We get plenty of paraplanners asking about paraplanner training as there isn't any courses that offer specific training to help paraplanners gain experience in applying financial planning strategies to real-life scenarios. There are plenty of institutions offering RG146 training, such as Kaplan, but this training covers the building blocks only.

For paraplanners looking to work from home or build their career in an office, ongoing training and development is a must. It is for this reason that we're excited by a series of events that will be running in the UK. The events are run by PFS and include speakers such as Richard Allum from ParaPlanPlus providing contract paraplanning services to UK advisers.

Their topics will include:

I love the idea of a full day conference that offers training in SoA writing skills, paraplanner careers information and looking at the role of a paraplanner. I would especially like to see the development of sample Statement of Advice document writing skills to meet the growing demand of financial advisers. Keith from PFS has made a good move for the UK paraplanning industry.

Most advisers do a review of paraplanning services and look to mark them off in a few key areas, namely:

• Ability to produce compliant SoAs
• Ability to meet turnaround times
• Cost
• Personable technical paraplanner who is able to give some guidance and provide financial modelling
• Previous groups the paraplanner has worked for and their software experience

You may be looking for an alternative to the AMP Paraplanning Department or your MLC / NAB Paraplanning provider, you may be a PIS adviser looking to outsource your SoAs or a Commonwealth Bank-aligned adviser looking for a para planner to use COIN and complete your Statement of Advice and review SoAs quickly and compliantly. We set ourselves a high standard in terms of compliance, pricing and turnaround times to try to be the best. 

You might be looking for a para planner in Sydney, a Melbourne para planner or a growing number of Perth para planners in demand - come test out one of our para planners today and see if our high standards meet your needs.

What an exciting time to be working on contract paraplanning contracts! We're happy to say that we're getting a large number of advisers each day asking about how they can outsource their paraplanning. I can either see this as a compliment to our business or the building industry-wide acceptance of contract paraplanners working remotely in Australia. The trends that we're seeing are:

The increased pressure to deliver SoAs with a fast turnaround time has been great for our business. With a track record of 10 years of providing Statements of Advice in 5 business days, advisers love being able to get their "financial plan" delivered fast enough that the client remains engaged. Many dealer groups have been struggling to find on-site staff and provide training quickly and this has lead to many Australian financial advisers looking for Australian paraplanning services that can assist on a contract / freelance basis.

It is no secret that our paraplanning service runs lean and this leads to us being able to provide close to the lowest fees in the industry. Advisers aren't paying for excessive administration staff, sales people and other costs. They just pay for experienced paraplanners, working from home or their office, delivering quality Statement of Advice reports. We don't hide our fees or charge for faster turnaround times and have loved adviser feedback on how this is good for their business.

All I keep hearing from advisers is that they have tried outsourcing paraplanning and it didn't go well. Almost always the key factor is under-qualified paraplanners completing SoAs that aren't compliant. I sleep better at night knowing that our paraplanners are qualified, have more than 4 years experience and are experts in Xplan, COIN, Midwinter, Visiplan, ANG and other software programs.

All in all, it's an exciting month for us as we rely on our systems, our referrals from existing advisers and the standards we have in place to keep building quality Statement of Advice documents. Thank you for the support and your valuable feedback!

Rich Peterson