How Does Montis Financial's Financial Planning Process Work?

Updated

Montis Financial describes its planning process as a customized, listening-first experience: the firm says it listens to your goals, reviews what you have done so far, and then builds a plan aimed at the outcomes you want. It is a fee-only, independent wealth management firm based in Boston, MA, and it frames the work around three broad client situations — working professionals, retirees, and business owners.

The process as Montis describes it

Montis lays out its approach in four stated moves:

  1. Listen attentively to you. The first step is understanding what you want to accomplish, not starting from a product or a model portfolio.
  2. Care about what you want to achieve. The firm positions the relationship as a partnership in your decision-making rather than a one-time transaction.
  3. Review what you've done to date. Existing accounts, benefits, and prior decisions are examined before anything new is proposed.
  4. Create a plan to reach your desired outcomes. The output is a plan tied to your stated goals, which the firm then supports over time.

The stated result is "a customized experience" rather than a standardized package — Montis calls this "The Montis Way."

What changes by client type

The same four steps are applied differently depending on where you are in life. Montis names three groups and what the planning emphasizes for each:

Client situation What the planning focuses on
Working professionals Growing and optimizing wealth to support your lifestyle and plan for retirement; the firm notes this can include complicated benefits structures
Pre-retirees and retirees Maximizing distributions and tailoring retirement income to your lifestyle
Business owners Balancing work and personal financial decisions so the two can grow together

If you don't fit neatly into one of these categories, the underlying sequence — listen, review, plan — still describes how the engagement starts.

What Montis says distinguishes the experience

The firm describes itself with five adjectives: independent, fee-based, thorough, education-focused, and forward-thinking. Two of these matter most for understanding the process:

  • Education-focused means the intent is to help you make decisions yourself, with the firm explaining the questions you need to ask rather than only handing you answers.
  • Fee-based / fee-only means the firm is compensated by clients rather than by commissions on products it sells. Montis's site describes it as fee-only; note that the site does not publish specific fee rates or minimums, so you would need to ask directly.

Montis also leans on experience as part of the value: it says its team knows "the questions you need to ask" and has the answers to help you make the best decisions for your family.

How to decide if this process fits you

The process is a good match if you want a planning relationship built around conversation and education, and if you prefer an independent, fee-only structure. It is worth a closer look if you are:

  • A professional with a benefits package that is hard to evaluate on your own,
  • Approaching or in retirement and trying to coordinate distributions,
  • A business owner whose personal and company finances are tangled together.

Before committing, ask the firm directly about the items its public pages don't cover: fee schedule, account minimums, what a first meeting includes, and how often you would review the plan together. Those answers will tell you more about fit than any general description of the process.

To start, Montis directs prospective clients to a "Get Started" step on its site, followed by learning more about the firm's approach and how it works with clients.