Newquay-based IFA Roberts Clark IFS has added an automated advice fee quotation and client onboarding workflow management system.

The system has been in beta testing for the past 12 months.

So far 120 new clients have accepted terms via the automated fee quotation service, generating £290,000 of new pipeline fee income to the firm in the last 12 months.

Roberts Clark is run by husband-wife Chartered Financial Planners Ashley and Joanne Roberts-Clark.

The IFA began development of the new system three years ago.

It has also made the fee system available to other Financial Planning firms.

The fee system can handle fixed fee, time costed fee, percentage upfront fee, percentage ongoing fee, fixed/variable upfront fee, and fixed variable ongoing fee models. It can also handle either paid direct or paid from policy charge deductions and adviser discounts.

The IFA said the fee system has a capability to provide a key aspect of Financial Planning firms’ push towards Consumer Duty compliance.

The automated fee system includes:

• Online fee creation and electronic signature acceptance
• Online fee discounts of us to 25% for remote, online and other non-face-to-face services
• Time costed fees for regulated and non-regulated services
• Core fees for all services based on average expenses and time costing
• Risk based percentage fees based on the complexity of the client needs
• VAT calculation
• Secure client messaging and document upload facilities
• Online secure fee payments by card, Paypal, bank transfer, cheque or IBAN
• Client-facing quotes dashboard allowing the client to track progress or make changes
• Workflow events system which automatically issues requests such as fact finds, receipts, ESG questionnaires and onboarding documents

Robert Clark has integrated the fee system into its own Robo Adviser hybrid advice or consumer guidance only system. The Robo system is currently in sandbox and not yet live for general public use.

Ashley Roberts-Clark, managing director of the IFA, said: “Not withstanding development time and costs, the automated fee system has already saved my firm thousands of pounds in reduced fee quoting time, administration time, client onboarding time, billing and fee settlement time.  In fact, given the 25% upfront fee discount as standard, over 90% of all clients actually pay their fees upfront, providing stability to my firm’s cash flow as well as clients saving money. 

“I accept we ‘buck the trend’ in our approach to fixed, transparent adviser fees and that the percentage upfront and percentage ongoing model is still the dominant model but the FCA, and rightly so, will no longer simply accept a percentage upfront and percentage ongoing charging structure under Consumer Duty without justification and now requires all firms to evaluate what their core costs are for delivering a product or service, what value is added, any economies of scale achieved and what risks or complexities are involved before any profit margin is added to reach your fee charging structure.”