Sechrest Financial Services

Sechrest Financial Services provides fee-only wealth management and comprehensive financial planning to individuals (including high-net-worth clients), businesses, trusts, estates and employer retirement plans. Services cover investment management, estate and charitable planning, insurance review, retirement and concentrated-stock planning, and coordination of employee‑benefit and identity‑theft prevention planning.

The firm uses a customized data‑collection process and risk‑tolerance assessment to create a written Investment Policy Statement for each client and implements portfolios primarily with no‑load mutual funds and ETFs that use passive or enhanced‑index strategies; it does not recommend individual stocks. Sechrest operates largely on a non‑discretionary basis—requiring client authorization for trades—and discloses that essentially all of its reported assets are managed without discretionary trading authority.

What distinguishes the firm from many peers is its affiliation and co‑location with a CPA/accounting practice that provides tax planning, tax preparation and bookkeeping services, often bundled with financial planning, and the notable allocation of adviser time to that CPA business. The firm also deviates from the common percentage‑of‑AUM pricing model and relies on third‑party partners (for example, a DFA mutual fund relationship and a separately managed bond account manager) to implement parts of client portfolios.