Fee-Only Services

We do not receive any commissions or incentives for selling products. Our services are provided on a fee-only basis.

Under a fee-only arrangement, the financial planner is compensated for the professional services he or she provides solely by the client and not as a result of the purchase or sale of any financial product. The American Institute of CPAs personal financial planning executive committee considers the following to be fee arrangements:

• Hourly, fixed or flat fee.
• Percentage fee, based on some aspect of the client's financial profile, such as assets under management or earned income.
• Performance-based fee, tied to the profitability of the client's invested assets.
• Contingent fee, as the term is defined in the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct.

Other compensation arrangements. There are a variety of arrangements under which a financial planner is paid, either directly or indirectly, by someone other than the client for recommending or referring a product or service. The most common third-party compensation methods include

• Commissions generated from the purchase or sale of a financial product or service. This may include so-called 12(b)1 fees, trailing commissions, surrender charges and back-end fees.
• Fee offset arrangements under which compensation is initially derived from fees. The fees are subsequently reduced by commissions generated from the purchase or sale of a product or service.
• Referral fees that compensate the planner for recommending or referring a product or service provided by another person or entity.
• Other types of indirect compensation such as rewards, purchase points, travel credits or other benefits received from a third party for recommending a product or service to the client. This also includes eligibility for sales prizes and so-called soft-dollar benefits.

“Fee-only” vs. “fee-based.” To avoid confusion among consumers, the PFP executive committee believes the term fee-only should be used only to describe practices or firms where advisers are compensated solely by fees in all engagements. A "fee-based" planner would therefore be one who is compensated by fees but who also may choose to accept commissions or other third-party compensation.