In a post-regulatory environment, the worlds of accounting and financial planning are coming together. Accounting historically has had a view of looking at a client’s circumstances, with a predisposition to focusing on their history. Financial planning has historically been about the growth of the client’s wealth, taking into account their current circumstances and where they want to be in the future.
Bringing these perspectives together creates a unique opportunity for accountants. They’ve got the history, the understanding and trusted relationship with the client that allows them to work from a position of strength, knowledge and facts with regards to the client’s financial circumstances. As a consequence, they are in a great position to build out a good quality advice relationship with the client.
For accountants who are looking to get into advice, there are a couple of things to keep in mind. No later than 2016, but as early as 2013, the traditional world of accounting and their ability to provide strategic advice in relation to the creation of an SMSF is undergoing changes. If an accountant wants to expand their advice relationship with their client, then there are legal requirements that need to be met and accountants need to become licensed to do so.
For accounting businesses, there is a strategic competitive advantage in going early into this relationship, because it means they are at the forefront of the education requirements around provision of limited advice, on top of the requirements of their own profession today.
What should accountants be thinking about as they go down this road? First and foremost, they need to think about why they are choosing to do so. What is the value their business delivers to clients? If they are a multi-disciplined wealth business, then providing good quality strategic advice and good quality product execution capability will round out the traditional tax, audit and business services solutions that accounting practices provide.
If they are at single, non-aligned business, doing mum and dad accounting with some limited SMSF advice thrown in, then shifting to a holistic financial advice model will assist in rounding out the revenue streams of the businesses.
When I look at our client’s view of the world, our clients expect us to be technically qualified and to operate with the whole-of-client brief in mind. So an accountant that understands the client’s history, that has good quality education to help them keep technically up-to-speed as well as being licensed under the regime that the regulator is putting into place, will find themselves well placed to provide strategic advice in relation to SMSFs to expand their advice offering to clients and ultimately grow a good quality revenue stream and a good quality practice.
