Financial Planning, Catholic Social Teaching Principles and Finance

This report explores the fundamentals of finance project management, delving into financial planning and the roles of various financial professionals. It examines the responsibilities and contributions of financial analysts, accountants, and auditors. The report also discusses the application of Catholic Social Teaching principles within the financial planning sector, emphasizing the importance of human dignity, ethical considerations, and responsible financial practices. It highlights the need to integrate these principles to address challenges and promote a more equitable and ethical financial system. The report includes discussion on the principles such as the importance of human person, the need for ethical dimension in financial system. The aim of the report is to identify the challenges faced by financial planning sector and apply the catholic social principles to avoid these challenges.

Running Head: FINANCE
FINANCE
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Part 1
Financial Planning
Financial Planning is the process in financial decisions that involves the estimation of
the required capital of and plan accordingly to gain the competitive advantage. This process
includes all the financial policies that is related to the procurement and investment activities
related to a business enterprise. This type of financial planning is done by the financial
services industry or a banking industry to estimate their capital. This is done by various
financial professions that has acquired finance degree from a recognised university and has
expertise & experience in this field. Some of the financial professions are:
 Financial Analyst- A financial analyst person is involved in the financial analysis
activities of a business. They can be also known as research analyst, investment
analyst or equity analyst. They are mainly employed by insurance companies, mutual
fund companies, securities firms and corporate firms. The corporate financial analyst
is involved in mainly performing the cost & budget modelling frameworks. They do
this with the help of spreadsheets or statistical software that help them to easily
analyse the data, spot and forecast the trends (Eugster 2019). They so this along with
the company officials to understand and insight it more better and allow the company
to manage its capital effectively.
Financial analysts of investment banking sectors generally works in a team. They
analyse & forecast the future prospect of the companies along with these team members.
They do this according to the ethical compliance and regulations that has compiled by the
Securities and Exchange Commission regulations (Aharoni, Shemesh and Zapatero 2019).
They also works with merger and acquisitions to analyse the benefits of the cost with related
to the merger and acquisitions.

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Financial analyst helps in capital budgeting of the project by doing profitability
analysis of the project. They do this according to the strategy of the company. They are also
involved in Scenario analysis, planning of dividend policy & capital structure of the business
(Withisuphakorn and Jiraporn 2016). Financial analyst is very helpful because, they can build
a financial models in case of any complexity during the quantitative analysis of the business.
Their reports and findings helps to easily forecast the company’s future trends. Financial
analyst earn on an average of $85,660 and also more than this figure.
Financial planning is not a profession. It is a financial activity that is done by the
financial professions. Financial analyst are also known as financial planners. This is because,
they are involved in data collection, doing research on financial prospects of the business,
analyse & forecast the data, make advise to the company management for making financial
decisions and efficiently manage the financial transactions that can help the company to grow
their business profits (Patel 2017). The most important skills required to do financial planning
is a good interpersonal skills, a good financial reporting process, expertise in the subject and
good ability to communicate within the team members. They must also have the capacity to
do the innovations. This can be developed by analytical ability.
 Accountant- Accountant are the individual who have cleared their competency in a
certified exams like Chartered Accountant, Chartered Certified Accountant or any
CPA from a professional associations. They have the ability to certify the financial
statement of an organisation. An accountant learns to interpret, construct & identify
the critique of the financial statement of a company. They do complex works of
accounting. This can be done by developing accounting skills. An accountant analyse
the business process in more detail through the accounting process (Okwuosa and
Amaeshi 2018). They are involve in doing audit analysis. This is known as financial
statement analysis. Accountant are employed by an accounting firm or accounting

