Integrated Management Services (IMS)

Integrated Management Service (IMS) offering combines Soesbe Financial’s personalized portfolio management and financial planning services. Other perks of this high-tier service include expanded planner access, tax preparation (for clients that qualify), and complimentary notary service.

Our minimum household account size requirement for Integrated Management Service (IMS) Clients is $500,000, which may be waived at the firm’s discretion.

Every IMS client starts with a thorough financial plan (see SFP). We won't manage anybody's portfolio without first knowing and fully understanding how their accounts fit into their financial life, goals and risk tolerances.

For a successful long-term client planner relationship, we have to make sure that we are a good fit for each other. We can't simply start managing a portfolio without this essential groundwork being established first.

Our detailed workup strategy also ensures that the client fully understands and agrees with our investment philosophy (how we manage portfolios, how we rebalance accounts and what we’re investing in).

Many advisors, especially in larger, more impersonal corporations, have what we call “investment blinders”, where they don’t examine the details of a client’s financial situation and only focus on their investment accounts. They give clients what's called a “suitability” questionnaire, then simply put them into pre-determined allocations and investment products.

In this circumstance, the clients then don't really understand how any of it fits into their greater financial picture, and this does not provide clarity or involvement.

At Soesbe Financial, we first look at all the factors, including risks and opportunities, and put together a fully personalized financial plan and investment plan. We have the data-driven discipline to maintain that plan through rocky times, not just bull markets.

We work this way in order to truly align our client’s finances with their goals, so that they are able to sustain their needed withdrawals and protect against future unknown risks and expenses as they age.

As fiduciaries, we want to make sure that the client’s portfolio accurately reflects both their needs and goals.

The full-service financial planning provided as part of the Integrated Management Service (IMS) is substantially similar to our Standalone Financial Planning (SFP) with Ongoing Comprehensive Planning (OCP) option, with the exception that Clients are generally not constrained by the number of hours of financial planning service received in a year.

However, Soesbe Financial reserves the right to bill on an hourly basis any financial planning service deemed in excess of the typical financial planning that would normally be included for the size of the Client’s assets under management.

Any IMS Client that is subject to additional billing for financial planning will be notified in advance of any planning work, and the Client may choose to decline the additional planning service and accept the normally-included planning service instead.

An example of planning work that would be billed separately would be if an IMS Client’s parent passed away and the Client would like advice on how to settle and distribute the parent’s estate. Other situations will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

Portfolio management is provided by investing Client assets in one of many model allocations (model portfolios) created by Soesbe Financial.

The target asset allocation (model portfolio) for an account will specify the percentage to invest in equities, fixed income and cash, and will be determined after an analysis of how the investment assets fit into the Client’s personal financial situation and a full assessment of the Client’s time horizon, risk tolerance, investment objective and liquidity needs.

Any customization of a model portfolio for a particular Client is determined by the specific needs of the Client and may include tax purposes, size of the account and socially/environmentally responsible preferences. Before selling any existing (legacy) position in a client’s taxable account, we will examine the tax impact and develop a tax-efficient implementation plan.

Portfolio review meetings are conducted regularly (annual or semi-annual, depending on the needs of the Client) and cover the Client’s current situation, allocation and performance of accounts, and any financial planning topics as selected by Soesbe Financial or the Client.

Accounts managed by Soesbe Financial are done so on a discretionary basis. We will implement the initial portfolio, monitor the allocation and place transactions (trades) as needed to maintain the allocation and goals of the Client without seeking Client consent on each and every trade.

However, every IMS Client will have an Investment Policy Statement (IPS) that will establish reasonable expectations, objectives and guidelines in the investment of the Client portfolio. The IPS will clearly define the household and/or account allocation, acceptable securities to hold (generally open-ended mutual funds, ETFs, money market funds and bank CDs; individual stocks and bonds may be held as legacy positions depending on the needs of the Client), investment constraints (if any), rebalancing procedures, investment philosophy of Soesbe Financial, and responsibilities of Soesbe Financial and the Client.

We believe in what's called an efficient market. Ours is a very traditional, disciplined and conservative approach; analytical and data-driven, in alignment with the client's needs and goals.

Efficient Market theory says that there's really no one individual investor that knows more than the market does as a whole. The collective wisdom of the market, with its millions of investors, is much smarter than anybody, no matter how popular their finance TV show or magazine column may be. Nobody truly knows with any certainty what the market is going to do, how long it's going to do it and what the results are going to be.

We have a long-term view, so we don't try to time the market.  We believe that one should only participate in the short-term volatility of the stock market to the extent that one can psychologically handle that volatility. Because while some short-term losses are an inevitable part of investing for the long term, nobody wants to incur more than they have to.

We do not invest in individual stocks - we leave the selection of individual companies up to the mutual fund managers, who are experts in their fields and have a staff of professional analysts to figure out which company stocks they should be buying, what they should be selling, how much they should be holding, etc.  What we pick is the fund manager and the funds themselves (for example, one of our favorite fund families is Dimensional).

