Accountants hitting roadblocks with SOAs
Some of the licensing providers are causing considerable hold-ups for SMSF accountants in relation to processing statements of advice, according to an automated advice provider.
Speaking to SMSF Adviser, ASAP Advice chief executive Jim Hennington said some of the SMSF firms providing advice have said that in some cases it takes several weeks just to get a statement of advice out to a client because it has to go through various compliance checks by the licensee provider, which is resulting in long delays.
“That’s causing huge frustration [and] it can cause difficulties in managing client expectations and deadlines,” said Mr Hennington.
Another problem raised by some of the accounting firms licensed under dealer groups that he’s spoken to, is the time it takes them to write a statement of advice, he said.
“The feedback that we’re hearing is it can take a very long time to write a statement of advice, and part of that is the templates aren’t always specific to what the client is actually doing and part of it is that each client scenario is different,” he said.
“So it does take a lot of time to mould a template into giving the exact advice that fits each client scenario, which is a non-trivial process.”
Miranda Brownlee
Miranda Brownlee is the deputy editor of SMSF Adviser, which is the leading source of news, strategy and educational content for professionals working in the SMSF sector.
Since joining the team in 2014, Miranda has been responsible for breaking some of the biggest superannuation stories in Australia, and has reported extensively on technical strategy and legislative updates.
Miranda also has broad business and financial services reporting experience, having written for titles including Investor Daily, ifa and Accountants Daily.
