Does your file reviewer deliver value or is it just a tick box service?
We repeatedly hear from firms that their file reviewers just irritate without adding value.
We are different, and here’s how …
Understanding your advice model
Firms have different advice models. It may be transactional, wealth management, or financial planning, for example. So the first thing we do is find out what your advice model is. That immediately stops some file reviewer / adviser conflict.
Next we set out the “must have” regulatory stuff required on all files. That’s not us, its the FCA. That’s another tranche of anxst taken off the table.
In short, before we even look at a file, we have a lot of common ground and understanding.
Letting everyone know how we file check
At the beginning of a file review relationship with a firm, we provide firms with a File Review Guide to explain how we review a file, detailing what we look for.
That’s more common ground established.
The draft-final file review system
We have about 75 minutes to review a file and write up the review form. We’ve never seen the client and are looking at documents “cold”. Chances are we’re going to miss, or even mis-understand stuff.
So we use a draft-final review system. We give all advisers the benefit of the doubt. Our draft review delivers an initial grade and raises all the stuff we either can’t get our heads round, or can’t find. Advisers can then come back to us to “set us straight” by showing us the missing evidence that makes everything clear. Provided it stacks up, we will change the grade of the review.
And that helps us get on with advisers no end.
Finally, the compliance / advice blend approach (or the reduced tick box approach) to reviewing files
To end where we started, in our experience, most file reviewers tick boxes. The only logical outcome from that is the verification that a process is working. Don’t get us wrong, process is important, but you can do that internally, you don’t need a file reviewer to do it for you.
Unless you tell us to to do it differently, we do some tick box stuff, but only in the really crucial areas. We focus far more intently on the quality of what you do – the quality of your data collection, your data analysis and your recommendations.
In this way, we hope to identify the things that when fixed, will make
- your CLIENTS
- the FCA
- the FOS
and of course by extension, YOU really VERY HAPPY.
Hopefully that’s convinced you.