Paraplanner Claire White of Kings Court Financial Planning recalls a hectic week of client planning, meetings, exams, and even caring for friends’ nails.

Monday

At King’s Court Financial Planning LLP we start the week with a planner’s team meeting. The team discuss the plans and workload for the week ahead. This enables us all to discuss any concerns and see how well each team member is coping with their workload. There are three Financial Planners, three administrators, an accounts administrator and one Paraplanner (myself ).   We offer goal-based Financial Planning, wealth management, tax saving strategies and money management guidance using Christian scriptural principles.

My main role as the Paraplanner is to draw up recommendations in these areas, based on the client’s goals and circumstances. This afternoon one of the Financial Planners has a client coming in. The client is 46 and has several pension pots and would like to retire at 55, thus I am recommending a strategy to enable this and ensure his income will exceed anticipated expenditure until death. We use software from Prestwood which enables me to draw up detailed projections. This is an excellent tool and shows clients the income shortfall they may face at retirement. King’s Court is a fee-based practice and I track my client work by using timesheets.

Tuesday

I usually start the day by reading up on the financial news and seeing how the stock markets are doing. Today I will be doing some fund research and recommendations for clients who have surplus cash to invest.

I also have a handover meeting with one of the Financial Planners and we go through the clients we are currently dealing with. We also check the diary management system and go through the client meetings arranged for the coming week. I will be spending tonight revising for my R04 exam as I am sitting it in Bristol tomorrow morning.

Wednesday

Today I have my R04 exam which is based on pensions and retirement planning. I have already completed three of the CII JO exams (JO1 Personal Tax, JO2 Trusts and JO8 Financial Planning Practice), so this is the last exam I need to achieve the Level 4 CII status, in preparation for the Retail Distribution Review. Unlike my previous exams I find out the results on the day instead of waiting for months. I found the exam harder than anticipated but thankfully I passed, so all the hours of revision paid off! I then got the train back to the office to let the team know my good news.

I only have a few hours left until the end of my working day so I go through my emails that I had from clients in the morning. I then write a Suitability Report for a client who is holding a Sipp on an investment platform and wishes to use this in the future to invest in commercial property.

Tonight I have my friends coming over and I am giving them a manicure and applying acrylic nails – some people laugh because I am a nail and eyelash technician in my spare time, and this is obviously very different to Paraplanning!

Thursday

Today is a sunny November morning so I decided to walk to work, as I live about a 20 minute walk away. I use to spend hours commuting, so now living locally to my job is much nicer.

One of the Financial Planners does a lot of work for a firm of local solicitors, and today I have a complex recommendation report to write in relation to a Bereaved Minor’s Trust. Following the death of a client and the creation of a will trust, the primary purpose of my recommendations is to provide financial support and educational funding for the late client’s sons. This is where my trust and tax exams come in handy and I was able to produce a technical report that met he needs of both the trust and the beneficiaries.

Tonight I have three hours of ballet, which involves a pointé class and an adult ballet class. I have been doing this for many years and it is good fun and great exercise, but no doubt I will be aching tomorrow.

Friday

Today a client is coming in who wants to start drawing pension benefits. Following my recommendations, the best solution is for him to take capped drawdown from a Sipp. Due to the recent changes in the drawdown rules, I attended the client meeting with the Financial Planner so that I could explain to the client how capped drawdown works.

We were informed yesterday that the FSA are coming to inspect eight of our files in relation to pension transfers and pension switching. One aspect of my role is to deal with the compliance side of things, so I went through these files to ensure they were compliant, all the necessary pension switching templates were complete and the files were ready for the FSA investigation.

Weekend

This is the first weekend out of many that I have not spent revising for my RO4 exam so I am going to relax and see friends and family, and perhaps do a bit of clothes and shoe shopping.