Advisers spend less than 5 hours 30 mins a week on Financial Planning

Friday, 21 September 2018 09:07

Financial advisers spend nearly five hours a week on “unnecessary” tasks, according to a study of how advisers use their working week.

Most of the advisers surveyed (see table below) said they spent only 5 hours 25 minutes a week on providing Financial Planning advice to clients.

The study by adviser tech platform Advicefront found that time wasted per adviser amounted to around one in every eight working hours, costing them £220 per week in wasted time.

The firm asked 86 UK financial advisers to reveal their salaries, average weekly working hours and the hours they spend on various tasks.

The average gross annual wage was £81,956 for an average 39 hour week, according to the survey, giving an hourly rate of £46.38.

Asked to work out the time wasted each week on tasks they believed were either “unnecessary” or “could be done quicker”, the average adviser response was 4 hours and 45 minutes.

For an adviser on a 40 hour week working the standard 46.4 weeks per year, that amounts to a ‘loss’ of £10,222 per year in productive time.

Respondents said they spent on average:

2 hours and 55 minutes shredding or disposing of paperwork
2 hours and 41 minutes printing documents
2 hours and 35 minutes filling out paper forms by pen or pencil
2 hours and 23 minutes filing paperwork

They were also asked to say how much time they spent manually on tasks that can be automated using technology and said they spent, on average:

4 hours and 34 minutes fact-finding
4 hours and 16 minutes preparing suitability letters
3 hours and 8 minutes fact-finding
2 hours and 55 minutes re-keying data

Asked about two main client-facing tasks, they spent an average of 5 hours and 25 minutes a week on Financial Planning and 4 hours 16 minutes on “client engagement or education.”

José Supico, chief executive of Advicefront, said: “It’s clear that financial advisers are overwhelmed with paper and facing a daily fight against increasingly onerous admin tasks, leaving them less and less time to do what they love doing – sitting down with their clients.”

Task	Hours	Base of respondents
Financial Planning	5h 25m	70
Client engagement/ education	4h 16m	81
Data collection	3h 36m	83
Re-keying data	2h 55m	80
Performance reports	3h 23m	85
Regular review service	4h 34m	83
Fact-finding	3h 08m	82
Pipeline / sales tracking	2h 44m	85
Wrap account opening	2h 33m	83
Portfolio trading	2h 59m	84
Client approval and signatures	2h 59m	85
Secure document sharing	2h 47m	83
Client referrals	3h 36m	85
Suitability letters	4h 16m	82
Opening letters	2h 27m	85
Printing documents	2h 41m	85
Filling out paper forms by pen or pencil	2h 35m	83
Physically filing paperwork	2h 23m	84
Shredding or disposing of paperwork	2h 52m	85

source: Advicefront Survey