Financial Planning Books

FPA Press is the publishing arm of the Financial Planning Association and publisher of books on financial planning, including some of the profession's most well-known titles, resource guides, handbooks, research studies and advice. From best practices and practical wisdom to in-depth knowledge and research, FPA Press provides planners with the tools and knowledge needed to succeed.

To order any of the following publications, please conact FPA Member Services by calling 800.322.4237, option 2 or emailing MemberServices@FPAnet.org.

Financial Intelligence: How to Make Smart, Values-Based Decisions with Your Money and Your Life
By Doug Lennick, CFP^®
Released October 2009!  Every financial planner has had the experience of clients calling in a panic, wanting to make an emotionally-driven decision that will take them off-course. Help clients understand and identify these situations and make decisions that will keep them on-course with this book!

Oversold and Underserved: A Financial Planner's Guide to Effectively Serving the Mass Affluent
By Marc S. Freedman, CFP^®
Released in October 2008! Explore the characteristics of the mass-affluent market, highlighting a population who need and want the services financial planners can provide and who can also be profitable for planners. Then, explore ideas about how best to serve them, so that they can be the cornerstone of a targeted and thriving practice. From how to most effectively set up your office and staff to how to tap the wisdom your clients can offer, the author offers a formula that can determine whether your clients' needs are being met, a practical philosophy about nuts-and-bolts financial planning and an innovative and energetic approach to marketing that you're unlikely to find in other titles. **All author royalties for this title are being donated to the Foundation of Financial Planning.

 
In The Presence of Taxes: Application of After-tax Asset Valuation 
By William Reichenstein, Ph.D., CFA^®
Released in September 2008, this book offers a revolutionary approach to help improve the accuracy of planners' projections for their clients. In accessible terms, the author explains the advantages to estimating taxes and using after-tax projections. To date, most financial advisers for individual investors have operated as if taxes do not exist. This book offers a better way — a discussion of the after-tax valuation of assets held in one of four savings vehicles: tax-exempt accounts such as Roth IRAs, tax-deferred accounts such as 401(k)s, taxable accounts and non-qualified tax-deferred annuities. 

Communication Issues in Life Planning: Defining Key Factors in Developing Successful Planner-Client Relationships
By Carol Anderson
Life planning has been a topic of continuing interest for financial planners, but many have wondered whether their clients would respond to it and whether it was profitable. This study of planners and their clients explores whether planners are using life planning techniques and whether those techniques make a difference in the planner-client relationship.

Allied for Success: Creating a Synergy of Specialists to Fulfill Our Clients' Dreams
By Jim Munchbach
This book addresses the benefits, processes and barriers to building professional relationships with allied professionals for more effective client service. Alliances with allied professionals offer financial planners amazing opportunities for growth, encouragement and referrals, and this book will give you the tools to create them.

The Right Side of the Table: Where Do You Sit in the Minds of the Affluent?
By Scott Fithian and Todd Fithian
The Right Side of the Table helps advisers of every level make choices about the next steps in their careers. As wealth increases, clients demand a different model for their adviser team. The Right Side of the Table can help define where different team members sit based on their best-suited role.

Prudent Practices for Fiduciary Advisers
Prudent Practices for Fiduciary Advisers is designed to address the needs of the newly designated fiduciary adviser in delivering custom advice to plan participants and their beneficiaries with regard to investment of their assets within an ERISA plan. Based on prudent practices developed by Fiduciary 360 for investment advisers registered under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 and similar state statutes, these best practices are designed to reflect the need for more streamlined practices applicable to the mass market while maintaining appropriate fiduciary practices necessary for any investment advisory engagement—whether the account balance is $10,000 or $10 million.

Conserving Client Portfolios During Retirement
By Bill Bengen, CFP^®
Conserving Client Portfolios During Retirement. This financial planning book explores groundbreaking research on the topic of retirement withdrawals. With more baby boomers nearing retirement, financial planners are presented with a unique opportunity and challenge to help educate their clients. This book helps readers determine how much a client can extract from his or her portfolio annually without running out of money, whether during an extended life span, preserving a legacy for heirs, or under a variety of other scenarios.

Financial Planning—The Next Step: A Practical Approach to Merging Your Clients' Money with Their Lives
By Roy Diliberto, CFP^®
Financial Planning—The Next Step challenges the notion of asset-centered financial planning in favor of a client-centered approach. Using stories, personal examples, and wisdom from his career, Diliberto takes his audience from goal setting and understanding the client's money issues to outlining small steps that lead to big differences. The book takes a practical look at how to integrate life planning into a practice, from organization structure to compensation, marketing to working with allied professionals.

Understanding and Evaluating Prospectuses, Offering Documents, and Proxy Statements
By Tom Robinson, Ph.D., CPA, CFP^®, CFA; David Schulte, J.D., CFA; Howard Marmorstein, Ph.D.; and William Trent, CFA
Designed as a reference tool to assist financial planning professionals and investors with nontraditional investments, Understanding and Evaluating Prospectuses helps financial planners, financial consultants, licensed brokers, accountants, tax and estate attorneys and others in the financial services field better
appraise the information found in the public documents and disclosures required of all nontraditional investment "deals."

The Encyclopedia of Financial Planning—What You Need to Know About Money from the Nation's Leading Financial Planners
FPA's first book designed to directly help consumers make smart financial decisions, the Encyclopedia of Financial Planning is filled with planning tips, alerts and tested, reliable information about every conceivable financial planning topic.

Lighting the Torch: The Kinder Method™ of Life Planning 
By George D. Kinder, CFP^® and Susan E. Galvan
Lighting the Torch (ital) gives planners the tools to connect their client's dreams with financial planning strategies. It provides training in the Kinder Method™ of life planning and builds skill sets for consistent and successful client interaction, leading to those moments called "lighting the torch."

Creating an Investment Policy Statement: Guidelines & Template 
By Norman Boone, CFP^® and Linda S. Lubitz, CFP^®
Creating an Investment Policy Statement walks financial planners through the process of creating investment policy statements for their clients. This easy-to-use set of guidelines and templates provides
the foundation for all future investment decisions to be made by an investor–identifying goals and creating a system for disciplined decision making.

Succession Planning Strategies for the Financial Planner: A Complete Resource Guide 
By David K. Goad, ChFC
Succession Planning Strategies provides six different approaches to succession planning while also addressing topics such as the psychological impact of business succession on both clients and the planner, valuation, immediate exit strategies and acquiring another practice for those in their early- to mid-career stages.