Faster SOAs thanks to technology
Technology is cutting the time taken to produce single issue statements of advice (SOA) from hours to just minutes, according to Provisio Technologies (Provisio).
A recent technology report by Investments Trends found the average time for financial planners to produce a SOA was six hours and 42 minutes, but Provisio director Cameron O'Sullivan said there was no need to afford such a significant amount of time after a fact-find has already been conducted.
"The superannuation funds are an interesting case study here, and it's important to remember that most super funds are using the same defined scope framework that retail advisors use," he said.
"Under defined scope, super funds are able to produce SOAs within minutes of completing the fact-find by using technology available to any planner."
O'Sullivan said a key development in planning software was the ability to complete a SOA while in conversation with a client. By allowing advisers to engage the client via a SOA template from the beginning of the advice process, a range of different scenarios can be added and removed based on the client's needs, reducing the need to manually edit statements later on, he said.
"Planners shouldn't be in a situation where only higher value clients are profitable, but if SOAs take six plus hours to produce they don't have much choice.
"But the technology is available to dramatically reduce SOA demands and therefore dramatically lower the cost of advice per client," O'Sullivan said.
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