> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.hazel.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Best practices

> The habits behind plans that need fewer corrections: firm setup, household data, the brief, the audit, settings upkeep.

You want each plan to need fewer corrections than the last.

## Set your firm's shape before you scale

Every plan starts from the shape in **Settings → Planning**: your [**Plan templates**](/guides/financial-planning/settings/overview), with your **Base template** and your **Client persona** entries.

* **Build on the defaults first.** Let Hazel build one plan before you change a setting, and read it as a client would. Then fix in order: structure in [Plan design](/guides/financial-planning/plan-design/overview), the [instructions](/guides/financial-planning/settings/personas/instructions) that set the voice, then the [assumptions](/guides/financial-planning/assumptions/solver-assumptions).
* **Write your guardrails.** The rules Hazel must never break, however a request is phrased. Two ship already, and you add yours on the base template. See [Guardrails](/guides/financial-planning/assumptions/guardrails).
* **Sort out the personas you have.** Your firm arrives with three: HENRY, Pre-Retiree, and Retiree / Decumulator. Review, rename, edit or delete them first. Each carries its own plan design and instructions, so base-template work does not reach a household that matched one; **Re-sync from base** puts it back on the base design. See [Personas](/guides/financial-planning/settings/personas/overview) and [Inheritance and re-syncing](/guides/financial-planning/settings/personas/inheritance).
* **Set the Client disclaimer before anyone exports.** Nothing prints under a plan until your firm's own text is in the **Client disclaimer** card, and an edit reaches plans already published, next time one is opened.

## Keep each household's profile current

A plan reads the household's [Intelligent Client Profile](/guides/financial-planning/your-data/how-hazel-uses-the-profile) first, and that profile learns only from recorded meetings, client emails, uploaded documents, notes, and what you tell Hazel. A CRM or custodian connection puts no facts there.

* **Record the meetings where goals come up.**
* **Clear the review queue before you build.** Verifying a fact lets a plan state it plainly instead of labeling it. The queue is **Review**, on the household's **Data** tab. See [Reviewing and verifying data](/guides/intelligent-client-profiles/managing-client-data/reviewing-and-verifying).
* **Tell Hazel what changed, as it changes.** In the household's chat: "They paid off the HELOC and opened a 529 for Maya." Confirm the update Hazel offers back and it joins the profile. See [Adding client data](/guides/intelligent-client-profiles/managing-client-data/adding-client-data).

## Front-load the brief

One paragraph before Hazel starts covers it: who the plan is for and who reads it, the one question it has to answer, the goals and the constraints. [Front-loading the brief](/guides/financial-planning/your-data/front-loading-the-brief) has a template to paste.

## Build early, then fill the gaps

* Where an answer would move a number, the plan carries a questions card with at most three questions. **Looks right** accepts the figure in use; edit the answer and the button becomes **Use this**.
* The household's **Financial Planning** tab lists what Hazel has and what it is missing; its **Prepare data** card turns those gaps into a document request through **Prepare data for full financial plan**.

Upload the documents that settle those points, then use **Regenerate** in the top bar of the household's **Financial Planning** tab. See [Versions and regenerating](/guides/financial-planning/the-plan/versions-and-regenerating).

## Carry a plan into the next review

Working the plan you have keeps the household's planning history in one place; a new plan starts again at V1.

Before a review, add what has happened since: new statements, the new tax return, the meetings recorded. Then regenerate instead of rebuilding, and ask Hazel in the plan's chat what changed between the two versions.

A regenerate can land on a different persona and pick up firm settings changed since the first build, so treat the refreshed plan as unreviewed and run the audit below.

## Audit before you present, every time

<Steps>
  <Step title="Read the brief, confirm the persona">
    The info button in the plan's top bar opens **Plan orientation**, a brief on what the plan concludes and why, on the versions that have one. Then read **Applied settings** in the plan's **Appendix**: its **Persona** row names the Client persona the plan was built from. See [Where numbers come from](/guides/financial-planning/your-data/where-numbers-come-from).
  </Step>

  <Step title="Spot-check three figures">
    Take the plan's probability of success, one balance-sheet number, one income number. A figure underlined with dots opens onto its sources, its Confidence and, where Hazel recorded them, the arithmetic behind it.

    Settle an **Unverified** figure under your main recommendation before the meeting. See [Where numbers come from](/guides/financial-planning/your-data/where-numbers-come-from) for what each confidence label means.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Save or discard your edits, then export">
    The bar at the bottom offers **Save** for text and value edits, **Recalculate** when the math has to run again. **Export PDF** is grayed out while anything is unsaved, and the PDF is the last saved version.
  </Step>
</Steps>

## Use levers in the room

Where a plan carries dials, every figure bound to them moves with them, and nothing saves. **Reset to optimized** in the panel puts them all back, and a reload loses them, so settle the values before you leave. If the dials belong to a recommendation, approving it records what is on screen, and **Save** in the bottom bar makes that the plan's next version. Where the panel notes that projections do not respond to a control yet, that dial is illustration. See [Levers and scenarios](/guides/financial-planning/the-plan/levers-and-scenarios).

## Ask for substance, edit for polish

| Situation                   | Do this                                                                                                                                     |
| --------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| A sentence is nearly right  | Hover the text, click the pencil, fix it in place                                                                                           |
| A section is framed wrong   | Ask Hazel: **Edit** in the top bar in chat, or **Open chat** on the household's **Financial Planning** tab. Both open the same conversation |
| A figure is wrong           | Open it, edit the assumption underneath and **Queue change**, or correct the fact it came from in the profile                               |
| Every plan has this problem | Change your firm's settings                                                                                                                 |

## Review your settings on a schedule

* **Market assumptions**, once a year, with whoever owns your firm's market view. One live set, saved as you type, so every plan built after a change uses the new number; **Publish to firm** only confirms what has already saved. Agree the numbers, then regenerate one plan you know well before telling the team. Published plans keep what they were built with until you rebuild them.
* **Personas**, once or twice a year: which ones you have customized, whether those changes still match how you plan, whether any two now describe the same household.
* **Instructions and guardrails**, whenever you notice yourself giving the same correction twice.

<Tip>
  Keep a note of why each setting is what it is.
</Tip>

## Team habits

* **One owner per design at a time.** A save writes only the design you are in, so a colleague's work on another persona is safe. Inside one design the later save wins, so agree who has it. When your copy goes stale, **Settings → Planning** offers **Reload**, which takes their version and drops what you have done since.
* **In the layout designer, nothing is saved until you press Save.** Leave through the **Planning settings** back link, which offers **Keep editing**, **Discard and leave** and **Save and leave**. Closing the tab loses the session.
* **Train new hires on the sample plan.** **See financial plan example** on the **Financial Planning** page opens a complete plan with no client data. It is fixed, so it will not reflect a settings change.
* **Use the thumbs when you read a plan in chat.** They sit in the plan's top bar in the chat view only, so open the plan in chat to send feedback. See [Anatomy of a plan](/guides/financial-planning/the-plan/anatomy-of-a-plan).

## Where to go next

* [Front-loading the brief](/guides/financial-planning/your-data/front-loading-the-brief)
* [Prompt library: Financial Planning](/resources/prompt-library/financial-planning)
* [Troubleshooting and FAQ](/guides/financial-planning/troubleshooting-and-faq)