Independent since 1985 · Farmington Hills, Michigan
Empowering Financial Freedom®
We simplify the complexity of money decisions — then we measure them. A forty-year-old Michigan firm, an eight-step framework, and one clear model of your economic life.
Ten questions, two minutes, no email required.
Plan for tomorrow. Account for today.
Any plan we design has to work now, and at retirement.
At Financial Architects, we plan with the future in mind… yours. But we also account for today, developing a strategic road map for your unique tomorrow with the understanding that any program we design must perform better today, tomorrow, and at retirement.
Regardless of any product we offer, or any individual’s unique path, our strategies are custom-engineered to help build wealth and minimize risk — all while allowing you to maintain your existing lifestyle. We work closely with each client to provide a blueprint for life planning, based on precision, verifiable metrics and deep-rooted principles.
Three uniques, for the benefit of our clients
What makes a Financial Architect different from a salesperson.
Applying the science of money
Economic concepts and principles come first, before any product conversation. They are introduced in step one, and every later decision is measured against them.
A Whole-listic™ approach — macro over micro
We look at the whole economic life rather than optimising one account at a time. Assets, protection, taxes and transfer are one system, not five conversations.
Verification over opinion
We didn’t build this firm on a desire to sell products, but on planning prosperity that lets clients measure the efficiency of every money decision.
The problem nobody is assigned
Your accountant is good. Your attorney is good. The plan still doesn’t work.
Each of them answered the question they were asked, correctly. The gaps turn up in between — a policy sized to an income you earned nine years ago, a beneficiary designation quietly overriding a will, a tax-smart decision made without knowing which account you will spend from first.
Nobody got those wrong. Nobody was asked.
Find out where yours are
Ten statements that are either true of your situation today or they are not. Two minutes. No email address.
Or read about it first
Three short guides on coordination, on what an eight-step framework actually does, and on the exit that every owner eventually makes.
Then talk to a person
Thirty minutes with a Lead Financial Architect, on a calendar you can see. No preparation, no obligation.
Where do you start?
Three questions. No email required.
Most people arrive here somewhere specific in their life, not looking for “wealth management” in the abstract. Answer three questions and we’ll point you at the right part of the firm.
It takes about twenty seconds, nothing is stored, and there is no form at the end of it.
Where are you in your working life?
Pick the one that fits best today.
What is the decision actually in front of you?
The one that keeps coming back.
If it all went right, what changes in five years?
There is no wrong answer here.
Your starting point
Success Builders
Emerging professionals experiencing growth in family, wealth, and purpose.
Your starting point
Purpose Seekers
Later-career life creates unforeseen challenges as well as exciting opportunities that everyone must eventually navigate.
Your starting point
Outrapreneurs
People who have spent their entire lives building their business and now face a new chapter as they plan to transition out of it.
This is an educational self-reflection tool. It does not collect your information, produce a financial plan, valuation or projection, and is not investment, tax or legal advice.
Who we serve
Clarity and confidence for every money decision.
Success Builders
Emerging professionals experiencing growth in family, wealth, and purpose.
Develop your strategy
Purpose Seekers
Later-career life creates unforeseen challenges as well as exciting opportunities that everyone must eventually navigate.
Embrace your next chapter
Outrapreneurs
People who have spent their entire lives building their business and now face a new chapter as they plan to transition out of it.
Plan your exitThe Financial Architecture Experience™
Eight steps, four phases, and one model of your economic life.
Most firms describe a process. This one is numbered, sequenced and finite — and step eight never ends. Click through it below.
You meet a Financial Architect™ — and the vocabulary
The first conversations are interactive and deliberately unhurried. They are designed to identify your current financial condition across three spectrums — protection, savings assets, and growth assets.
In this introduction to The Financial Architecture Experience™, the economic concepts and principles are introduced up front, so that every later meeting is a conversation between people who share the same vocabulary. Nothing is sold at this stage. Nothing needs to be decided.
What you walk away with
A shared language for the decisions ahead, and an honest first read of where you stand.
Dangers, Opportunities and Strengths — on paper
A confidential financial questionnaire is completed, and any supporting documents needed are identified and collected.
Alongside the numbers, we review Dangers, Opportunities and Strengths, so that the strategy that follows is genuinely client-centric — both efficient and effective. This initial discovery phase is complete once full and accurate information is organised and provided to Financial Architects.
What you walk away with
One organised, accurate picture of your financial life — often the first time it has existed in one place.
Your entire economic life, in one model
The economic model is introduced, and participants see — many times for the first time — their entire economic life presented in one clear and organised model.
