AWMA study guide
AWMA · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The Accredited Wealth Management Advisor℠ (AWMA®) is a professional designation offered through the College for Financial Planning®, a Kaplan Company, which describes itself as the nation's premier provider for graduate-level financial planning education and lists the AWMA® among its professional certification programs. The College delivers its programs 100% online, on your schedule, with options that include Live Online classes with interactive learning or self-paced programs, and it states that learners study with qualified faculty. The College reports that its expert faculty hold more than 150 years of combined industry experience and notes its history as the creator of the CFP® mark and a pioneer in online education; it also describes itself as an HLC-accredited school. The credential is designed for financial professionals who want to deepen their wealth management expertise and advance their careers; the College positions its professional certifications as stackable, noting that professional certifications can be applied toward CFP® certification education or a master's degree. Topics on this exam: Wealth Management and Client Relationship and Practice Management. The AWMA study guide has 2 sections and about 745 words.
01Wealth Management: Planning, Portfolio Construction, and the Advisory Process
Wealth management questions test whether you can move from a client's facts to a defensible recommendation. Know the sequence: establish goals and constraints, gather quantitative and qualitative data, analyze gaps, recommend, implement, and monitor. Be fluent in the vocabulary of risk tolerance versus risk capacity (willingness versus ability to bear loss), time horizon, liquidity needs, and tax status. Understand the investment policy statement as the governing document that converts goals into permissible allocations, and know that it must be revisited after material life events, not merely on a calendar.
379 words, about 2 min02Client Relationship and Practice Management: Discovery, Communication, and Business Operations
Practice management questions test the business and behavioral side of advice. Understand the arc from prospecting and discovery through engagement, service delivery, review, and referral. Know how a client profile differs from a financial plan: the profile captures goals, attitudes, family circumstances, and behavioral biases; the plan is the technical solution. Be able to describe informed consent, scope-of-engagement documentation, and the importance of aligning service promises with actual capacity.
366 words, about 2 min