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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.
Welcome to the stressful world a financial planner has had to live in for the last 25 years. At least there are templates and examples now. Years ago we had to create them from scratch with few examples and a very long list of what needs to be in there and the severe consequences if it is not. I do think that the rules should be relaxed for people who have written more than a 1,000 without any issues but truly believe that newly licensed people need a way to ensure that they have considered all the issues as I have numerous examples of advice given with horrid consequences to the client but without a written advice document the adviser/accountant walk away scot free.0- Hahaha.
Well yeah, welcome to financial planning... How did you think it worked? Every client was exactly the same and handed the same SOA template with the name changed? Get a grip, seriously.0 - Welcome AFSL Accountants to the wonderfully over regulated world of financial advice and all the masses of burdensome compliance that come with it.
Money for Jam job this financial advice game...... ha ?
Maybe not as easy as all accountants thought if they actually do all the AFSL compliance.0- yes well i suppose the Storm Financial and Guvera rip-offs prove that regulation of financial planners and accountants, respectively, can't prevent dodgy practitioners from lining their own pockets at the expense of their clients0
- Bathsheeba, the majority of the Guvera clients I come across were recommended by their accountant and whilst I am sure the accountants all believed that the investment was worthwhile (I can't understand why because it was always a dog but that is another argument) the holidays and payments may have had some impact. At least Storm clients had access to a reasonable compensation system compared to those with Guvera and the mortgage funds which were linked to accountants. This is the major benefit of the changes, which is yet to be fully appreciated in my view. I will however agree that realistically an SOA and a job title doesn't impact upon ethics and integrity.0
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