A tutorial walks through the structure and makeup of its components, and how your data is represented throughout the process. The model is not a sales tool. It is the thing every later decision is measured against.
What you walk away with
A single model of your economic life you can actually read.
Your model, next to the ideal model
Typically one of the most engaging sessions of the entire process: your model is compared with the ideal model.
Self-discovery begins here. You are guided through the economic rules of wealth building, and learn the characteristics of the ideal model across the three phases of life — accumulation, distribution (retirement), and estate transfer.
What you walk away with
A clear view of the gap between where you are and where the model says you could be.
Naming the gaps, and the steps that close them
Your Financial Architect™ works closely with you to identify the gaps between your model and the ideal model, and to provide guidance on the action steps that make progress toward your maximum financial potential.
This is where the work stops being theoretical.
What you walk away with
A prioritised list of action steps, in your own model’s terms.
Pursuing the highest-value path
The outcome of this phase of design is to pursue the highest value path toward maximum efficiency and financial potential.
The economic concepts and principles introduced at the very beginning are what drive the design here. Cash flows are automated to the greatest degree possible.
What you walk away with
New money flows, maximum protection, reduced risk, and substantially higher reliability of financial success.
What changed, measured against where you started
There is a complete review of where the process started, what improvements were made, and what progress toward the ideal model was accomplished in the first phase of engagement.
All action steps are completed and documented — which is what makes the next step possible.
What you walk away with
A documented record of the distance travelled, not an opinion about it.
The part that never ends
Now that the working financial strategy has achieved an initial level of efficiency, the ongoing check-in and monitoring of the strategy begins — what we call Lifetime Coordination.
This is an individualised schedule of reviews to maintain the efficient financial model that was the focus from the beginning. The Financial Architecture Experience™ is a lifelong framework for making the most efficient financial decisions, and this stage is what allows the planning team to keep that commitment.
What you walk away with
An individualised review schedule — the difference between a plan and a relationship.
Our services
Everything we do is intended to progress toward your wealth and retirement.
Yours. That is what we stand for at Financial Architects. You. That is who we stand for.
Asset Management
Asset management tools, products, techniques and methods may change or come and go over time, but principles never do.
Explore asset management
Insurance
What makes life insurance so crucial to overall financial planning is that it is a strategy that plans for tomorrow while preparing for today.
Explore insurance
Estate Planning
Taking the necessary steps now preserves the wealth you have accumulated, and reduces the time and confusion left behind for the people you care about.
Explore estate planningBusiness Succession
Every owner leaves their company eventually. The Q5 Experience™ exists so that it happens on your terms.
Explore business succession
Business Services
Retirement plans, employee benefits, pension analysis and Medicare — on the simple premise that more at retirement is better than less.
Explore business servicesThe firm
Doing things differently since 1985.
Financial Architects was founded in 1985 by a small team of professionals with a passion for predictable and peak performance. We didn’t want to build a business on a desire to sell products, but rather on a genuine passion for planning prosperity that would allow our clients to measure the efficiency of their every money decision.
Financial Architects will be viewed by its clients as the most valuable relationship they have pertaining to their financial affairs. Ken Grace, founder — the standard the firm was started on in 1985
Guides
Written for people who haven’t called anyone yet.
Why six excellent advisors can still produce one bad plan
Your accountant is good. Your attorney is good. Your investment manager is good. Nobody is wrong, and the plan still doesn’t work. Here is why that happens, and what the missing role actually is.
Read itWhat an eight-step planning process actually does to you
Every firm says it has a process. Most mean a sales cycle. Here is what a numbered, finite, repeatable framework changes about the experience — and the one step that never ends.
Read it100% of owners leave. One in five has written down how.
The Business Exit Institute asked owners how ready they were. The gap between what owners intend and what owners have written down is the single most expensive number in private business.
Read itNews & events
What’s happening at FAI.
Celebrating Colleen Bouton: Six and a Half Years as the Heart of FAI
After six and a half years as Financial Architects’ front desk manager and culture engagement coordinator, Colleen Bouton has officially retired…
Read itFreedom-First Pathway: an introduction from Chris Cousins
Their advisors are excellent individually. But no one is accountable for making sure the legal, financial, tax, and business strategy all work togethe…
Read it
Celebrating Jan Winters: A Legacy of Care, Connection, and Commitment
The Financial Architects team gathered at Cantoro’s in Livonia for a celebration of a career spent looking after this firm’s clients.…
Read itNext step
Start with a conversation, not a commitment.
A Discovery Call is 30 minutes with a Lead Financial Architect. No preparation required, and no obligation to move forward.