Yes.  We have a legal duty to act in utmost good faith and loyalty and to put our client's interests above our own.  Not all advisors have a fiduciary duty, and some of those that do may only be “part-time” or “limited” fiduciaries.  We are full-time 100% fiduciaries.  

Many of our Advisors hold the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ credential among other certifications.  This is important, but even more important is our years of experience helping people grow and plan for their future.

Yes. Fee-Only is an industry term that means we are only compensated by the advisory fee we charge.  We do not sell products.  We do not earn commissions, sales incentives, fund fees, or get “kickbacks” from anyone.

Yes.  We levy an asset-based fee which is a % of the value of the accounts we manage, and our minimum managed household size is $500,000. We can make exceptions, especially for high-income professionals who are saving quickly and already have $250,000. 

No.  We do not.  We provide financial planning to our wealth management clients, but not as a stand-alone service.  If you want financial planning only, feel free to call our office for references, and/or try these: Garrett Planning Network or XY Planning Network.  

We levy an asset based fee percentage based on the value of the household invested assets.  We have a standard fee schedule that is 1.50% on the first $250,000, but ratchets down as the Household size rises.  You should assume you’d fall in the 1.50% to 0.50% range.  That is the only way we are compensated.

Many financial advisors claim to be comprehensive, relational, and focused, with polished websites and impressive credentials. While we embody these qualities, we go further by prioritizing our Core Values, fostering a friendly and approachable environment, and working as a true team where every voice matters. We proactively streamline intensive service needs to make your financial journey easier, ensuring that you always have direct access to us.

Our investment approach minimizes expenses and simplifies your strategy so you can focus on living your best life. We repair "broken" portfolios, implement disciplined rebalancing, optimize cash, manage tax-efficient strategies, and help protect against common investor mistakes. Beyond planning, execution is key—we don’t just hand you a 50-page financial plan; we help you simplify, implement, and refine it. From tax planning to identifying hidden risks, we provide clarity and confidence, ensuring you stay on track without the fear of running out of money.

We do manage investment accounts, but our true value is found in our objective advice, financial planning, high-touch service, and in navigating through market-economic-life turmoil.

You may be able to handle all of this on your own.  If so, we are not a fit for you.  We do find that DIY investors who are aging find great value in delegating this to a trusted Advisor who will help and advise the healthy and/or surviving spouse in the event that the financial decision maker’s capacity is diminished or they pass away.  We also find that DIY investors value their time and want to delegate their worries to a professional.  

Yes.  We pride ourselves on cultivating healthy professional relationships with attorneys, accountants, life insurance agents, health insurance agents, real estate agents, lenders, and other financial advisors in our community.  We all want you to be taken care of, not taken advantage of.

We provide boutique high touch service, advice, and financial planning.  As such, we can’t work with everyone and not everyone wants to or needs to work with us.  We have minimums, but we also want to make sure we are a personal/financial fit.  If not, we’d be happy to refer you to the right professional who can help.

We like removing conflicts of interest and we believe this helps accomplish that.  Historically, advisors would use a wrap fee to create two fees for the client.  One would be the advisory fee and the second would be a wrap fee that was an additional fee to cover trading costs.  We don’t operate like that.  We have a wrap fee arrangement with Charles Schwab, but we pay the fee on behalf of our clients instead of passing it on.  That way we can buy institutional share class mutual funds without our clients being charged any trading costs.  Our investment philosophy is centered around minimizing investment expenses, so we like using the cheapest funds possible, which sometimes have trading costs. When these occur, we pay them for our clients.

We primarily use Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) for their low expenses, transparency, tax efficiency, and flexibility.  We can use money market funds and Certificates of Deposit when needed.  We can buy individual stocks and bonds on special occasions. 

This is an option for those who want to incorporate your values with your investments.  We don’t think Sustainable Investing is perfect, but it can help align your wealth with your principles.  We take this seriously.

Almost always, Yes.  There can be exceptions.  We use Pontera to securely manage outside employer retirement plan accounts.  It does require that you have a brokerage account to pay the advisory fee from.  For example, we have numerous clients who worth for their local/state government in some capacity.  We deal with PERS/TERS/SERS/LEOFF and other state plans all the time.  The Deferred Comp and Defined Contribution plans can be managed at Skyline Advisors.  Your 401k plan can likely be managed at Skyline Advisors.  This is great because your plan can be consolidated and executed all at Skyline Advisors.  This service does cost us money and we levy our advisory fee to compensate for this.

We are a Team.  We all share ideas and experiences and collaborate on behalf of all of our clients.  Some Advisors operate as “silos” and compete against each other in their own office!  We don’t do that.  We also empower our front office employees to have personal and professional growth and opportunities to help better serve our clients and find fulfillment.  

We typically hold client accounts at Charles Schwab Advisor Services.  They act as third party independent custodian of your accounts.  They don’t manage them, we do.  We don’t hold them, they do.  This provides an independent accounting of your financial investments.

We use Charles Schwab as a third party custodian to provide a higher level of security for our client accounts.  When a client opens an account with us, they are actually opening an account at Charles Schwab, and then you give us authority to execute trades in your account, deduct our advisory fees in your account, and execute your pre-arranged move money requests.  That’s the only authority we have.  Charles Schwab has security in place to protect your assets.

Skyline Advisors also has a policies and procedures, a cybersecurity/IT program, a business continuity program, and internal oversight/accountability on business controls and practices.  We stake our reputation on our client security, but clients should be vigilant against fraud and scams.  

We are independently owned and operated in Bellingham, Washington.  We have no parent firm or affiliation.  You know who the decision makers are and have access to them.