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department of any corporate firm. The professional certifications is given by National
Professional Associations.
They perform the auditing practices by following the ethical guidelines or principles
that has been set the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and GAAP
(Generally Accepted Accounting Principles). Accountant are special because, they can have
more than one designations in one firm. They perform multiple accounting duties in a
business. They educational background allow them to perform multiple duties in their
professions. They have a legal responsibility to perform their job with honest and avoid any
kind of negligence in their duty. They are also responsible to pay any kind of uninsured
losses to their investors & the creditors in case of fraud or any kind of misstatement in their
duty. They can review the company’s tax situation & help in structuring the financial
situation of the business. Hence, in this way they can save the money (Wang, Balle and
Kasiviswanathan 2018). The bookkeeping process helps to easily find the recorded
transactions when the company wants to detect the issues in its history, Accountant maintains
this book-keeping transactions to further prepare the financial statement. They helps in doing
the auditing process.
An accountant are involved in financial planning process by doing the auditing work.
This involves the financial forecast of the company’s financial statements. This will help the
financial planners to adequately prepare the wealth management report and other kind of
financial planning system. They help the financial planners to network their business and
increase their sales. They work along with financial advisors to save the money and grow the
business capital. CPAs mainly focus on providing taxes of the company and help the
financial planners to grow their income. Financial advisors do this my making investments in
various business projects (Schoenfeld, Segal and Borgia 2017). An accountant must learn to
effectively present the financial information to their clients with the help of charts, visual aids

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or graphs. Financial accountant should be able to explain the business issues clearly so that
the financial advisor can use this to manage the company decision. An accountant earns on an
average salary of $70,500 and is also predicted to grow this amount with an average rate of
10%.
 Auditor- An auditor is an individual that is mainly hired outside a firm to verify any
kind of misstatement in the financial statement. They ensures that accuracy of
financial transactions is recorded in the company’s annual report. Auditors plays an
important role in protecting a company from any kind of fraud activity. They usually
works on a consultancy basis to improve the organisational efficiency (Deng et al.
2019). Auditors tracks the cash flows of the business and verifies whether the funds
are properly recorded and accounted in the financial reports. They ensures that
whether the financial statements are reported under International Financial Reporting
Standard (IFRS) and GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles). They do
inspection of the financial records, business activities and accounting data of the
company and write a proper notes to account of the transactions. Then the findings are
presented in the financial statements. The company management takes the help of this
findings to make business decisions (Callen and Fang 2017). It is required by every
individual auditors to review the books of public companies before doing any auditing
procedures. The procedures are recognized by International Auditing & Assurance
Standards Board (IAASB). Some of the main duty of the auditor is to regularly view
the company accounts to effectively find the issues. If an auditor is unable to find any
issue in the accounting process, then it will be reported as, the company has
maintained the accounting principles during preparing the annual report.
Auditors help the investors and the suppliers to review the company financial
statement to understand the financial positions and helps the investors to make investment

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decisions. Internal auditors are generally hired by the organisations. They evaluate the
business activities and ensures corporate governance practices in a business. Auditors knows
better on how to run a business in a better way. External auditor’s works with the government
agencies to provide a good opinion on the organisation’s financial statement. Government
organisations also keep a separate government auditors to properly examine the record
according to the government rules and regulations (Aobdia and Shroff 2017). The auditors
detect the fraud activities and evaluate the risk management prospects of the business. They
mainly controls the business accounting system.
Auditors are involved in financial planning activity. They identifies the issues and
accordingly identifies the resource that is required to assess the risks. Auditors are involved
in budget preparation and allocate the resource in the business activity. Internal auditor’s
helps in reviewing the business operations that requires the business development according
to the budget forecasted (Agrawal and Cooper 2017). Then accordingly the funding is made
in the business operations. Hence, auditor profession is also linked with the financial
planning process.
Hence, from the above profession it can be seen that financial planning is not a
profession, it is a process that every financial profession go through. They are advised to
follow the regulations and principles recognised by an international frameworks to effectively
do their job so that the issues and unethical conduct can be controlled. These professions are
a part of financial service industries or banking industries that works along with the financial
advisors to effectively do their job (Liao and Radhakrishnan 2019). Hence, there is a
difference between financial planning process and financial planning professions, those use
knowledge, experience & educations to ethically do the financial planning process.

