If you tuned in to our myprosperity@home series through the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, you would have heard first hand from the accountants and advisers we spoke with about how they were supporting clients in dealing with mental health issues. It stands to reason that advisers will be at the front line of this issue when economic pain is felt and it is often SMEs that cop the brunt of that pain.

Andrew Conway, CEO of IPA, has been a vocal proponent on this subject for some time. In fact, the IPA put out research back in November 2017 indicating 68 per cent of small businesses said that they are “significantly stressed,” and 69 per cent said that their small business is the primary reason for this stress. It’s fair to say that mental health issues amongst SMEs has been a long standing concern which has been exacerbated by the recent pandemic.

Other key players in the advice industry have also gotten behind this cause, for example Xero last month announced a partnership with Beyond Blue in Australia to develop a course that helps advisors understand different ways to care for the mental wellbeing of their clients and themselves. The four-part course covers everything from looking after yourself at home, checking on others to supporting small businesses day to day. It’s now available and free for Xero partners in Australia via Xero Central.

Back to the IPA Survey, 85 per cent of small businesses found engaging an accountant significantly reduced their stress levels. Andrew Conway also noted in a speech he delivered in 2018 that “early studies show that when a small business client engages with their accountant, 95 per cent of them feel a relief in their stress levels,” he said. “We also know that people will turn to their accountant for advice well beyond compliance and audit requirements; this is the power of trust that is divested to us, and one which we must respect and live up to,” he said. It is clear that the advice industry can make a huge impact on this important challenge facing the heart and soul of our economic engine, the SME sector.

So it was welcomed news to see that the government has announced an investment of $2.4M to help train accountants in dealing with mental health issues among their clients. It was reported in Accountants Daily this week that the Department of Innovation, Science, Energy and Resources (DISER) has awarded the IPA-Deakin SME Research Centre a $2.24 million grant for its Supporting Small Business Advisors for Better Mental Health project to train 5,000 accountants by 2022.

The grant will help fund the rollout of a sector-wide continuous professional development program for accountants and will be delivered by Chartered Accountants Australia New Zealand (CA ANZ), CPA Australia and the Institute of Public Accountants (IPA).

Firm snapshot

Revenue: $10-20M

Clients: 500-1,000

Staff: 21-40

Services: Investment Management, Asset Allocation Services, Cash flow & Budgeting Management, Superannuation & Retirement Planning, Retirement Income Streams, Self-Managed Super Funds (SMSF), Estate Planning & Asset Protection, Tax Planning, Accounting.

Tech stack: myprosperity, AdviserLogic, Xero Practice Manager, Class Super, Lonsec, Iress Knowledge Centre, MailChimp.

Top 5 areas of focus in your business? 1) Making the complex simple for clients and staff, 2) Delivering value with excellence 3) maintaining ethical and professional standards 4) running a lean and efficient practice 4) Using technology to provide an inclusive, lifetime accuracy and reliable client interface.

Much is written about how to grow your practice, how to scale using technology to provide personalised advice to more clients.

Not much is written about those who are happy with where they’re at. Exploring reasons not to grow but rather maintain their client base and the services they currently provide.

That’s what Integral Private Wealth’s Director, David Simon is doing. David has little interest in growing or expanding his practice. In fact, he is quite clear that he’s more interested in his existing clients and ensuring he is delivering clear value and earning the business from both his current and future generations of clients.

“Our clients have high expectations and our approach is to go very deep and detailed into their financial affairs and take a truly holistic view of our clients,” he said.

Boasting a pure advice play with a focus on high net worth clients, Simon is committed to turning his clients into “raving fans” with an unwavering focus on client outcomes. Any new clients have always been generated through word of mouth, but he admits that these days he is very selective about who he takes on due to the enormous amount of time he invests to really get to know a client.

“myprosperity has become a vital element in how we engage and get to truly understand our clients. It effectively takes our Statement of Advice (SOA), which is invariably filed away after signing, and makes it a live and transparent plan for our clients,” Simon said.

Implementing myprosperity several years ago, Simon says the platform helps his firm better understand the customer, serve their best interests and embrace a fee-for-service model.