Investing is a long term approach. So when we look at how to structure people's portfolios, we will analyze your current and future cash flow, emergency reserves and planned withdrawals to determine what portfolio withdrawals, if any, to plan for in the next two to four years. That amount is set aside in stable-value investments (generally moneymarket, CDs, or short-term bonds), either in the managed accounts or the client’s bank accounts.

This pragmatic, long term investment approach means staying disciplined and staying in the market during the short term during turbulence, which is actually better than what most people do: get out of the market when things start going down, and then think they're going to know exactly when to get back in.

We use our individualized and disciplined process to speak directly to what a client’s cash flow needs, long-term goals and individual risk-tolerances are; we never use a one-size-fits-all approach.

As outlined above, all IMS clients go through our Standalone Financial Planning process as the groundwork for IMS. Towards the end of this financial planning portion, we plan the IMS onboarding with the client. This is when we go over our investment education slides, talk about specifics of our investment philosophy, and together do a full assessment of the Client’s time horizon, risk tolerance, investment objective and liquidity needs.

While we do sign a Client Service Agreement for the financial planning engagement portion, when a client decides they do want to become IMS, we simply void this initial service agreement. We sign a new advisory agreement for account management, and any initial SFP fees already paid are refunded to the client, because all of their financial planning is included in the in the asset management fee.

Our custodian is TD Ameritrade. We will open accounts at TDA and then transfer accounts from the client’s old custodian to the new custodian. We prepare all of the transfer administrative paperwork for the client signature, so they don't have to do anything other than sign the forms electronically through DocuSign.

As the client’s accounts are being created and transferred to TDA, we keep track of all the administrative matters; we work with the account custodians to take care of any technical issues, verify that everything is proceeding correctly and keep our client informed of the progress.

Soesbe Financial maintains model portfolios with its own short list of preferred mutual funds that align with our investment philosophy. We place trades into those model portfolios, but not before doing some very detailed tax analysis to determine what the tax implications are going to be - we don't want to incur a large gain just to put things into a target portfolio; it needs to make sense for the client’s bigger picture.

After the first full quarter, we'll meet to do an initial review of the accounts. We'll go through both TD Ameritrade’s monthly reports and Soesbe Financial’s quarterly performance reports to make sure the clients understand what each contains, how to read and understand them, then answer any questions the client may have. We also show them how to access their accounts online, both through the SoeFin client portal and directly through the TD Ameritrade client portal.

At this point, we've had a look at their accounts, analyzed the allocations and transfers and any transactions that have taken place, and now that everything is in a in a steady state, then we have at least two meetings a year, with one taking place during tax time (in the spring) where we'll review the tax return for that year and do a shorter account review meeting.

The second review meeting (in the fall) looks more closely at the client’s goals and plan progress, examining things such as cash flow changes, life changes, emergency reserves, both unexpected and desired expenditures, charitable giving, etc – all those financial planning concerns that show where adjustments may need to be made in the portfolio. We want to be sure the client maintains a good understanding of where they are and where they’re going, financially speaking.

One of the best things about being an IMS client is that they can reach out to us as frequently as they need to. We can go over any questions or concerns about anything money related, as IMS clients are never on the clock. And they never have to worry about how much it will cost, because the only fees that we charge an IMS client is the portfolio management fee which is based on the percentage of assets (see our Transparent Pricing).

Tax preparation and filing service will be optionally available to Integrated Management Services Clients with the following constraints. Tax preparation is only available for individual tax returns and not for any entity such as a trust, estate, lifetime gift, or any business other than a sole-proprietor, Schedule C business (excluded businesses include partnerships, corporations, S Corps and LLCs, among others).

In general, tax preparation will be provided at our normal hourly rate, a discounted rate or free of charge, depending on the amount of assets under our management and the complexity of the tax return. If any tax return is deemed too complex to be adequately prepared by Soesbe Financial, we will refer you to your own CPA or one on our list of recommended CPAs.

There will be an annual tax preparation engagement agreement that is required to be signed regardless of the fee imposed. Tax preparation services are not available to non-IMS Clients.

The acceptance of any IMS Client as a tax preparation Client will be subject to availability of tax preparation services at Soesbe Financial and such services may be capped at the number of tax preparation Clients that we can reasonably accommodate.

Notary services will generally be provided to IMS Clients free of charge, however if the frequency and number of notarizations exceeds a reasonable amount, Soesbe Financial may charge for the notary service. Any charge for notary service will be based on the current legal maximum and will be disclosed to the Client prior to notarizing any documents.

We will not be able to notarize documents related to the purchase or sale of real estate (including real estate loans, or mortgages) as those transactions require the specialized service of a Notary Signing Agent and are outside the scope of normal notary services provided by the Notary at Soesbe Financial

If you’re confident and would like to move forward in learning if we’re a good fit to work together, call us directly at (916) 587-5100 or use our Online Scheduling Portal at to schedule a Discovery Meeting.