Equilibrium Asset Management LLP

With fewer than 300 qualifying firms, corporate chartered financial planner status is reserved for the best in the profession.

To obtain it, a firm must offer a full financial planning service with access to an individual chartered financial planner (see the qualifications section). One of the firm's board directors must be a chartered financial planner and its senior management team and 90% of its customer facing staff must be members of either the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) or its subsidiary the Personal Finance Society (PFS).

The firm must comply with the CII/PFS code of ethics and have an appropriate professional development programme in place for its staff.

Most IFA firms still generate the bulk of their revenue in commission from companies whose products they have recommended. From 2013 commission will be abolished and IFAs will have to agree their fee directly with clients.

As part of the move towards fee charging, IFAs have introduced a variety of payment schemes. The most common are: annual management fees expressed as a percentage of the money being looked after; retainer fees charged monthly or quarterly; or hourly or ad hoc fees.

Most IFAs are small or medium-sized businesses, which makes them ideal for delivering a personal service but can leave their resources stretched at times. Check there are enough staff to provide support to the advisers in the firm.

There are many qualifications available to financial advisers – as a general rule, more qualifications is better. We've highlighted four of the most important ones:

• Chartered Financial Planner: currently the highest qualification for financial advisers. Awarded to individuals who have proved high levels of professional ethics and technical expertise in the main areas of financial planning: investment, pensions and tax.
• Certified Financial Planner^CM: a global standard of high level financial planning skills and knowledge. In the UK, CFP holders are members of the Institute of Financial Planning.
• Advanced Financial Planning Certificate: now called the Advanced Diploma in Financial Planning, this qualification is a stepping stone between the CII financial planning diploma (that all advisers must hold or have an equivalent to from 2013) and full chartered financial planner status.
• Investment Management Certificate: the entry level qualification for investment professionals, awarded by the CFA Society of the UK (formerly the Society of Investment Analysts)

Good IFAs will develop a financial plan after assessing your individual means, needs, objectives and attitude to risk. There are two levels of service when it comes to investing your money as part of this plan.

• Advisory: the IFA will only make changes to your investments with your specific authorisation.
• Discretionary: you give permission to the IFA to make changes to your investments without your specific authorisation, although you will be notified of any changes. This service is generally aimed at wealthier individuals. Its advantage is that it the adviser can respond quickly to changes in stock market conditions.

Some IFAs conduct investment management themselves, seeing it as a core part of their work for clients. However, an increasing number outsource investment management to specialist firms, believing they can provide a higher level of service this way.

One hallmark of a good IFA firm is the use of online administration services called 'wraps'. These get their name because they aggregate the records of all the business done between an IFA's clients and the investment managers investing their money. This enables the IFA and you to keep track of your investments and produce accurate and easy-to-read reports of your account.

You will rarely see the name of the wrap provider but leading operators in this area are Transact, Standard Life, Nucleus, AXA and Ascentric. There are also fund 'supermarkets' such as Cofunds and FundsNetwork which are less sophisticated platforms but perform a similar service. IFAs don't have to use wraps but you do wonder how they can possibly run a modern, efficient business without one.

The FSA register is a public record of firms that are, or have been, regulated or registered by the Financial Services Authority. It also lists individuals within firms who are 'approved' to carry out particular roles. All genuine IFAs should be on the register.