Discovery meeting in financial planning: what to capture and write up
A practical guide to the discovery meeting in financial planning: what to capture, the questions that get to it, how to write a discovery document clients read, and a checklist for the write-up.
On this page
- What a discovery meeting in financial planning is for
- What to capture in the room
- Goals and priorities
- Financial position
- Attitude to risk and capacity for loss
- Knowledge and experience
- Circumstances and vulnerability
- Questions that get you there
- Writing up the discovery meeting
- A structure that works
- Style rules for the write-up
- Discovery write-up checklist
- Doing it without losing an evening
- Frequently asked questions
- What should a discovery meeting in financial planning cover?
- How soon after a discovery meeting should the write-up be sent?
- Is a discovery document the same as a fact find?
The discovery meeting is the most important hour in the client relationship. It is where the client decides whether you understand them, and where you gather everything the advice will rest on. Yet the write-up is often the job that slips: a few rushed notes, a fact find filled in later from memory, and a summary letter that reads like a template.
This guide covers the discovery meeting in financial planning from both ends: what to capture in the room, and how to turn it into a discovery document that shows the client you listened.
What a discovery meeting in financial planning is for
A discovery meeting has three jobs:
- Understand the person. Their goals, values, worries and circumstances, in their own words.
- Gather the evidence. The information the rules require before any recommendation can be suitable.
- Agree what happens next. Whether you can help, how, and on what terms.
The evidence part is not optional. COBS 9A.2.1R requires firms to obtain information on the client's knowledge and experience, their "financial situation including his ability to bear losses" and their "investment objectives including his risk tolerance" (COBS 9A.2). A good discovery meeting gathers that information naturally, inside a real conversation.
What to capture in the room
Goals and priorities
- What the client wants their money to do, with timescales.
- Which goals matter most, and why.
- What a good outcome would look like to them.
- Any goals for family members, such as helping children or supporting parents.
Financial position
- Income, expenditure and how secure each is.
- Assets: pensions, investments, property and cash, including where cash is held.
- Liabilities, with terms and end dates.
- Existing protection and how it is arranged.
- Emergency funds and short-term spending needs.
Attitude to risk and capacity for loss
- How the client has felt and behaved during past market falls.
- What a fall in value would mean for their standard of living.
- Any difference between what the client says they would tolerate and what they can afford to lose.
Keep these separate. The FSA's guidance described capacity for loss as "the customer's ability to absorb falls in the value of their investment" and warned that "If any loss of capital would have a materially detrimental effect on their standard of living, this should be taken into account" (FG11/05). For more, see our guide to capacity for loss vs attitude to risk.
Knowledge and experience
- Past investing and how it went.
- How well the client understands the types of product you are likely to discuss.
Circumstances and vulnerability
- Health, life events, resilience and capability: the four drivers in the FCA's vulnerability guidance (FG21/1).
- How the client prefers to communicate, and whether anyone else should be involved.
- Any adjustments the client would find helpful.
The FCA's guidance notes that "firms that advise on investments and pensions have an older customer base, so common characteristics of vulnerability may involve health and life events associated with old age." Discovery is the natural moment to explore this, with care.
Questions that get you there
Open questions do most of the work in discovery. A few that tend to open up the conversation:
- "What prompted you to get in touch now?"
- "If we met in five years and everything had gone well, what would have changed?"
- "What worries you most about money?"
- "How did you feel the last time your investments fell in value?"
- "Is there anything going on in your life that we should take into account?"
Save closed questions for confirming facts. Our guide to open questions in client meetings covers technique in more depth.
Writing up the discovery meeting
The discovery document is often the first piece of your thinking the client sees in writing. It should prove you listened, and it should be something the client wants to read.
A structure that works
- Where you are now: a short, plain summary of the client's situation.
- What matters to you: goals and priorities, in the client's own words where possible.
- What we heard about risk: attitude to risk and capacity for loss, kept distinct.
- Things to bear in mind: circumstances, preferences and any adjustments.
- Gaps and questions: what you still need from the client.
- What happens next: the proposed work, and how it links to a scope of work.
Style rules for the write-up
- Write to the client, not about them: "you told us", not "the client stated".
- Use their words for goals. If they said "I want to stop worrying about money", say that.
- Plain English, short paragraphs, no jargon without an explanation.
- Be specific: figures, dates and names, not generalities.
- Ask the client to correct anything you got wrong. It is good practice and good evidence.
This supports the Consumer Duty's consumer understanding outcome (PS22/9), and it is the document that turns a prospect into a client.
Discovery write-up checklist
| Check | Done |
|---|---|
| Goals recorded in the client's words, with timescales and priorities | |
| Income, expenditure, assets and liabilities captured | |
| Attitude to risk and capacity for loss recorded separately | |
| Knowledge and experience recorded | |
| Characteristics of vulnerability noted, with adjustments | |
| Gaps and outstanding information listed | |
| Next steps and proposed scope stated | |
| Document sent within your firm's agreed time, with the date recorded (good practice) |
Doing it without losing an evening
By our estimate, drafting one client document like this takes about two hours by hand. That is why discovery write-ups are so often delayed or templated.
If your firm records meetings in Fireflies, Carbon can draft the discovery document straight from the recording. It writes in your firm's voice, using your house style and word list, with your branding, fonts and logo applied. It can pull risk questionnaire responses from your Google form, keep every version in a document vault, and draft the follow-up email with the document attached. By our estimate, a draft takes about fifteen minutes rather than two hours. You edit it inline, check every detail, and export to Word or PDF. The adviser still owns every word that goes to the client.
Frequently asked questions
What should a discovery meeting in financial planning cover?
Goals and priorities, the full financial position, attitude to risk and capacity for loss as separate topics, knowledge and experience, and circumstances including any characteristics of vulnerability, then agreed next steps.
How soon after a discovery meeting should the write-up be sent?
While the meeting is fresh for both of you. Set a firm standard, such as within a few working days, and record the date it was sent.
Is a discovery document the same as a fact find?
No. The fact find records the data. The discovery document explains, in plain English, what you understood about the client and what happens next. You will usually need both.
See how Carbon drafts a discovery document from a recorded meeting, or book a twenty-minute demo on Microsoft Teams with Adam Booth, run live on a demo firm with nothing to prepare.
