An online tool to help accountants determine what they need to do, when they need to do it and how long it will take to develop an appropriate response to the end of the accountants’ licensing exemption is being launched today by Count Financial.
The tool is designed to complement Count’s “Accountants’ Solution” licensing options, launched in March this year, which offer “accountant authorised” and “full authorised” options.
The chief executive officer of Count, David Lane, says the tool has been developed in response to a clear demand from accountants for mapping out a timeline of necessary actions, irrespective of which option they initially choose.
The former licensing option will allow accountants to establish or close a self-managed super fund; discuss general super contributions; advise strategically on super consolidation; give strategic SMSF advice; advise on basic deposit products inside super; and provide strategic insurance advice, also inside super.
The latter option enables all of the above, plus strategic debt advice, including limited recourse borrowing; strategic investment advice, including class-of-product advice; insurance product advice; specific investment product advice; and holistic financial advice.
More appropriate
Lane says that most accountants start out considering the more limited option, but quickly realise that the full-authorisation option is more appropriate.
Lane says he has spent the past few weeks touring the country talking to accountants about how they view the end of the exemption in 2016.
“It’s been a fascinating set of discussions,” he says.
“One of the things that was clear is that there is some confusion with regard to what this change means and, specifically, what do they have to do about it.
“It’s easy to forget that once you’re living under the licensing regime it’s like learning a new language. And it’s just not something that has been top of their thought process.”
Lane says accountants are busy people and “there are really only a few months a year when they have the capacity to think and plan strategically about the future growth of their business”.
Lane says that for many accountants who want to continue to give advice when the exemption ends, the change they’ll have to go through is “reasonably big”.
“They need to think about it,” he says.
“One of the things we’ve been hearing is that accountants were finding it hard to figure out what the concrete next steps are to make a decision.”
What was needed, Lane says is “a relatively easy way of allowing accountants to understand what are the steps that are required”, and that starting point led to the development and the launch of the online timeline manager.
The tool allows an accountant to specify their needs and then develop an action timeline “to make sure they get it done by June 2016”, he says.
Lane has previously urged accountants to move sooner rather than later, citing potential capacity constraints in licensee training as a potential roadblock to getting a solution in place in time. He says there may be as many as 10,000 accountants seeking a licensing solution, but the financial planning industry simply isn’t geared up to train and assimilate that may new entrants in such a short space of time.
