A solo hourly advice practice earns fees from the owner-adviser’s sold planning time, not from the amount of money clients own. In this fictional case, one paid adviser supplies all advice hours and half-time client support adds no advice capacity. The selected fee and workload do not cover the retained operation, even after the opening ramp.
Test whether collected hourly fees fund the adviser’s whole paid role and support costs. Client assets and investment outcomes cannot fill a shortfall in this fee-only model.
What is the practice selling?
The case is a small independent hourly fee-only advice practice in a US metropolitan serviced office, modeled from January 2027 through December 2029. Comprehensive planning, retirement income, allocation advice, equity-pay planning and cash/debt work divide one calendar. It contains no custody, asset-management fee stream, product commissions or promised investment or tax outcome.
The compensated owner-adviser provides 160 available hours monthly and is counted once in payroll. At 45% utilization, 72 hours are sold after ramp and 88 remain outside sold work. Client preparation, compliance work, learning, sales and practice administration must fit that unsold time. Half-time client-service coverage handles support rather than becoming another adviser.
How do five topics produce one fee pool?
All topics use the selected $250.00 hourly fee. The table divides the 72 sold hours; it does not multiply the owner into five specialists or add advice revenue on top of an asset fee. The scenario price is a planning input, not a verified local fee quotation.
A quoted planning package still needs its own records, preparation, meeting, analysis and follow-up boundary. If a package requires more time than its fee permits, label the additional scope before accepting it. Assigning the overrun to the support budget would not create more owner advice hours.
| Planning topic | Sold hours | Fee/hour | Earned fees |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full planning | 28.8 | $250.00 | $7,200.00 |
| Retirement | 18 | $250.00 | $4,500.00 |
| Allocation | 10.8 | $250.00 | $2,700.00 |
| Equity pay | 7.2 | $250.00 | $1,800.00 |
| Cash/debt | 7.2 | $250.00 | $1,800.00 |
Does the fee pool pay for the whole practice?
March earns $18,000.00, incurs direct costs of $360.00 and operating expenses of $18,348.75, leaving EBITDA of -$708.75. Owner pay, half-time support, office, software and recurring professional support remain included. The deficit appears before depreciation, interest and income tax.
The first operating year’s net income is -$27,211.66, with later years also negative. Outside planning specialists are direct purchases, not additional uncompensated owner capacity. A healthy client portfolio or a useful recommendation does not establish that this practice has earned enough fees to support itself.
How close does the planned cash reserve run?
The case assumes 15 collection days, no inventory and no supplier delay. Customer assets, returns and product-sale receipts stay outside the practice’s cash flow. The model also excludes customer deposits and prepayments, so an advance cannot be assumed to fund the next month’s paid work.
Proposed uncommitted equity of $88,247.00 covers startup uses of $26,025.00 and opening liquidity. No debt is modeled. Minimum forecast cash falls to $3,949.16, leaving little modeled space for another timing or cost difference, while the retained operation is still loss-making. The reserve is financing, not proof that the selected offer works.
Which calendar evidence should replace the assumption?
Take a paid planning scope through final collection. Record the owner’s advice, preparation, review, follow-up and practice work alongside the support effort and purchased specialists. Keep every owner hour on one calendar and distinguish a client’s accepted fee from any unrelated asset movement.
Use that record to reassess the fee, scope, sold utilization or retained costs in the planning model. Confirm the actual professional service boundary separately. Do not solve the deficit by assuming more client assets generate revenue in a model that has no asset-based fee stream.
Make the next decision with your own evidence
Track one collected planning engagement and a full owner work calendar, then revise the scoped fee or retained-cost assumption without adding client assets or hypothetical product revenue.
Explore published business plan examples ↗Plainview Planning is a fictional prelaunch scenario prepared with AI assistance. Inputs are illustrative; forecast results come from the matching saved financial model. Funding is proposed. The diagrams explain the case and do not depict actual premises, established demand or promised earnings. Replace the assumptions with evidence before committing.
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