More than a decade ago Australia's financial planning community embraced the paperless office.
Today, the industry is mastering the art of generating a statement of advice (SOA) in 30 seconds.
As the years that mark these conquering deeds tick over, one constant component emerges - a dependence on software.
It would be naïve to suggest planners would not move with the times and embrace technology, though the path to reaching the advancements that led from the basic database to straight through processing has not always been obstacle free.
For Infocus Money Management founder Darren Steinhardt, little was available in the way of dedicated financial planning software when he began his search nine years ago.
"We have developed our own software in house. Darren Steinhardt, who is the managing director and the founder, identified a need for financial planning specific software probably about nine years ago now. He basically got in a team of developers and went for it," Infocus Maroochydore practice manager Jon Thomas recalls.
"At that stage there wasn't anything specific to financial planning. And he [Steinhardt] also developed it as a web-based application, because he knew that further down the track people would be using the Internet more."
Thomas says the end result of Steinhardt's work is the group's software, Platform Plus.
"Because it's Internet-based it holds everything for our business. We have all of our fund managers and product providers online. Our training and also workflow system is integrated into the software as well," he says.
"Essentially you can create tasks for the work to be done, how to produce an SOA out the other end, everything in between. We receive data feeds for the investments and it always allows us to provide access for our clients to look at their own information online."
Infocus wasn't the only one to hit a wall when seeking compatible financial planning software. Five years ago Ward Financial Group found no other option than to build an in-house software solution.
As the Melbourne-based practice specialised in strategy and self-managed superannuation fund (SMSF) work, Ward Financial partner Cameron O'Sullivan found the software available wasn't suitable.
"Essentially we started just building data into Excel to replicate what the dealer group at the time was giving us and this was before Coin, about four or five years ago," O'Sullivan says.
"It was software for the masses; it's not really at the high strategic end. So we essentially started building our own software and since that time we've started selling modules of that software to other advisers," he says.
To some extent WB Financial can relate to Ward Financial Group's situation. It was also only a short time ago that WB Financial, winner of IFA's Best Practice Award 2007, upgraded its software.
Though as the group's general manager, Glenn Pearce, recollects, mainstream software providers such as Coin and Xplan were willing to accommodate their business needs.
"About three-and-a-half years ago the decision was made that we needed to get a better system in place as a whole. So after doing investigations with the software that was available at the time, we decided to go with Xplan and we converted all of our advisers to all use the same platform," Pearce says.
"One of the benefits of Xplan is that they provide you with the shell and then you can customise the interface to meet your individual needs, and that gives you some element of differentiation from other groups who may be using the same platform. We've extensively customised that and that's been through our own resources."
Like the Sydney-based group, regional practice TFS Financial Planning signed with an existing market player in Coin.
"Twelve months ago we installed Coin software. Prior to that we weren't using comprehensive software," Cairns-based TFS Financial Planning principal Judith Lee says.
"We looked at Xplan, Coin and Visi. I liked Coin and Xplan, though Xplan is web-based and the Internet in regional areas wasn't as good as it is in capital cities."
So would switching to an in-house solution ever in the future be a consideration?
"I guess for smaller firms I think that you can't, you've got to be realistic," Lee says.
Pearce agrees: "No. We've made this very clear to Xplan as well and our relationship, we're made it clear to them that we're committed to it 100 per cent.
"There's always the argument of putting all of your eggs in one basket. But I think Xplan, now through acquisitions over the last 12 months, have got a significant enough scale that any concerns we may have had along those lines have certainly been removed."
If WB Financial was to start looking at other niche applications to support parts of the business then they would start to then rely on more people which he says doesn't appeal.
"I think we've certainly benefited from laying our cards on the table with Xplan saying we're committed to you 100 per cent, and we think we've derived benefit in terms of their support back to us," he adds.
For O'Sullivan, Ward Financial's decision to develop its own software solution stemmed from a frustration at the lack of efficiency with existing software.
"The biggest issue with the software is that it's not efficient, so once you've got your own you have that capability to individualise a scenario for each client and actually have the software to give you the answer," he says.
"The problem is that after that if you realise that some of the different modelling or projections are wrong or the figures change, you have to go back into the software. Essentially there's a severing connection between the modelling software and word documents. With our software we don't have that."
As well as giving the group an element of freedom, Ward Financial Group's move to build its own software, Proviso, has opened up a new revenue stream for the business.
According to group principal Barry Ward, the firm's transition-to-retirement model has already garnered interest from Commonwealth Bank of Australia and its aligned dealer group, Financial Wisdom.
"In terms of overexposure to dealer groups there are probably about 40 to 50 other dealer groups who have individual advisers and accountants who have seen our presentations and are interested," Ward says.
"We promote it on the basis on the transition to retirement done in 30 seconds. Individual advisers are hearing about it and buying it, so there's quite a big usage in the marketplace on an individual basis.
"We're talking with a number of institutions at the moment about using it inside their practices."
O'Sullivan says the current modules have been priced so they don't have to replace the Coins and Visis of the world.
"So that if an adviser does transition to retirement they buy this module, use it to generate the SOA and do all the modelling they want for the strategy but still use Coin or Visi to generate the compliance document and the product recommendations."
Fellow in-house software developer Infocus also on-sold its software to external groups, though it has since stopped.
"Initially Darren was marketing it to other dealer groups. We actually stopped doing that quite a while ago, but the interest is still there," Thomas says.
"There are about five other dealer groups who use our Platform Plus [software]."
Despite in-house software development bringing with it the drawcard of a second revenue channel, it is still not enough to sway Pearce.
He says being able to focus on the core business of financial planning while Xplan arranges its own deals has its benefits.
"They are actively working with the platforms and the product providers. The likes of Navigator and ING now have the ability for us to dial direct using existing Xplan data through uploading into their systems. From our perspective they're proactive in looking at those opportunities as well," Pearce says.
"We understand that some of the things we ask them to do end up being a benefit to the broader Xplan user base, which we don't have a problem with because there is a quid pro quo there. I'm sure there are some things that other groups have asked Xplan to do that we've benefited from as well.
"We're certainly a boutique group but that means that unlike the desktop-based systems we can respond very quickly to our users' needs in terms of the ability to record new data, from a CRM [client relationship management] perspective, rather than having to wait for the next update of the system. That's something that we've relied on very heavily."
O'Sullivan still isn't convinced. He says as many Australians outside and inside the financial planning industry are making the transition to retirement, it is a strong driver of work for advisers at present.
Therefore, O'Sullivan believes advisers need a software solution that can not only handle the workload, but also plot scenarios.
"That's where planning software needs to get on all the modelling scenarios. It should be able to optimise everything for you and then generate SOAs," he says.
"There are a couple of transition-to-retirement calculators that some of the fund managers produced, but the problem is that they don't integrate with your SOA and unless you can model the scenario and punch it into your SOA it's inefficient.
"And the final component that these tools need is that if they are user friendly enough you can actually sit and use them in front of the client."
