| | |
PFP PRACTICE QUALITY CONTROL
This checklist for personal financial planning practices, developed by a task force of the American Institute of CPAs PFP executive committee, is a nonauthoritative practice aid to help CPAs evaluate their financial planning activities. The questions are not intended to represent minimum requirements and are not all-inclusive. A "no" answer should prompt a planner to give additional consideration to his or her current procedures.
| Yes | No | N/A | |||
| | |||||
| 1. Do you use checklists to ensure that all aspects of a PFP engagement are considered (for example, insurance, retirement and budgeting)? |  | | | ||
| 2. Do you outline the scope of the engagement and confirm the client's understanding of the engagement and of when it will be considered complete? | | | | ||
| 3. When developing a basis for recommendations, do you | |||||
| | | | ||
| | | | ||
| | | | ||
| 4. Do you integrate recommendations developed to achieve one financial planning goal with those developed to meet other goals? | | | | ||
| | |||||
| 5. Do you understand the planning software you use, the concepts underlying it and what the software does? |
| | | ||
| 6. Do you review the software's output for reasonableness and relevance to the engagement objectives? |
| | | ||
| 7. Do you use a software-generated recommendation only when you understand and agree with it? | | | | ||
| |
|||||
| 8. If you do not provide a service needed to complete an engagement, do you restrict the scope of the engagement and recommend the client engage another adviser who provides that service? |
| | | ||
| 9. When recommending another adviser, do you communicate to the client-in writing-the nature of the work to be performed by that adviser and the extent, if any, to which you will evaluate his or her work? | | | | ||
| | |||||
| 10. When engaged to participate in the product selection and acquisition process (including insurance and investments), do you gather data that provide a reasonable basis for determining whether the alternatives meet established selection criteria? | | | | ||
| 11. If engaged to establish product selection criteria, do you identify the attributes or other specifications required to accomplish the client's objectives? | | | | ||
| | |||||
| 12. In determining a client's progress toward achieving established financial planning goals, do you | |||||
| | | | ||
| | | | ||
| | | | ||
| 13. Do you and the client agree on how frequently progress toward his or her financial planning goals should be monitored? | | | | ||
| | |||||
| 14. Do you determine whether all criteria and assumptions used as a basis for existing financial planning recommendations are still valid before developing revised recommendations? | | | | ||
| 15. Do you consider the integrated nature of financial planning and the effect of revising recommendations to achieve one goal on the client's ability to achieve all other goals? | | | | ||
Adapted from Personal Financial Planning Practice Quality Control Checklist . Copyright 1997 by the American Institute of CPAs.
