Description of Firm
Investments & Financial Planning, LLC is a registered investment adviser based in Lexington, Kentucky. We are
organized as a limited liability company ("LLC") under the laws of the State of Kentucky. We have been
providing investment advisory services since June 28, 2012. We are owned by David Short and J. Eric Mullins.
The following paragraphs describe our services and fees. Refer to the description of each investment advisory
service listed below for information on how we tailor our advisory services to your individual needs. As used in
this brochure, the words "we," "our," and "us" refer to Investments & Financial Planning, LLC and the words
"you," "your," and "client" refer to you as either a client or prospective client of our firm.
Description of Services Offered
We offer portfolio management and financial planning services to our clients. This Part 2A disclosure document
is tailored to advisory services that are not part of our firm's Wrap Fee Portfolio Management Program. If you are
a prospective client of our Wrap Fee Portfolio Management Program, we will deliver our Form ADV Part 2A
Appendix 1 disclosure document to you.
Portfolio Management Services
Our firm has an agreement to establish advisory accounts directly through American Funds Distributors, Inc.'s
platform ("American Funds"), a directly held mutual fund company. These advisory accounts are managed on a
discretionary basis based on our clients' individual needs, goals and investment objectives. Through American
Funds, we have access to a family of mutual funds with varying degrees of risk and investment objectives in
order to create a customized and diversified portfolio for you.
If you participate in our discretionary portfolio management services, we require you to grant our firm
discretionary authority to manage your account. Discretionary authorization will allow us to determine the
specific mutual fund(s), and the amount of the mutual fund(s) to be purchased or sold for your account without
your approval prior to each transaction. Discretionary authority is typically granted by the investment advisory
agreement you sign with our firm and the appropriate trading authorization forms.
You may limit our discretionary authority (for example, limiting the types of securities that can be purchased for
your account) by providing our firm with your restrictions and guidelines in writing. The requested restrictions
must be reasonable and will require our approval in order to ensure we can facilitate the restriction through the
mutual fund family offerings.
Pontera
We use a third-party platform to facilitate management of held away assets such as defined contribution plan
participant accounts, HSAs, and other assets with discretion. The platform allows us to avoid being considered to
have custody of Client funds since we do not have direct access to Client log-in credentials to affect trades. We
are not affiliated with the platform in any way and receive no compensation from them for using their platform.
A link will be provided to the Client allowing them to connect an account(s) to the platform. Once Client
account(s) is connected to the platform, we will review the current account allocations. When deemed necessary,
we will rebalance the account considering client investment goals and risk tolerance, and any change in
allocations will consider current economic and market trends. Client account(s) will be reviewed at least
annually, and allocation changes will be made as deemed necessary.
Financial Planning Services
We offer financial planning services which typically involve providing a variety of advisory services to clients
regarding the management of their financial resources based upon an analysis of their individual needs. These
services can range from broad-based financial planning to consultative or single subject planning. If you retain
our firm for financial planning services, we gather required information through in-depth, personal
interviews. Information gathered includes your current financial status, future goals, attitudes towards risk and
other relevant information. We may also use financial planning software to determine your current financial
position and to define and quantify your long-term goals and objectives. Once we specify those long-term
objectives (both financial and non-financial), we will develop shorter-term, targeted objectives. Once we review
and analyze the information you provide to our firm and the data derived from our financial planning software,
we will create financial plan designed to help you achieve your stated financial goals and objectives. Depending
on the terms of our agreement, we may deliver a written plan to you.
In general, the financial plan may address some or all of the following areas, although, this list is not all
inclusive:
• Personal: family records, budgeting, personal liability, estate information and financial goals.
• Tax and Cash Flow: Income tax and spending analysis and planning for the past, current and future years.
We illustrate the impact of various investments on the client's or clients' current income tax and future tax
liability
• Death and Disability: Cash needs at death, income needs of surviving dependents, estate planning and
disability income analysis.
• Retirement: Analysis of current strategies and investment plans to help the clients achieve their
retirement objectives.
• Investments: Analysis of investment alternatives and their effects
on client portfolios.