Determined to build a commission free advice business, Integral Private Wealth was founded on three advice packages as a flat fee for service, two of which have myprosperity bundled as part of the service to the client.

One of the benefits Simon experienced when moving to myprosperity was the ability to have a single source of truth on the financial position of clients and having the platform automatically maintain the data via live feeds. This has led to some positive unintended consequences with increased efficiencies achieved in how advisers within the firm are able to prepare for client meetings.

“In the past it would take us 5 hours to gather all the data on a client in preparation for an annual review. For the clients on myprosperity the preparation has been eliminated. In fact, we often get comments from our clients that we know their financial situation better than they do which is exactly where you want to be as an adviser,” he said.

The future is bright for Simon and the team at Integral Private Wealth as they continue to embrace new innovations that are being made available in myprosperity. In particular, recent changes to the client wealth portal and the mobile app are making a difference.

“We recently undertook to have myprosperity build our own branded app and we are delighted with the client engagement that it has delivered. The customer interface is impeccably clean and easy to navigate which makes for a far better client experience and helps to reinforce our brand as a digitally progressive advice firm,” he said.

Revenue: $20M+

Clients: 2,000+

Staff: 150+

Services: Accounting, Digital, Law, Private Wealth, Placemaking, Data Intelligence, Finance, Insurance, Tax and SMSF

Tech Stack: myprosperity, APS, XPlan, Infinity Law, Podium (Insurance), WorkflowMax, Class Super, Mason Stevens, Xeppo, Hubspot, Asana, Microsoft and DocuSign

Top 3 areas of focus in your business? Increase revenue; Increase efficiencies; Improved Client Engagement

When you step inside the offices of BlueRock in La Trobe Street, Melbourne it feels more like you are walking into a digital agency than an accounting firm. Proud of their unconventional accounting image and funky brand, BlueRock has grown to become one of the most admired multidisciplinary firms in the country, with a huge focus on technology to help them achieve their rapid growth.

“We concluded that it is about deeply understanding the client, delivering a multitude of valuable and specialised services and in a way that creates an amazing customer experience. To enable that, technology and innovation need to be at the very core.”

Dean Godfrey, Chief Operating Officer, joined BlueRock in 2015 and immediately set about understanding how an advice firm of today should operate. “We know in the world of accounting that many services are becoming a turnkey solution. As aspects of advice became more of a commodity, we needed to focus on the things that will provide real value to clients and differentiate our service.”

The objective was to break down silos and facilitate collaboration across the 11 different divisions units that make up their comprehensive service lines. myprosperity was chosen to provide visibility of the whole-of-wealth picture across their client base so that all advisers, regardless of division, could gain a deeper insight into the client and determine how they can offer the right mix of services to meet their needs.

“Collaboration is key — and technology plays a vital role in enabling that. Ultimately myprosperity facilitates engagement and visibility across the business, so we can better support clients and leads to internal referrals that generate additional services.”

myprosperity plays a key role in many aspects of the client engagement journey, from client onboarding using digital forms through to client meetings and even the mobile experience. “Tech touches all parts of our lives, so as an advisory firm if you don’t understand or have visibility of how technology can impact people’s lives, you are well behind the eight ball.” For BlueRock, providing clients with great technology is a big part of the brand experience.

“The myprosperity app is slick, which gives us confidence in providing a mobile experience that we can be proud of. It puts everything in one place for the client and offers peace of mind.”

BlueRock has been on a journey to leverage technology throughout the business. “We knew from day one that we wanted to be a technology-led firm. We are constantly looking at every process and how we can do things in a more streamlined way, and technology is a key enabler of that.” A big part of Dean’s role involves identifying opportunities that drive automation across the business. His tip for successful implementation of new technology or processes is that the right change management processes be in place. “You can’t just implement a piece of software and walk away hoping that people adopt it within the company. You need a champion in each business unit who buys into the positive impact of what you are trying to achieve and who will take ownership of its success.” To help achieve this Dean hired a Project Implementation Officer who works across the various divisions to ensure the successful implementation of various software and automation projects.

