Expansion of digital advice driving shift in accounting industry, says moneyGPS

Fiduciary Financial Services chief executive George Haramis believes that now is the “time for accountants to shine” in regards to the provision of advice services, with technology opening up opportunities that weren’t previously possible.

The co-founder of digital advice platform moneyGPS said accountants are in a unique position as the trusted adviser for their SME, SMSF and individual clients to be able to leverage new technologies and deliver new services to clients.

Accountants already oversee around a quarter of the superannuation market with 99 per cent of SMSFs using an accountant to lodge their annual return.

While the government is working on reforms to enable industry super funds to provide simpler types of advice, this will be delivered to members of industry funds, rather than SMSF trustees.

The government has also been slow to respond to the recommendations of the Quality of Advice Review and to recognise the advice gap for strategic financial advice, according to Mr Haramis.

Previously, clients of accounting firms have faced considerable hurdles in accessing advice due to increasing costs of traditional advice services, and the compliance burden associated with accountants providing this kind of advice. Accountants also need to be licensed to provide financial advice.

However, Mr Haramis said recent developments in the digital advice space are changing this.

The emergence of a wider range of digital advice platforms onto the market is enabling accountants to deliver guidance and advice to SME, SMSF and individual clients through digital means.

“There’s a whole host of fintechs across the country now providing digital fact finds or digital advice. There is a growing number of players in the market providing various aspects of the advice process or an end to end solution like us,” said Mr Haramis.

“Accountants, who are often viewed as the trusted adviser by clients, are now in a position to deliver advice solutions and guidance to help their clients through the use of technology.”

Mr Haramis said this is allowing accounting firms to position their services and practice to deliver a much needed product to client cohorts currently unable to access advice.

“The technology is the enabler. Accountants [are the ones that] can then leverage the tech to be able to deliver advice services they haven’t been able to before in a cost effective way for their clients,” he said.

“It allows them to look behind the numbers - whether they are SMSF’s, SME’s or individual client returns/ financial statements, and have a strategic discussion with clients about how they can improve their position financially, or ensure they’re clients are adequately covered with their pre-retirement planning.”

Mr Haramis said the advances in digital advice have already started to see a shift in mindset within the accounting industry, with more accountants now exploring how they can use digital advice platforms to expand the services they offer.

“Previously clients of accounting firms could only access financial advice where they could afford a statement of advice from a financial adviser. Now the whole profession can utilise technology to deliver services to their clients which they couldn’t do before,” he said.

moneyGPS to launch digital retirement planning tools by year end

Digital advice platform moneyGPS is on track to complete its pre-retirement checkup tool and its retirement income statement of advice before the end of the year.

“This means that not only can we cater to the under 45s in the accumulation phase in terms of delivering affordable advice topics but we can use our experience in designing statements of advice (SOAs) to deliver appropriate products and retirement income SOAs for pre-retirees,” said Mr Haramis.

“The pre-retirement checkup report and the retirement income SOA will help address important advice needs and represents a significant breakthrough with the tech from a moneyGPS perspective.”

Mr Haramis said Fiduciary Financial Services is also seeing significant uptake with its other digital offering through accountantsGPS, and its digital strategic analysis of an SMSF - the SMSF Check-up Report.

“With the SMSF Check-up Report we’re getting more and more interest from accountants who recognise the significance of the report because once they’re now in a position to sit down with the client and go through important strategic areas of the SMSF without the need for an advisor as a starting point,” he said.

“The report helps them to pinpoint specific advice needs for the client and the potential advice solutions that can be delivered.”