LIKE a successful diet is all about carefully controlled intake, successful financial planning has everything to do with discipline. The principles that guided your allocation should guide your subsequent investments. As we approach the close of yet another financial year, you find that your money hasn't grown as much as you have hoped. You take a deep sigh and hope to better next year - nothing to ensure you really better in the upcoming year.

Financial planning is a holistic approach to planning for your financial future. It is about setting short and long-term goals and developing strategies to achieve those goals. A successful financial plan is an understanding of where you want to be financially in both the short and long run. It provides direction and meaning to your financial decisions. Financial planning covers the various facets of individual's financial needs, which include:

• Accumulating capital - cash flow planning.
• Protection against risk - insurance planning and risk management.
• Investment planning and advice.
• Estate planning: Wills and Trusts.
• Retirement planning and tax planning.

It's like planning for a road trip, the first decision is always where you want to go otherwise you may not know if you have arrived there or not. The answers to the above questions will be on our financial road map to tell us the destination for our money.

Goal setting is the cornerstone of financial planning. This helps you decide the outcomes of your financial planning exercise. Goal setting is the process of deciding which needs and wants to pursue, based on a person's values. Goals provide direction (like a roadmap) for plans and actions. Goals become more effective when they are SMART - specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-bound.

Most people fail to understand that the impact of a delay or keeping all the financial planning till the end of the year can cause either a direct financial hit or a loss of precious opportunities. In India, people take financial planning as tax planning and this is the reason most of the people approach financial planner only in February or March. But tax planning is just a part of financial planning. The purpose of financial planning is to achieve long-term financial goals and goal of tax planning is to save as much taxes as a person can do so that financial planner can use that money, saved from tax planning, for the benefit of future goals. It ensures that you achieve your financial goals and your hard earned money is invested in better options.

Thus, for providing right way to your finance you may utilize these services. The entire process should ideally begin in April, the start of the financial year. A lot of planning work especially to save taxes can be completed in the first week of April to give an investor a good array of benefits that they otherwise would not have enjoyed. The investment plan prepared earlier will have some areas for investment that will require a time chart while funds would have to be arranged for, for others.

However, there are areas that a person has little control over. June is the time when investors are scouting for opportunities to utilize their investment. This is especially true on the debt side, where action starts heating up after April-May, giving the investor an opportunity to invest in the debt market.

For non-salaried people, advance tax payment is an area that they need to look into during this period. Starting from September, they will have to pay advance tax on their earnings in specified proportions each quarter. A sum kept aside for this purpose will avoid a toss up between investing and paying taxes.

It is essential to review your position on the tax front between October and December. The festival period or December-end is often a bonus time for certain sectors and hence the extent of bonus can shift income levels. This will call for a change in plans through a small change in the composition of investment or even some additional investment.

The onus of a successful financial advisory system is in the hands of investors. Investors must be willing to pay the fees for impartial advice, just the way they pay doctors for diagnosis. There is no practice in the world where doctors don't charge for consultation.

Anish M Wig

Chief Executive Officer International College of Financial Planning