#Aboutlastnight. In case you missed it, the inaugural Finnies Awards was held as a virtual black-tie event and live streamed from Fintech Australia’s Melbourne HQ. As it happened it was also an inaugural day for all Melbournians, as the ease of restrictions came into full effect, so spirits were flying high. Many months of planning meant that most award registrants received a care package with lots of goodies to share amongst those celebrating at home. Finalists were encouraged to dress for the occasion and post photos to their socials with hashtag #Finnies2020 and #FinniesAwards. And from what we could see, the anticipation was greater than ever with no shortage of excited smiles and gracious wishes amongst finalists.

We’d like to take this opportunity to thank Fintech Australia for recognising the contribution of all the finalists who continue to innovate and grow the industry. We realise the judges were faced with some tough decisions after arriving at 134 finalists across 19 categories.

“We are thrilled with the quality of applications and the finalists, which are a testament of the growth, and strength of the fintech ecosystem. We are excited to celebrate the hard fought achievements of the ecosystem at this year’s Finnies” said FinTech Australia CEO, Rebecca Schot-Guppy.

At then the time had come, the moment everyone at myprosperity had been waiting for did not disappoint. Emotions were at an all-time high when myprosperity was announced the winner of Excellence in Wealth Management for the third year in a row, making it a hat trick! The dedicated team behind the platform were simply ecstatic and so proud of their achievements and recognition for their tireless work in reimagining the tiresome paper form.

“I’m really proud of the team and everything we’ve achieved, particularly over the last year in launching a world-first technology around digital forms. Being able to take any form and build an online digital experience that’s underpinned by live data feeds is revolutionary. We’ve had an explosive uptake from firms, who have said what a change it’s made to their business. It’s really fantastic to be able to support the industry through this.” CEO Stephen Jackel said on acceptance of the award.

We’d like to congratulate all the nominees for the Excellence in Wealth Management category, a truly inspiring list of companies mentioned in Startup Daily’s account of the night.

Until next year, we know what we’ll be doing – continuing to improve, innovate and deliver the best possible platform technology to help our partners and their clients achieve financial success.

Revenue: $10-20M
Clients: 2,000+
Staff: 41-60
Services: Wealth Creation, Taxation and Financial Reporting, Risk Protection, Banking & Finance, Superannuation Services (including SMSF) and Estate Planning
Tech Stack: myprosperity, Xero Practice Manager, XPlan, Salesforce, Class Super, Macquarie Wrap, BT Panorama, FeeSynergy & Zoom
Top 5 areas of focus in your business? Increase Revenue; Increase Efficiencies; Improved Client Engagement

After what has been an uncertain and tumultuous time in the financial planning sector, it’s understandable that many advisors would be somewhat cautious when it comes to looking ahead.

However, speaking with Daniel Stefanetti, Director and Partner at Grimsey Wealth, he’s optimistic about the future of our sector and the outlook for his firm which has grown to service 2000+ clients, employ about 60 people and open offices in both Sydney and Melbourne.

“Our focus right now is definitely on growth. Whilst the economy is going through tough times and there is a lot of pessimism about this period of low interest rates, with the right advice there is an enormous amount of wealth that we can create for our clients over the next two decades.”

Specialising in creating wealth for clients in the medical profession, the team at Grimsey has recently focused on deploying technology to establish practice efficiencies that streamline compliance and administrative tasks. Of late that focus has shifted to scaling the advice business to maximise growth opportunities. Grimsey was one of the early advice firms to move to myprosperity and over the past year the strategic importance of the software platform has been elevated to underpin their plans for growth.

“myprosperity is now the single most critical technology platform in our business to achieve growth and our strategy is to have 100% of clients using it” Stefanetti said, adding his team uses the wealth platform to onboard clients and ensure advisers receive updates on all assets and liabilities.

Previously, advisers would use spreadsheets to achieve this and would continually have to revisit these to keep information updated.

“Often a client would sell a property or pay down debt and we wouldn’t know about it. myprosperity allows us to know what is happening in their financial world, which is critical for us in demonstrating that we actually know our customer.”

Daniel recalls how previously he would have a 40 minute meeting with clients and spend most of it capturing and filling out data.

