed up for in the event you have not hired a Fee-Only financial advisor.

There are more than 200,000 financial advisors in the United States and this number is expected to increase in the coming years. But of these, the fee-and registered with the Personal Financial Advisors are just about 2,000. Financial advisers who charge dependent on the transactions earn their money from commissions that they make from selling financial products. However, fee-only advisory firms do not sell any products thus they do not work on commissions. Rather, their clients pay them a flat fee for the independent financial advisory services they offer instead from the investments they recommend.

A good deal of the financial advisory companies are commission-based which implies that their income is connected directly to the investments and financial products that they market to you. These firms might call themselves financial advisors but they are majorly interested in promoting their merchandise. Thus, they might recommend some financial products more highly than others as they want to earn a commission from them. Therefore, it’s fairly tricky for you to assess whether the investment portfolio they’ve advocated is most acceptable for your portfolio.

On the other hand, fee-only advisory firms like Financial Fiduciaries LLC do not earn any commissions since they do not sell any financial products. Hence, clients comprehend that fee-only advisors work for their best interests and are not attached to any investment company or product. For this reason, they supply independent and impartial investment, and they don’t have any conflict of interest. They can freely recommend products and investments which are best suited to their clients.

However, look out for firms that use fee-based rather than fee-only as these two are not the same. Fee-based financial advisors charge both fees and commissions plus they may also suggest some goods endorsed by the businesses which sponsor them.

A fiduciary is a professional in the financial field who is held out in trust and has the legal responsibility to set the interests of their customers above their own. Fee-only financial experts like Thomas Batterman are the only financial experts that work under a suitability standard. Federal regulators and the State have high regard for fee-only financial advisors which provides you with more reasons to pick fee-only financial advisory firms.

Before choosing a fee-only financial advisory firm, do some due diligence and research on it. Ask numerous questions before you enter into a professional relationship with a financial advisory business.