What We Do
The Five Pillars of Financial Planning
At Montis, we believe there are five critical pillars to a successful financial plan.
Jump to: Cash flow · Investment · Tax · Legacy · Risk
Pillar One
Cash Flow Planning
Purpose: Organize the movement of money as a wealth creator.
Cash flow is the part of a plan people assume they already have a handle on, and it is usually where the most is quietly left on the table. Knowing what actually comes in and goes out is what turns a surplus into a decision rather than a balance that drifts.
When the paychecks stop, the order you draw from your accounts starts to matter as much as the balance in them.
- Building a clear picture of income, expenses, and available cash flow
- Directing excess cash flow intentionally toward the goals and priorities identified in your financial plan
- Modeling potential changes to the plan to show how they could affect cash flow, taxes, and the portfolio
- Building and sequencing distribution strategies before and during retirement—including Social Security, pensions, RMDs, and other income sources—with an eye toward tax efficiency
“With a clear plan, cash flow becomes an essential wealth-building tool.”
Pillar Two
Investment Planning
Purpose: Align investment allocation with long-term objectives.
Before any expected return is weighed, we decide how much risk your plan can carry. The allocation follows from that answer rather than from a target number.
That is what makes a portfolio durable: built to hold up across a full market cycle rather than to win a good year.
- Allocating investments in support of your goals, time horizon, risk tolerance, and risk capacity
- Designing durable portfolios using a broad range of compelling asset classes, beginning with the level of risk appropriate for your financial plan
- Coordinating allocation across taxable, tax-deferred, and tax-exempt accounts to improve tax efficiency
- Implementing the portfolio with attention to asset location and net after-tax returns
- Reviewing the portfolio regularly to keep the allocation aligned as your objectives and circumstances change
“An investment portfolio—and its growth—exists in service of the financial plan, not the other way around.”
Pillar Three
Tax Planning
Purpose: Improve after-tax outcomes.
Your CPA files; we plan. The difference is timing. An option exercise, a sale of appreciated shares, or a conversion is worth what it is worth largely because of the year it happens in, and by the time a return is being prepared that year has closed.
So the work happens through the year, alongside your CPA, rather than after it.
- Integrating tax-aware investment and withdrawal strategies throughout the financial plan
- Planning proactively, both today and over the long term, to reduce tax drag on retirement income and portfolio decisions
- Using gain and loss harvesting to meet cash-flow needs while managing tax consequences
- Coordinating the different tax characteristics of income sources across the portfolio
- Working alongside CPAs and tax professionals so planning decisions and tax reporting remain aligned
“The only wealth creation worth anything is that which you can keep for you and your family”
Pillar Four
Legacy Planning
Purpose: Help ensure wealth transfers according to your intentions.
Wealth transfers whether or not you plan for it. Planning is what decides whether it lands where you meant it to.
Most of the work is unglamorous: how accounts are titled, who is named on them, and whether documents drawn up years ago still match the life you have now. The harder part is rarely the paperwork — it is making sure the people who inherit are ready for it.
- Coordinating planning and implementation with attorneys and trustees
- Reviewing account titling and beneficiary designations for consistency with estate and financial plans
- Identifying efficient ways to carry out your intentions for heirs and other beneficiaries
- Revisiting the plan as family circumstances and priorities change
- Building clarity around intentions to help preserve family harmony
- Educating and preparing future generations for the responsibilities that may come with inherited wealth
“Excellent planning allows the people and priorities important to you to be supported long after you’re gone.”
Pillar Five
Risk Planning
Purpose: Identify and address risks that could disrupt your financial plan.
Most of what threatens a plan sits outside the portfolio: an illness, a death, a liability, a business that stops earning.
We look at each one and model what it would actually cost you, because a risk you have sized is a risk you can make a decision about. Handled well, some of them can be put to work furthering your goals rather than only defended against.
- Evaluating risks that could affect your net worth, income, or legacy
- Modeling the financial impact of those risks on your goals and long-term plan
- Managing portfolio risk in the context of current and future income needs
- Building contingency plans for unexpected events
- Reassessing risks as life circumstances change
How It Begins
What the first months look like
Becoming a client is a process, not a paperwork exercise. It usually takes eight to twelve weeks from the first conversation to your first formal review.
Discovery
A real conversation about your situation, your history with money, and what success actually looks like for you.
The Plan
We model retirement, cash flow, taxes, estate structure, and a risk assessment. This is the work that shapes everything after it.
The Recommendation
We show you the target allocation, the specific vehicles, and the gaps we see. You push back; we refine it together.
Implementation and Review
We handle the account openings, transfers, and tax-aware repositioning, then meet to confirm what we built matches what we agreed.
Start Here
Let’s talk about what your plan needs to do
Tell us what you are working toward and where the decisions feel most connected—or most complicated. We will start there.