Our single subject planning services cover areas of concern such as estate planning, retirement planning, or other
specific topic. We also provide specific consultative and/or administrative services regarding investment and
financial concerns of the client. Additionally, we provide advice on non-securities matters. Generally, this is in
connection with the rendering of estate planning, insurance, and/or annuity advice and may be generic in nature.
Financial plans are based on your financial situation at the time we present the plan to you, and on the financial
information you provide to us. You must promptly notify our firm if your financial situation, goals, objectives, or
needs change.
You are under no obligation to act on our financial planning or consulting recommendations and we recommend
that you work closely with your attorney, accountant, insurance agent, and/or other financial professionals.
Should you choose to act on any of our recommendations, you are not obligated to implement the financial plan
through any of our other investment advisory services. Moreover, you may act on our recommendations by
placing securities transactions with any brokerage firm. If you choose to implement the plan through our firm,
we reserve the right to determine whether the financial planning fees will be waived or offset by advisory fees
and/or additional compensation earned in the implementation process. The scope and complexity of the financial
planning services that were provided may determine the waiver or offset of the fee.
Wrap Fee Programs
We are a portfolio manager to and sponsor of a wrap fee program, which is a type of investment program that
provides clients with access to model portfolios developed by our firm for a single fee that includes management
fees and commissions. If you participate in our wrap fee program, you will pay our firm a single fee, which
includes our money management fees, certain transaction costs, and custodial costs. We receive a portion of the
wrap fee for our services. The overall cost you will incur if you participate in our wrap fee program may be
higher or lower than you might incur by separately purchasing the types of securities available in the program.
To participate in our wrap program, transactions for your wrap account must be executed by Charles Schwab &
Co., a registered securities broker-dealers and members of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and the
Securities Investor Protection Corporation. To compare the cost of our wrap fee program with non-wrap fee
portfolio management services, you should consider the frequency of trading activity associated with our
investment strategies and the brokerage commissions charged by or other broker-dealers, and the advisory fees
charged by investment advisers. For more information concerning the Wrap Fee Program, see Appendix 1 to this
Brochure.
Types of Investments
We primarily offer advice on no-load mutual funds and exchange traded funds ("ETFs"). Refer to the Methods of
Analysis, Investment Strategies and Risk of Loss below for additional disclosures on this topic.
Additionally, we may advise you on various types of investments based on your stated goals and objectives. We
may also provide advice on any type of investment held in your portfolio at the inception of our advisory
relationship.
Since our investment strategies and advice are based on each client’s specific financial situation, the investment
advice we provide to you may be different or conflicting with the advice we give to other clients regarding the
same security or investment.
Rollover Recommendations
Effective December 20, 2021 (or such later date as the US Department of Labor (“DOL”) Field Assistance
Bulletin 2018-02 ceases to be in effect), for purposes of complying with the DOL’s Prohibited Transaction
Exemption 2020-02 (“PTE 2020-02”) where applicable, we are providing the following acknowledgment to you.
When we provide investment advice to you regarding your retirement plan account or individual retirement
account, we are fiduciaries within the meaning of Title I of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act and/or
the Internal Revenue Code, as applicable, which are laws governing retirement accounts. The way we make
money creates some conflicts with your interests, so we operate under a special rule that requires us to act in your
best interest and not put our interest ahead of yours. Under this special rule’s provisions, we must:
• Meet a professional standard of care when making investment recommendations (give prudent advice);
• Never put our financial interests ahead of yours when making recommendations (give loyal advice);
• Avoid misleading statements about conflicts of interest, fees, and investments;
• Follow policies and procedures designed to ensure that we give advice that is in your best interest;
• Charge no more than is reasonable for our services; and
• Give you basic information about conflicts of interest.
We benefit financially from the rollover of your assets from a retirement account to an account that we manage or
provide investment advice, because the assets increase our assets under management and, in turn, our advisory
fees. As a fiduciary, we only recommend a rollover when we believe it is in your best interest.
Assets Under Management
As of December 31, 2022, we provide continuous management services for $198,035,900in client assets on a
discretionary basis and $0 on non-discretionary basis.