Back-office: Tips to take control

So, you’re a small practice wanting to look after your own back-office? Here are some tips to help you take total office control.

* Do a cost/benefit analysis

Work out which back-office services you are willing to do yourself, and then ascertain whether those services will require the attention of a full time or part time staff member. Compare that cost to that of outsourcing it to an external provider.

* Define your involvement

At the outset you need to define exactly what services you will be providing. For example, will you provide consolidated tax and income distribution reports, or leave that to the platform providers or fund managers? This depends on what level of involvement you think you need to provide the client with, and ultimately comes back to the terms of engagement at the start of the planner/client relationship.

* Be process driven

Make sure your systems are accurate and streamlined, and that your software is up-to-date. Everybody in the office needs to know how to use those systems, and be familiar with the process. Unless everybody understands and adheres to the same process, you will lose control.

* Employ the right people

Having the right person to run your system is very important. If you’ve got the wrong person doing the job it’s never going to work. You need to allow not only for software costs, but staff costs as well. Having the right people to make a system run efficiently means you’ve got to pay the appropriate salary too.