Advisers' time spent on back-office tasks

A survey of 1000 advisers by Kitces.com, run by Pinnacle Advisory Group director Michael Kitces, found United States advisers were spending less than 20% of their time in client meetings. New Zealand advisers say their client contact time is at least as limited here.

Kitces said it was common for advisers to see clients once or twice a year, which made it hard to retain clients.

Meeting with existing clients took 8.8 hours of the average adviser's 43 working hours per week. Another 5.3 hours was spent on preparing for the meetings and 6.6 hours on the supporting financial planning and six hours of "follow-through client servicing tasks".  Getting new clients took nine hours a week, of which four was spent with people. Five-and-a-half hours went on investment management tasks, 4.2 on admin, 3.2 on professional development and 4.7 on business management.

Graeme LIndsay, of Strategy Financial Services, said he would spend between eight and 20 hours on the process of preparing a statement of advice. "Face-to-face with a client would be two hours at that stage."