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Part 2
Introduction
The above topi will focus on the catholic teaching principles. The various catholic
social principles are discussed in this topic. The integration of catholic social principles
within the financial planning sectors are discussed in this topic. The main aim is to identify
the challenges faced by financial planning sector and apply the catholic social principles to
avoid these challenges.
Discussion
Catholic Social Teaching Principles
Catholic Social Teachings helps in providing certain principles and guidelines while
conducting the financial work. This was emphasised by Pope Francis. The various principles
are:
 Importance must be given to the human person- This means that a human’s are a part
of god image and has born to a networks of relationship. This means that life is not
made for being in isolation. There should be a social unity in life. There should not be
any inequality in the society (Turner 2017). The human’s cannot be used as a
consumer goods or means to end and discarded. There should be any exclusion in the
society. The governments and every individual must focus on boosting the economic
& social assets of the world. The primary capital is human, and must be valued
properly. They are the main source of maintaining the social and economic stability of
the world.
 Money should not be kept idolized- Business profitability must be kept as an
important aspect of business growth. This principle of social teaching tells that,
money should not be kept idol or rule. According to Pope Francis, the ancient idols of

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gods are recreated. Humans sometimes lacks in their needs. This may build a new
invisible trauma which is against any body’s rule. This may lead to fraud, corrupt and
greedy activity of the business (Matthews 2019). The same idolatry features also says
that they also provide certain advantages. This includes that, these mechanism in the
financial market helps in effectively utilise the resources, helps in promoting the
exchange for the products, meet the desires of other person. These factors the risks of
ignorance in existence of goods in the market
 Ethical dimension is important in a financial system- According to Pope Francis, a
market will not automatically bring justice in the world. There is a need of ethical
dimension in the marketplace. Ethics will help in making a balance in the market
place. Ethical approach must be associated with both the financial & economic
aspects of the market place that can favours the human beings. An economy will
require ethics to function it appropriately (Sison, Ferrero and Guitian 2016). This type
of ethics is people centred. Ethics is related in the field of business, finance and
economy. This is the main theme of catholic theme.
 Finance must be related to the proper understanding of “common good”- Common
good involves those conditions that allows an individual members to access their own
fulfilment. Common good is not the greatest good. It only involves those personal
interest that is detailed according to the hierarchy of values. It demands for correctly
understanding the values and dignity of the person (Annett 2016). It secures the rights
of a person. Common good is the good of all the individuals, families and groups that
constitute a society. It declares the three most important elements; respect, promotion
and prosperity of an individual in the society.
 Solidarity & Subsidiarity are the two most important factors related to common good
of finance- Solidarity means uncomfortable & bothersome of an individual. This must

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be restored and be created as a social value. It is not a feeling that has to be distressed,
rather it is a feeling that is related is related to the common good of an individual.
This means that using the new opportunity for the wealth redistribution within the
different financial areas. The concept of common good also transforms into the next
generations. Global financial crisis have affected the common destiny of the world.
Sustainable development is not stable now. Next comes the principle of subsidiarity
which means that the responsibilities and decisions should be properly exercised
within the local community. A higher order community should not affect the life of a
lower order community (Montes 2019). They should support the needs of the lower
order and coordinate their activities with the activity of the society. There must be
certain agencies that look towards these activities.
 Privileged option of poor is required to attain the common good- This form of
Christian charity, there is a kind of social responsibility of every individual to use the
goods. An individual must love all the rich and poor and must help them when
required. Catholic Social Teaching promotes the poor and speak against the welfare
mentality (Booth 2018). There must always be a dignified life followed in a work.
Challenges of Financial Planning Industry
 One of the most important challenge is detailing of the budget- For financial planning
process, a proper detailing of budget is required in every operational units of the
business. Without proper budget estimation, financial planning cannot be successfully
done. Company may struggle to properly estimate the future profitability of the
business. Hence, this may affect the business. According to catholic principles, the
budget should be recognised as a moral document. This is related to the ethical
priorities of an individual. Budget should be written in such a way that it tracks all the
records that demonstrates the responsibility of an individual. This also involves

