How effective cash flow planning can help you

19 January 2023

Visualising where you will end up in the future and keeping up to date with changes to financial regulation can be challenging, but cash flow planning can help ensure you are taking advantage of any opportunities to make your money go further.

Chances are you are already quite savvy when it comes to managing your finances, but often a little external perspective can make a big difference. Whether you are looking to save more effectively to meet your long-term goals or make your money go further today, introducing cash flow planning can ensure that you are on the right track.

In this blog post, we will explain what cash flow planning is, provide examples of where it can be helpful, and outline our process for Wealth Planning.

Please note, as is the nature with all investing, your capital is at risk and you may not receive back the same amount you put in when you choose to cash out your savings.

William Stevens

Partner, Head of Financial Planning

What is cash flow planning?

Cash flow planning is a process that takes into account all of your assets, liabilities, income and expenditure to help you define your current and future lifestyle needs and answer some of the most important financial questions. These questions may include:

When can I afford to retire?
Am I saving enough?
Will I run out of money?
How do I fund private education for my children?
Will I be able to afford care when I am older?
How do I take my pension benefits?
How do I distribute my wealth to my family?

After we understand your ambitions in more detail, we use cash flow modelling software to analyse your financial circumstances, including your objectives, assets and liabilities. This projects your financial picture over the long term and provides a visual and easy-to-understand representation of the affordability of your lifestyle, helping to answer questions like:

Can I reach my goals based on my current circumstances?
If not, what would I need to do to reach my goals?
Between the different scenarios modelled, what are my priorities?

Once we have analysed your finances, we can make recommendations for the best ways to achieve your goals, and you may be surprised to see how it could be possible to achieve these earlier by making a few minor adjustments now. Cash flow planning can also alert you to potential shortfalls in the future, enabling you to take action sooner rather than later.

What are the benefits of cash flow planning?

Our clients frequently find that cash flow planning helps with the big picture items, particularly agreeing on goals and identifying priorities. It can also help with making money go further today, as there may be forms of tax relief you are eligible for or other options for freeing up capital that the cash flow planning process can highlight.

An integral part of our Wealth Planning service, cash flow planning can help answer important financial questions, such as when you can afford to retire or how much wealth you can pass on to future generations. Regardless of your financial goals, we usually ask questions like:

What do your income sources and regular expenses look like now and how could this change in the future?
Is your income sufficient to meet expenditure now and do you expect any larger expenses that you need to prepare for?
Do you have money set aside for emergencies and any larger planned expenses in the near future?
What are you doing to ensure you can meet expenditure over the long term, for example once you stop working?
Can your existing assets offer liquidity now and in the future?
Are you making good use of tax allowances and tax-efficient investment vehicles?

The main benefit that cash flow planning brings is insight into how to plan your finances more effectively. It is never too early or late to review your savings strategy and identify areas of improvement, whether the financial goals you have are for yourself or your family.

Our Wealth Planning process

We offer cash flow planning as part of our Wealth Planning service, which we tailor to your requirements. We begin by assessing where you are today, against where you want to be, and work out a plan for how to get you there within a set timeframe. Our process typically involves the following steps:

We begin with a conversation, where we ask some questions to learn more about you and your financial goals and to understand how we can best support you.
We then perform an initial analysis of your finances to see if you are on track to achieve your goals, including investments, retirement planning, financial protection, and intergenerational estate planning.
Once we have understood your financial circumstances and goals, we introduce cash flow planning to answer important financial questions (like the ones shared in this blog).
We provide you with a detailed report that highlights how to structure your existing financial arrangements, including new solutions to consider to help make your ambitions a reality.

Our commitment to you as a client is that we will partner with you to make a plan and help keep you on track to reaching your financial ambitions.

Identifying opportunities with cash flow planning

Cash flow planning can be a helpful process for any individual or family seeking to identify the best ways to meet their financial goals. It can also help answer important financial questions around when you can afford to retire or how much you can leave behind for future generations.

These are just a few reasons why cash flow planning is integral to our Wealth Planning process. This is also why we offer an integrated Wealth Management service across planning and investing, as we believe working with a Wealth or Financial Planner is the most effective way to make your finances go further.

For personalised advice around how to help your finances go further, speak to an Adviser.