What is Quantum Professional Support?

What is Quantum Professional Support?

What is Quantum Professional Support, and can it help you?

Please give Chris Cleaver a call on 07 5532 9516 to discuss how Quantum Professional Support could assist your practice. 

Why was Quantum Professional Support started?

Many years ago, Nathan, Matthew and Chris were working for the same Financial Planning company, with Nathan and Matthew working as paraplanners and Chris as a Financial Adviser. After a few years, we went our separate ways. Nathan and Matthew started Quantum Paraplanning, and Chris continued as a Financial Adviser. 

However, we continued to meet for lunch every Friday and the same topics kept arising. Chris would complain about how long it took to put together a file, and Nathan and Matt would mention that not all files that came through to Quantum were fully ready for SoA construction, causing frustration for advisors and paraplanners alike. 

Over the weeks, we thought there must be a better way for files to be constructed and allow Financial Advisers more time to speak to their clients and generate new business opportunities. 

Given Nathan and Matthew’s Paraplanning experience and Chris’s experience as a Financial Planner, we felt we could create a model that could be the link between the advisers and SoA construction.

Quantum Professional Support was born. 

What does Quantum Professional Support do? 

We currently offer two service offerings 

· Pre-SoA Package 

· CSO 

Pre-SoA Package

During our conversations with advisers, we have established that speaking to and seeing clients for meetings is not the hard part about providing advice. The hard part is finding the time to write file notes, get up to date statements, formulate the advice, conduct the research, write the BID working paper, and submit to Paraplanning. 

This service offering provides a solution to the time-consuming work. Once the adviser has completed the Fact Find, written the file note and documented their initial strategy, this can be submitted to Quantum Professional Support. From there, we can complete the file and ensure it is ready for Paraplanning. 

As part of this service, we complete all research, product comparisons, quotes and supporting information. Thereafter, we will write the working paper on behalf of the adviser, leaving them with more time to service their client base and generate new business. 

The pricing for this service is a flat fee depending on the type of advice given, making it easy for it to be factored into the advice fees being charged the client, ensuring advisers do not need to be out of pocket. 

CSO Offering 

Throughout the COVID pandemic, businesses have had to adjust to working remotely. As part of this, businesses have become acutely aware of the additional costs associated with employing staff during times when generating and sustaining an income may be tougher than usual. The challenge of managing all of this can be intensified when staff take holidays, fall ill or if the business sees a sudden increased workload.  

The introduction of Annual Advice Agreements has made interacting with clients throughout the year and conducting reviews more important than ever. 

Quantum has launched a solution to help businesses who may need administrative support for a short period (to cover holidays or busy periods) or for a more sustained timeframe (potentially allowing your internal staff to be more interactive with your clients). 

We currently help businesses complete time-consuming admin tasks in relation to review meetings, where we: ring product providers to collect up to date information; gather certificates of currency; input information into XPlan; and, download an up-to-date Fact Find so that the adviser has all relevant information for their meeting. 

Other areas we assist is with more day-to-day tasks such as following up on insurance applications, super rollovers, change of address, checking annual advice agreements are implemented and in force. These types of tasks take up so much of your staff’s time, which could be better spent building a stronger relationship with your clients, rather than being on the phone to product providers. 

In conjunction with our Pre-SoA service, we can complete the Super / Pension / Investment application forms whilst our Paraplanning team is constructing the SoA, so that when you receive your SoA, your clients’ applications are pre-loaded, ready to submit, upon a successful SoA meeting. Thereafter, the adviser can hand the task back to Quantum to follow the application through to implementation, freeing the adviser up to move onto the next client.   

Can Quantum Professional Support help you?

For those businesses looking to expand and think they may need additional support staff or for those businesses who may need to replace a staff member, consider if it is possible to outsource some administrative tasks. 

Quantum is not employed by your practice, so there is no requirement to pay us if you do not provide work during slow times. There is also no obligation to provide a minimum amount on a weekly basis.

COVID has taught us we can work remotely and think differently about the standard office set-up. There be opportunity, as part of this, for Quantum to help save your practice in ongoing costs, whilst improving your efficiency.

Please give Chris Cleaver a call on 07 5532 9516 to discuss how Quantum Professional Support could assist your practice. 

Is it still possible to make a profit?

Is it still possible to make a profit?

During the last few years, the financial planning industry has gone through wholesale changes with many advisers leaving the industry.  According to AFR the supply of registered Financial Advisers is on track to be 50 per cent lower than before the Hayne Royal Commission in 2018, whilst the costs of providing advice has increased.

Despite fewer advisers the costs of being licensed has increased by 28% over the last few years to an average of $38,500 per adviser and indemnity insurance has increased to an estimated $6,000 per annum.  

There are many costs with running a Financial Planning Business not limited to licensing costs and indemnity insurance such as office, software and support staff which, depending on the location and requirements of the job are estimated to be $50,000 – $80,000 per annum, let alone the advisor taking an income. 

With the decline in advisers’ numbers and the uncertainty in the global economy it’s natural for there to be more work for those advisers who remain, however an increasing client base with increasing advice costs to cover the increased running costs does not always correlate to an increase in profit. 

However, there are areas that you can save costs and create efficiencies within the business to help create a profit margin. 

Through speaking to advisers, we have established that in most cases seeing clients is not the hard part, it’s completing the research and working papers preparing the file for paraplanning so they can present their advice. 

Of course, in some cases the adviser will have a CSO to help assist them which is costing them around $60,000 + Super plus holidays etc. This is additional money that needs to be paid even if there is no business being written or the adviser goes on holiday, which could put a strain on the business’s cash-flow. 

In cases where the adviser does not have a CSO to assist they will be spending time away from speaking to their clients to conduct their own research and complete their own files which is possibly not the best use of their time and could be better spent speaking with more clients, generating more business. 

Quantum Professional Support has a cost and time effective solution where we can complete the research, write the working paper and prepare the file for paraplanning on their behalf, allowing the adviser time to continue speaking to their clients and generate more business. 

Quantum Professional Support and Paraplanning works in the same way as an outsource solution where the adviser pays a set fee for the file to be completed which can be factored into the fees charged to their client ensuring they are not out of pocket and have no monthly obligation to pay.

If you would like a discussion around how this may work for you and your business, please call Chris on 07 5532 9516 or email chris@quantumsupport.com.au