For Immediate Release 

FinancialPlanAuditors.com Announces New Web Site 

RICHMOND, Va., February 7, 2000 – Nine months after the launch of one of the most powerful financial planning tools on the market today, FinancialPlanAuditors.com (http://www.FinancialPlanAuditors.com) today announced a new Web site that allows consumers to sign up their financial advisor for free, regardless of where the advisor works. To date, FinancialPlanAuditors.com is the only financial planning tool that allows investors and financial advisors to go online together over the Internet to create or modify their financial plans. The interactive nature of FinancialPlanAuditors.com means that logistics are no longer a problem if the advisor and client live in different cities – they now meet online – and results from changes made to the financial plan are instantaneous.

“There are 28 million households in the United States today that use financial advisors. This market is at least four times the size of the discount online brokerage industry,” said David Loeper, chairman and CEO of FinancialPlanAuditors.com. “While there are many financial planning sites/calculators available to individuals on the Web today, they all are meant for the consumer to use alone. The wealthiest and most sophisticated investors’ plans generally are created in conjunction with a professional advisor. FinancialPlanAuditors.com is unique in that it allows the consumer to get expert advice online through interaction with their current financial advisor, regardless of the firm that employs their advisor.”

FinancialPlanAuditors.com’s patent-pending method makes it the only financial planning tool that measures probability based on real historical data – in this case, actual market performance figures dating back to 1926. Most financial calculators on the market use historical “average” returns that assume the same rate of return each year. Projections assuming identical yearly returns can be off by thousands, if not millions, of dollars over the lifetime of a financial plan because this method does not factor in “timing risk” – the impact of contributions and withdrawals and the market’s year by year performance over a given period of time.

Some of the most popular Web sites that attempt to replace the financial advisor have functionality that measures the impact of “timing risk,” but they use simulated returns by utilizing an algorithm method called Monte Carlo simulation. Plans using such projections should still be audited using real market data.

“Regardless of whether their plan assumes identical yearly returns or simulated returns, individuals should run their financial plan through our site and compare these results with the results of their current plan,” said David Loeper. “It is very likely they will be shocked by the different outcomes and may discover that their plan has a significant chance of running out of money. Since it is free to conduct an initial audit, there is no reason for the consumer to be left in the dark about the real historical chances of their plan working. With our new site, they can register their current advisor and ask the advisor to audit their plan.”

For an individual to sign up their investment advisor to view their plan on the FinancialPlanAuditors.com Web site, they must create a proxy user for the advisor. This quick process allows access to the advisor while ensuring privacy and confidentiality on the FinancialPlanAuditors.com secure site. 

“We have had tremendous success penetrating the professional financial advisors’ market. Financial advisors from all of the major firms and many independent advisors are currently using our site, but there are still some advisors and many consumers who are not aware of what we offer,” said Bob Wilson, chief financial officer of FinancialPlanAuditors.com. “Individual investors will benefit from using our site because it helps them monitor and update their financial plans. After all, incomes vary, expenses fluctuate and financial goals change making it all the more important to frequently monitor and update financial plans to ensure long-term financial security. FPlan makes it easier for the individual and advisor to do this.”

Since its April 1999 beta-launch, the FinancialPlanAuditors.com Web site has had nearly three million hits and more than 4,800 financial advisors have registered to use the site. Based in Richmond, Va., FinancialPlanAuditors.com is a privately held company formed in January 1999, to develop and market online tools for financial advisors and their clients.

Contact: Shannon Jackson                                                                     David Loeper
              (804) 343-3608                                                                     (804) 644-4711

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