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Find a CFP® Professional PlannerSearch is a consumer service created by FPA® to assist members of the public in finding a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional who helps clients meet their financial needs and goals. FPA believes that everyone needs objective advice to make smart financial decisions, and that when seeking the advice of a financial planner, the planner should be a CFP® professional. You can use PlannerSearch in many different ways. Four different search options are provided: Zip Code search, City and State search, and Radial search, or you can search by a planner's last name. Additionally, you can customize your search to find only those planners who provide the particular service you are searching for. Keep in mind that only CFP® professional members of the Financial Planning Association who have chosen to participate are listed on PlannerSearch. How to Search for a Planner For example, let's assume you are searching for someone who can give you advice on saving for your children's college education. You could start by searching in the particular town and state in which you live, and customizing your search to return only those CFP professionals who provide the service of "Education Planning." If you live in a small town, your search might not return any planners who match your criteria. You could then try expanding your search to include any planners who provide the service of "Education Planning" within 20 miles of your home zip code. Viewing Planner Information Let's assume that your second search above returned the names and contact information of five CFP professionals. If those planners have provided detailed information to FPA regarding their practice, their names will be underlined and highlighted in blue. By clicking on an underlined, highlighted name, full information will be displayed about that planner's practice - what their particular areas of expertise are, how they are paid, their years of experience, education, and more. If the planner has not provided detailed information to FPA, his or her name will appear in normal text. Create Your Own List Next to each planner's name in the search return list is a button labelled "Add to 'My PlannerSearch.'" By clicking this button, you add that CFP professional to a customized list created by you, and for your use only, called "My PlannerSearch." When you add a planner to "My PlannerSearch," you are taken to a page that displays all of the planners you have added. If it's your first addition to "My PlannerSearch," a new element, "My PlannerSearch," will appear in the left-hand navigation bar. When you are in the "My PlannerSearch" page, you have several options. You can send email to a particular planner in your list, delete that planner from your list, or make and view notes about that particular planner. Any notes you choose to make about a particular planner are for your use only and are not visible by any other party.1 FPA believes that the notetaking section will be particularly useful for those people who are narrowing down their list of prospective planners and trying to choose the particular planner whose services they are going to retain. Limitations of 'My PlannerSearch'
1. FPA's Web development staff has the ability to enter the database and view any record stored therein. |
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