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It’s time to fix the authority to proceed
When was the last time we really thought about the Authority to Proceed, and whether we can improve it? Investment and advice complaints to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) rose 18 per cent in 2024-25. The single biggest issue was a failure to act in the client's best interests. It made up more than 30…
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AI has changed the rules. Has your firm changed with it?
For years, professional firms have been told to take “reasonable steps.” In the world of AI and cyber security, what was considered "reasonable steps" yesterday is not considered reasonable anymore. In May 2026, ASIC and the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) warned that advanced AI models are changing the cyber…
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Five ideas worth borrowing from top performing practices
The most common question I get from advisers, after they’ve vented about timelines or compliance, is “what are other practices doing well?” They want to know what’s working elsewhere, what they could pinch and what’s worth trying. It’s a fair question because the practices running smoothly have usually figured something…
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Advice has got talent: it's just different now
A surge in new entrants and a shifting talent pipeline is changing the mix of candidates advisers are seeing. Here’s what’s actually happening and what it means for your next hire. Watch now Alisdair Barr is Founder & CEO at Striver, a HR-Tech platform designed to help financial planning firms more effectively attract and…
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The two types of AI every adviser needs to understand
Generative and deterministic AI fail in very different ways. Knowing which one you're using is becoming a professional skill. AI is not one thing. For advisers, two types matter, and the difference is not well discussed by AI providers. Generative AI writes and reasons in language. Deterministic AI computes against fixed…
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The true cost of cheap paraplanning
With the new financial year around the corner, every practice I speak to is running the numbers. Client fees, wages, software subscriptions and yes, the paraplanning line item. Timelines have already blown out across the industry and advisers are asking the same question: can we get this done cheaper? It is a fair…
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What your paraplanner actually needs from you
I've spent a lot of time on the paraplanning side of the advice process, and there's a few things that reliably slows the paraplanning process down. It’s easy to blame the paraplanner (and sometimes it is their fault!) but what I often find is that a poorly structured paraplanning request is the reason things slow down.…
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5 efficiency gains that have moved the needle for us
I have used Xplan throughout my entire career as an adviser and, to be honest, I didn’t like it for a long time. It wasn’t until I took ownership of the software and invested the time it deserved that our business truly began to reap the benefits. For a long time I held the mistaken belief that our licensee ran and…
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When tools become lethal weapons: a framework for better decisions
Every week there’s something new. A new AI tool. A new platform. A new way to work faster, cheaper, better. And the pressure is real. Your competitors are adopting it. Your team wants to try it. Vendors are promising efficiency gains. So the question becomes… should we use it? Not “is it exciting?” Not “is everyone else…
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We don’t have a tech problem. We have a change problem.
I was working with a large, fairly progressive advice practice recently. The kind that most would look at and think, “they’ve nailed it.” They’ve invested heavily in technology. They even have a full-time developer whose sole role is to build tools the leadership team wants and roll them out across the business. On paper,…