Our services
With a wealth of knowledge and experience under one roof, we are able to provide holistic advice to clients, considering all of your financial needs. We feel that it is imperative to provide advice without conflicts of interest. Being independent advisers means that we are not tied (or restricted) to any particular financial products or institutions. Instead, we can offer the most suitable solutions from across the whole of the market.
Critically, Harris+Co agree any applicable adviser charges directly with you. These are the only fees that Harris+Co will receive in relation to your invested funds. These factors ensure that our advice is both impartial and always in your best interests.
Lifestyle Planning
Helping you to use your assets to meet your goals
Some or all of the elements of financial planning already outlined will no doubt be integral to the planning needs of many but shouldn’t necessarily be the sole focus.
For many, even greater value can be added with the use of cashflow forecasting. Utilising appropriate software, we can project your finances going forwards (using sensible assumptions to do so), to help answer those really big questions;
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How much do I need to be saving now to be able to retire when I want to?
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Do I ‘have enough’ to meet my retirement income requirements right now? (if not, when might it be realistic?)
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Can I gift money away to help my children but still maintain my own financial security?
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How much do I need to sell my business to meet my retirement goals?
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As a trustee, ‘what is a sustainable income level’ for the beneficiaries?
The real benefit of this type of planning is that its collaborative approach empowers and enables you to make decisions about your finances, and indeed life. The overriding question for many is whether you are really using your assets to do the things that are most important to you.
We can help you to obtain and then maintain your desired lifestyle, without the fear of running out of money whilst enjoying it. We can help you to keep ‘on track’ – if you’re not, we can let you know and show you what you can do to get back on course.
We undertake what is called cashflow modelling, which is a way of mapping out your financial future by building a financial plan that is bespoke to your situation and objectives. Using your income, spending, savings and investments, we create a clear picture of how your finances could look over time. This helps you to see whether you’re on track to achieve your goals, such as retiring comfortably, funding education costs or leaving a legacy and what adjustments might be needed along the way.
As an example of this in action, you can see two charts below, both showing liquid assets (in this case cash savings and pension funds) being used to meet a couple’s desired expenditure in retirement (if they had any other income sources, such as buy-to-let income or scheme pensions, these would also be included). The basic information is very much the same, with them being around 10 years from their desired retirement age and having the same financial starting point.
Chart 1
Chart 1, illustrates the fact that if they continue as they are, with their current saving levels and investment proposition, they will exhaust their funds by the time they reach age 75, being left solely with their state pension income.
Chart 2
Chart 2, shows the potential scenario if they were to enhance their pension contributions and savings now and adjusted their investment proposition within their pension funds. As can be seen, the red bars are no longer there, so the plan looks to be viable and sustainable in the long-term. A range of scenarios and stress-tests would also be created alongside these to ensure that due consideration is given to the vast array of risks that we are all exposed to, such as the early demise of a partner, a market fall when retiring and the often-silent risk of inflation eroding the value of our fuds in the long-term. Through these, there may be some further planning required to mitigate any risks outlined, to provide greater certainty to the plan.
Being armed with all of this information empowers you to make proactive decisions about your life. In this scenario, do they increase their retirement funding now and retire when they hoped to, and with the income that they desire? Or do they continue with their current spending patterns and accept that they may need to adjust their retirement ages and/or expenditure in retirement? In this case, the couple also have a home worth a considerable sum, so a further option may be that we consider them downsizing from this in the future to release funds, thereby reducing the original deficit (of course, they may not wish to move from their forever home!)
Building these plans requires real collaboration, to ensure that we truly understand what matters to you, so that we can help to plan accordingly to help achieve your goals.
Investments carry risk. The value of your investments (and any income from them) can go down as well as up and you may not get back the full amount you invested. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.
The Financial Conduct Authority does not regulate Tax Planning.