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faithful use of the resources to the budget process. Hence, this catholic principle of
economic equality and helping the poor will help to avoid this challenge. National
budgets will be prepared according to the policies and practices that has been framed
by international guidelines. This will reflect the values of budget making (Kelly
2018). The financial resources will be efficiently managed in the budget process. Any
kind of financial exploitation that is related to the workers will be prevented. In case
of any lending of money there shall not be any deal with the creditor. The financial
resources will not be stored as treasure.
 Proper preparation of the unexpected circumstances- Financial planning deals with
the estimation of the future growth of the business. The most important challenge
deals with accurately estimating the unexpected circumstances that can affect the
business. This may disturb the effective financial planning process (Kiel et al. 2017).
Catholic social principles will help to protect any type of future circumstances of the
business. The intersectionality analytical approach of this teaching will help the
financial planners to review any kind of risks involved in the business and analyse the
future circumstances. This will shape the situational experiences according to the
social categories.
 Planning for the proper management of the funds- Efficient planning for the proper
management of funds is an important challenge in financial planning process (Nayak
and Majumder 2016). The funding of the various financial programs must be done
voluntarily or internationally. The expenses must be done according to the justice to
meet the business demands. The funding must be done to support the community and
family members of the community. A specific percent of budget must be kept for the
poor individuals. This will help the financial planning industry to manage the funds
and effectively use it whenever it is required.

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 Clearly determining the role to the client planner- This is another challenging role
during the financial planning process. This means that the human rights are protected
and their dignity are maintained to allow the staffs to clear publish their role for client
management (Werth et al. 2019). The catholic social principles of rights and
responsibilities will be mentioned here. This includes freedom and right of their
demand. There should not be any discrimination among the staff members.
 Quantification of the exact amount of resources- Quantification of exact resources is
another challenging factor of the financial planning process. These resources include;
labour, equipments and material. Exact quantification of these resources are quiet
challenging for the financial planner. Catholic principle related to stored funds will be
applied in this case. The resources that has been kept in stock must be effectively
handed over for the use of community well-being. Proper assessment of resource
allocation will help the financial planner to quantify the exact amount of resource.
This can be done by internal control of the organisational staffs and business
operations. Hiring of a responsible audit staff to prevent from any kind of fraud
activity in the resource allocation process, hiring of internal audit staff to effectively
manage the audit process and proper organisational system for storing of resources
(Preusse et al. 2018). This will help the business to store their resource effectively and
manage it efficiently.
 Improving the effectiveness of emergency needs- In case of any business needs, the
financial planners face challenges for the emergency needs of the business. This can
be done by improving the effectiveness of the business emergency needs. The
financial sectors can develop their microfinance sectors, social services sectors for
emergency needs. The catholic social principle of holding the collections for social
justice & poor needs will be applied to face this challenge (Saad 2018). Promotion of

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the various business requirements like distribution of the wealth within the societies
will help in developing the social needs. This will also encourage the organisations in
developing their emergency needs. It will simultaneously improve the financial
planning process of the business.
Conclusion
Therefore, it can be concluded that following the catholic social principles will help
the business to avoid the challenges faced by them. This can be done by properly recognising
the budget elements, efficiently allocating the funds to the business operations, holding the
funds for the emergency needs of the business, ethically do the financial planning process by
providing equal rights to the staff members. This can be done by internal control of the
organisational staffs and business operations. Hiring of a responsible audit staff to prevent
from any kind of fraud activity in the resource allocation process, hiring of internal audit staff
to effectively manage the audit process and proper organisational system for storing of
resources.

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