With the financial market still in virtually free-fall and a majority of bank stocks, mutual funds and hedge funds already in the negative column, financial planning has become both a greater challenge and more necessary to accounting clients than ever before.

The mission of financial planning has shifted to crisis response, protecting assets still in portfolios, shifting to more stable financial instruments such as bonds and blue-chip stocks, and seeking ways to recover from estates, retirements and education plans that have been devastated or even bankrupted by the sharp downturn of the current recession.

The tools do not change greatly in this environment, but the skills required of the accountant do in three ways: Clients will need to immediately re-assess their assumptions, paying particular attention to the management of risk and the narrowing of goal expectations. Accountants will need to become more aggressive in their planning skills, particularly vetting out financial instruments and monitoring the performance of those instruments in a market that brings almost daily revelations of new losses. Accountants will need to become more conservative in their fees, since the clients in need of the most attention and service are also likely to be those least likely to absorb higher fees for that expanded service.

The 2009 roundup of financial planning tools considers 10 software solutions, none of them newcomers to the industry but most having undergone substantial and well-received upgrades over the past year or two.

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