How do you maintain suitability report templates
bambi
Member
Hi everyone,
For those of you that have set up Suitability Report templates in Word... How do you maintain these?
How do you stay on top of all the provider and regulatory changes to ensure your templates are always up to date?
Are there companies out there that provide this service? I.e they take responsibility of keeping your templates up to date. If yes please share!
Many thanks
Bambi
For those of you that have set up Suitability Report templates in Word... How do you maintain these?
How do you stay on top of all the provider and regulatory changes to ensure your templates are always up to date?
Are there companies out there that provide this service? I.e they take responsibility of keeping your templates up to date. If yes please share!
Many thanks
Bambi
Comments
I look after all of this for our firm.
I have a series of report templates for different scenarios. These are primarily of structure in nature rather than having words in them, apart from standard introductions etc.
Within these reports, we have points at which "standard" paragraphs / text are to be inserted.
I then have a stock of "standard paragraphs" saved as different word documents e.g. risk profile definitions; explanation of LPAs; Taxation paragraphs etc.
So I review the report templates from time to time for style, order of topics etc, layout design as and when we get feedback from clients / advisers.
The standard paragraphs are then updated in line with changes in regulation, legislation or anything else.
I am, however, very wary of having standard provider specific paragraphs. It is all too easy to fall into the trap of having a provider product or fund description as a standard paragraph and be using wording which has been changed (sometimes significantly) by the fund manager / provider. By having to go back to the original source material each time (whilst I accept is slightly time consuming) does avoid using out of date wording.
Having said that we do not, in the main, write any provider / product / fund specific information in our advice reports on the grounds that this is provided in any regulatory documentation provided to clients. Don't spend time repeating in a client report what is provided elsewhere.
Generic description of how a product works (eg onshore bond assignment; tax relief on pension contributions) can be provided by standard paragraphs; again, we would only sue these things for new / inexperienced investors.
There is no easy solution to keeping up to date with the changes you need to make; its a key part of the job unless you outsource it all and I'm not sure you can without relying solely on templates / info provided by an external compliance firm such as 360 / SImply Biz and to be fair I've never beeen hugely impressed by what these firms actually provide in their templates, although they can be a reasonable place to start.
We take a similar approach to @richardgough ;
We do have some support in the form of basic templates provided by our network but they are poorly written, illogically laid out and full of jargon.
Essentially I therefore have to re-write them.
I create the structure or skeleton, regularly review standard paragraphs for changes in legislation and use referral to appendix of provider literature for product specific info.
Client specific areas (i.e. goals, how solution meets needs etc) are left free text and clearly marked as such for completion tailored to the client.
In my experience, paraplanners' standards, relative to others in the business, are high. Too high sometimes. If the firm's standards are lower than yours, then the time you spend making up the difference can be perceived, by some, as wasteful. This is amplified when the volume of output that the firm expects (or, perhaps, the adviser you paraplan for at the firm) isn't being met.
So, if you and your firm's standards are higher, and aligned, then go for it. You will be on the winning side when those who complain you are wasting time make their case. But you'll be employed to provide the standards expected by the firm across a number of KPIs, of which quality is only one. You need to get the balance right and it isn't always easy.
You'll also have to accept that, to most firms, greater volume at the required quality is more desirable than the same volume at a higher quality (where the price is the same). Indeed, a reduction in quality to the minimum in order to drive up volume is often the target operating model!
I appreciate your replies, thank you.
I did think it was a case of managing templates myself, just wanted to be sure there isn't a better way out there that I didn't know about.
I like the suggestion about not adding provider/product/fund specific information in...something I will keep in mind!
Thanks
The other two options still require a lot of input from us and it means we would have to compromise on style. Doing them ourselves may well require more work initially, but they should fit our MO better.