Choosing an Outsourced Paraplanning Solution
There is plenty of competition in the outsourced paraplanning space at the moment.
Experienced financial planning professionals are embracing the flexible working opportunities of freelancing and there seems to be an increasing number of small outsourcing companies popping up on a regular basis. Advisers have never had as much choice!
Bluntly though, brush aside the branding, and you can see everyone is just offering the same "bespoke service" charged at an hourly rate. In this day and age, this should not be good enough, and here's why:
- As labour is charged per hour, you don't know how much your suitability report is going to cost.
- Similarly, asking when you can expect your report back is like asking "how long is a piece of string?" - how are you supposed to manage your clients' expectations!?
- If your freelancer's on holiday or unreachable for some reason, you lose all control and visibility of information until he/she returns.
Of course, the extent to which these drawbacks cause you problems depends on your perception of what makes a good service. You may not care about time, cost or visibility of information as long as the result is to your liking, and paying for the services of a chartered freelance paraplanner may well give you the peace of mind you need.
However, why should there be a compromise? Can you have control over costs and turnaround times and still be able to have confidence about getting an accurate suitability report? We believe you can.
Our purpose-built software is designed to guarantee that compliance requirements are always met regardless of the complexity of the advice. By utilising modern technology to handle this complexity, process efficiency is optimised and quality is ensured. It also means we can deliver consistently quickly and cost-effectively. The particular requirements of your firm can even be built into our systems, so your reports will be structured in keeping with your advice process and flow naturally for your clients.
We've taken this approach because it simply doesn't make sense any more to have humans do work that can be automated. Human intelligence is better put to work elsewhere, and this kind of process efficiency is at the heart of all that we do.
It can always be argued as to the importance of particular qualifications or an individual's experience, but, no matter how many letters there are after a person's name, there is still no guarantee that he/she has the eye for detail or eloquence needed to produce a quality financial planning report.
It's great to have lots of choice, but when nearly all the options are basically the same, think about what's valuable to you. If what you value chimes with what we value then you should seriously consider PowerPlanner as your outsourced paraplanning solution.