/financial-planning-integration

name: financial-planning-integration
description: "Integrate financial planning engines with the advisor technology stack — data flows between planning tools, CRM, PMS, custodians, and aggregation platforms; capital market assumption (CMA) governance and synchronization; plan-to-IPS-to-model linkage; and governed tax reference parameters in planning tools. Use when the user asks about connecting eMoney, MoneyGuidePro, or RightCapital to CRM or portfolio systems, eliminating manual re-entry between systems, keeping plan and portfolio assumptions consistent, mapping plan outputs (required return, risk capacity, withdrawal schedule) into the IPS and model assignment, or establishing plan update cadence and data-freshness rules. Also trigger on 'plan-to-IPS linkage', 'assumption synchronization', 'CMA governance', or 'planning tool integration'. For planning methodology itself — Monte Carlo modeling, Roth conversion strategy, Social Security claiming, retirement projections — use financial-planning-workflow instead."

Financial Planning Integration

Core Concepts

Financial Planning System Architecture

The financial planning engine is the analytical hub of the advisor technology stack. It ingests client data from multiple systems, models the client's financial future, and produces outputs that drive portfolio construction, cash management, and ongoing advisory recommendations. (For the planning methodology those engines implement, see financial-planning-workflow.)

**Relationship to other systems in the advisor technology stack:**

• **CRM (client relationship management):** Source of client demographic data, household composition, employment status, life events, and planning review triggers. The CRM is the system of record for client facts; the planning tool consumes these facts as inputs.
• **PMS (portfolio management system):** Source of current portfolio holdings, asset allocation, and account types. The plan produces a required return target and risk capacity that feed back to the PMS as constraints for portfolio construction.
• **Custodian:** Source of account balances, positions, and transaction history. Custodial data feeds ensure the plan reflects actual account values rather than stale estimates.
• **Aggregation platform:** Source of held-away assets — accounts at other custodians, employer retirement plans, bank accounts, real estate equity estimates, stock options. Aggregation fills the gap between what the advisor custodies and what the client actually owns, which is essential for a complete financial picture.

**Common financial planning platforms (as of 2026; verify current vendor lineups):** eMoney Advisor, MoneyGuidePro (Envestnet), RightCapital, Naviplan (InvestCloud), and planning modules embedded within all-in-one platforms (e.g., Orion Planning, Advyzon). Platform selection depends on firm size, integration requirements, planning complexity, and client-facing presentation needs. Some platforms emphasize interactive client portals (eMoney, RightCapital); others emphasize advisor-facing analytical depth (MoneyGuidePro, Naviplan).

Goal Data Model and Status Tracking

Goals are the structured records that flow between the planning tool, CRM, and client portal. Each goal carries a defined set of attributes that downstream systems consume:

• **Target amount:** The dollar amount needed, in today's or future dollars
• **Target date:** When the funds are needed (single date or range for ongoing goals like retirement income)
• **Priority:** Essential, important, or aspirational
• **Funding source:** Which accounts and income streams fund the goal — this account linkage is what connects the plan to the PMS
• **Inflation assumption:** The category-specific inflation rate applied (general CPI, education, healthcare)

Each goal carries a status derived from its current probability of success, and status updates flow out to the CRM and client portal:

• **On track:** Probability at or above the target threshold (commonly 80-90%)
• **Needs attention:** 60-80%, where modest adjustments could restore on-track status
• **At risk:** 40-60%, requiring significant plan changes
• **Unlikely:** Below 40%, where the goal may need restructuring or deprioritization

These status indicators must update dynamically as portfolio feeds refresh plan inputs. How to set goals, prioritize among them, and model trade-offs is methodology — see financial-planning-workflow.

Capital Market Assumptions as Governed Inputs

The expected return, volatility, and correlation assumptions behind plan projections are the most consequential — and most frequently desynchronized — data elements in the planning stack.

• Small changes are high-leverage: reducing an expected equity return from 8% to 7% can shift a plan's probability of success by 10-15 percentage points. A single probability number presented without assumption context creates false precision.
• The firm should maintain a single authoritative capital market assumptions (CMA) document — owned by the investment committee, reviewed on a defined cadence (quarterly or annually) — that every system (planning tool, PMS, proposal engine) references. Assumptions set independently in each system will drift apart.
• When CMAs change, all systems must update simultaneously and all client plans should be re-run, with material probability changes flagged for advisor review.
• Distribution choices (normal vs. log-normal, historical bootstrapping, regime-switching) are also assumptions that should be documented in the CMA governance record, since different planning tools default to different methods.

Monte Carlo mechanics and how to interpret probability-of-success results are covered in financial-planning-workflow.

Tax Reference Parameters as Governed Inputs

Planning-tool tax projections depend on annually updated reference data: federal and state bracket thresholds, standard deduction amounts, IRMAA (Medicare income-related monthly adjustmen