“Clients don’t want us to waste their time or ours. So, our stance today is that software must do the heavy lifting and give us back time to do what our clients want.”

In recent months Grimsey has started using the digital forms feature in myprosperity to provide clients with an online tax checklist. Grimsey now have approximately one-third of their client base using this checklist and have mandated its use across all their accountants and clients. The result has meant that about 90% of the data profiled against each client is captured once and does not have to be re-entered elsewhere through the client engagement process.

Grimsey is also actively rolling out digital document signing, a feature of the myprosperity platform that will help deliver further efficiencies to their advisers and clients they serve. Given the mobile nature of their largely medical client base, Grimsey has recently introduced its own branded myprosperity mobile app for the convenience of all clients to access their wealth portal on the move. For Stefanetti, this amplifies the digital experience that is so important for servicing their clients, particularly the younger cohorts who expect this type of capability from their advisers.

“As we embrace the whole shift to digital advice, we need to ensure we can arm our advisers with the technology that delivers a great experience, including mobile. Our business is advice, so we need to partner with the right technology providers to help us do what we do best. myprosperity is a big part of enabling us to do just that.”

As the Royal Commission has ushered in the need for increased compliance to ensure advisers are acting in the best interests of their clients, it has accelerated a move to a fee for service model and increased costs in delivering advice. The unintended consequence of this shift is that financial advice is becoming increasingly out of reach to many middle class Australians. This is a big dilemma for the industry and we are seeing some real challenges from the attempts to achieve two outcomes. On one hand is to develop an affordable advice model, on the other is that it also ticks all the compliance boxes. It should be possible to do both and there’s strong evidence to show that technology is the answer to achieving just that.

When the economy went into lockdown earlier this year, we saw an immediate response by ASIC to temporarily suspend various red tape requirements for financial advisers and superannuation funds, in an effort to assist them in providing “affordable and timely” advice to consumers affected by coronavirus. Measures included removing the requirement for financial advisers to prepare a “statement of advice” document to clients when providing advice about early access to super. Since then the debate has raged over whether this was a step too far by the Federal Government in allowing people to raid their superannuation savings well before retirement. There was also a recent decision to lift lending restrictions, in what many believe to be a misguided effort to give consumers and small businesses access to capital. Plenty of unintended consequences to unpack in that one. Regardless of your view on these controversial policy decisions by the government, it has opened up a dialogue about how the industry could do more to support limited advice solutions.

There was an article in the ifa last week about further measures by ASIC to support this initiative, all with the intention of making advice more affordable to the many Australians who desperately need it. In the article, Kate Metz, ASIC senior executive for financial advisers, suggested that the regulator itself was openly encouraging limited or scaled advice but then seemingly pointed the finger at the advice industry for not embracing this approach. I’m not sure that is a fair assessment on where most advisers see things, but I would agree with her comments that better communication with industry participants (and collaboration) would be helpful.

So what could ASIC, in conjunction with the industry bodies, do to help make progress here? Again, I think technology holds the answer. For starters, we need to find ways to remove the inefficiencies in the advice industry, so that consumers aren’t paying for the things they shouldn’t have to such as administration, compliance and back-end systems. Compliance is not going to go away but there are some efficiencies needed to bring costs down. This point has been well articulated recently by Dante De Gore, CEO of FPA. He advocates the adoption of technology and in particular, open access to data to allow advisers to perform their advice function more efficiently. Acting in a client’s best interest starts with knowing the client and understanding their financial situation. And for many advisers, too much time is spent running around trying to collect the data to solve that very problem. myprosperity solves that issue and we will see continued improvement in efficient access to data as the government embraces the Consumer Data Right movement. There has also been recent commentary from Jane Hume, Assistant Minister for Superannuation and Financial Services, about wanting to see regulators provide the “compliance green light” on robo-advice and algorithms used in advice technologies that can augment and streamline the advice process.

The bottomline is that governments will continue to make policy decisions they believe will support large cohorts of the population, and appease their many constituents but they may not always consider the impact on the advice industry. What we have to do as an industry is find ways to be more efficient through technology and ensure that we are in the best position to focus on the client needs, no matter what the regulators, government or global health situation throws our way.