Look at the finished example first
The welcome card on the Financial Planning page carries See financial plan example, a finished plan built on a made-up family. A six-callout tour runs on first open, and Take the tour at the top replays it. If your own plans have replaced that card, Sample household data in the New financial plan flow opens the same plan. Almost everything works: click through the sections and the tabs inside Getting there, move a lever to watch the numbers respond, open the Appendix, and select a figure for the panel behind it, headed How this was calculated where there is arithmetic to show. What does not: Approve and Ignore are grayed out, the question cards take no answer, and there is no editing, version history or PDF download.The three entry points
A plan belongs to whoever built it, so build the plan you are going to present: a colleague with full access to the household still cannot open yours. See Access and availability.
From a household
Best with a client in front of you. The Financial Planning tab opens on a readiness list headed Financial Plan document readiness, and nothing on it blocks a build. It checks Accounts & Holdings, Calendar, Tax documents, Uploaded documents, Meetings & transcripts, CRM, Email and Business valuation. Rows read a tick, Incomplete, Missing, Loading… while a check runs, or unavailable where Hazel could not reach the source. Calendar, CRM and Email are about your own setup, so Missing names what is absent, such as no mailbox connected; connect that tool to Hazel to clear it. Calendar reads Incomplete when it is connected but nothing is booked. See Integrations. Business valuation is shown whatever the household owns, and Missing means the plan labels the figure as an assumption. Seven of the eight decide your card, Business valuation aside:- Complete on all seven: Ready to build, summarizing what Hazel has to draw on.
- Short on any: Begin right away, naming what is connected and what is missing, beside a Prepare data card for uploading documents onto the household and drafting an email asking the client for the rest.
From the Financial Planning page
Best for a first plan or a book of clients: this route runs from no data to a finished plan. It opens from Draft a plan on the welcome card, or New financial plan once you have a plan of your own.1
Choose your data source
Three cards: From my CRM, Manual entry and Sample household data.From my CRM leads to Choose your CRM: Salesforce, HubSpot, Wealthbox or Redtail. If Hazel already holds clients you go straight to your client list and can build now; if not, Your CRM is connected says the import is running, usually five to ten minutes, with Done to leave while it does. The manual route stays open.HubSpot takes one extra step, headed One more step in Settings: choose which records Hazel should import, and the first sync starts when you save.
2
Say who the plan is for
Pick a client, or create one. On the manual route the client comes before the documents, so the button reads Continue and uploading is next. On the CRM route the data is already in Hazel, so this is the last step: Draft financial plan starts the build.A client whose record has no contacts on it cannot take documents, so if the button will not enable, add a contact first.
3
Upload documents
Hazel asks for brokerage and custodian statements as PDFs, and recent tax returns (Form 1040). Files are read as they arrive, a few minutes each, and Draft financial plan stays unavailable until at least one has been read. Close the flow and come back while Hazel reads. If nothing could be read, the step says so and you will need a different document.
The page is also your list of plans
Once you have built something, the welcome card gives way to a table of your plans, and selecting a row opens that household’s Financial Planning tab. Ready to review means the plan has published a version you can open; Draft in progress means it has not, because Hazel is still building or a build stopped part way. If a row has sat there a while, open it.From Ask Hazel
Best when planning comes up mid-conversation. Chat starts a plan only in Financial Planning mode. On a new chat’s start screen, choose it on the segmented control under the message box, alongside Ask and Tax Planning. A chat keeps the mode it started in, so switch before your first message. Say what you want before Hazel starts, rather than correcting the draft:What happens during a build
A three-segment rail marks progress, Reading files, then Clarifying points, then Writing plan.
When it publishes, the card reads Your plan is ready, with a View plan button.
The card carrying Draft financial plan estimates 5-15 min, though a household with a lot of documents can run past twenty minutes: the badge estimates time left, then reads Taking longer than usual once a build is over budget.
The questions step
Hazel pauses part way through to ask a few things the documents did not settle. On the household’s Financial Planning tab an unanswered question falls back to a reasonable assumption after thirty seconds, and hovering or focusing the card pauses that countdown. The badge reads Waiting for answer, over a line naming what Hazel has read so far, or a count such as Question 2 of 4. Questions come one at a time: answer, or press Skip this one or the pill labeled Make reasonable assumption, which doubles as the countdown to it. A build started in Ask Hazel never answers its own questions: they arrive in the chat itself, with no countdown and a plain Skip, so if a chat build looks stalled, go back to that chat and look for the question card.While it runs
- Leave the page. A banner on every tab of the household says Hazel is drafting the plan.
- Listen for the chime. Hazel plays a short sound when the plan publishes, wherever you are inside Hazel, though not while you are watching the build. The speaker icon on the Financial Planning tab mutes it, and Hazel has to be open in a tab to hear it.
If the build does not finish
A build that stops before it publishes leaves no version behind, so the household and any plan you have are untouched. The tab says Build didn’t finish and offers two ways on.- Try again continues from the documents Hazel already read and the questions you answered, so reach for it first.
- Start over discards the attempt and returns you to the readiness list, for when you would rather add more data.
While a build runs, the Financial Planning tab shows its progress in place of the Draft financial plan button, so you cannot start a second build for the same household by accident. Once it lands, ask for changes in the plan’s chat, or press Regenerate in the tab’s top bar to refresh it from the household’s latest information.
The first five minutes with a new plan
1
Read the Plan orientation brief
The info button at the top of the plan opens Plan orientation, a short read on what the plan concludes and why. Not every version has one; where there is none the button is absent.
2
Check which Client persona was used
The Persona row of the Applied settings block in the plan’s Appendix names it, and the Financial Planning page repeats it in its Persona applied column. None, or a dash on the page, means your firm’s base template alone. If it is wrong for this family, say so in the plan’s chat and ask for a new version. See Client personas.
3
Spot-check a few numbers
Figures Hazel can source carry a dotted underline and open a panel with where they came from. Check the number the summary leads with, one balance and one income figure. See Where numbers come from.
4
Move a lever
The plan works the numbers out again while you watch. Dials Hazel cannot recompute in the browser render no control at all, so ask in the plan’s chat instead. See Levers and scenarios.
5
Ask for one change
Reading the plan in chat, Edit at the top (tooltip: Ask Hazel to change this plan) opens the conversation with Hazel. On the household’s Financial Planning tab there is no Edit button, and Open chat in the top bar goes to the same conversation. Either way the reply comes back as a new version.Prose you rewrite and assumptions you queue are different: they collect in a bar at the bottom of the plan and become a version only when you press Save. See Editing a plan directly.
Where to go next
- Anatomy of a plan
- Front-loading the brief: a sharper first draft.
- Versions and regenerating
- Sharing and delivering
- Planning settings: for firm owners.
- Troubleshooting and FAQ