One man’s vision for the future professional in practice…

One man’s vision for the future professional in practice… A personal reflection by Richard Bertin, CEO, All in Place

I qualified as a Chartered Accountant and morphed into the world of financial services, from IFA to financial planner and eventually a partner in a Global Family Office.

Much of my career has been focussed on advising and supporting SME owners. In many ways, it would have been easier to focus on pure financial planning for private clients; often about planning around net disposable income and allocating it to savings vehicles, until an event happens, such as retirement.

However, as readers will appreciate the needs of business owners are complex and diverse. The pandemic has shone a light on the pressures facing the SME owner. Profits became losses, salaries put on hold and dividends out of the window. Businesses received government support, but many owners’ personal finances have been spear tackled.

What’s this got to do with me?

At the ICAEW I chaired the financial planning committee and now sit on the PFP Advisory Board; which helps support the Financial Planning Community. Over the years we have seen much regulatory change, along with vast swathes of technology offerings to support members advise “the company”, but little in the way of innovation to help practitioners build a service proposition to support the business owners themselves.

The business and the business owners’ finances are tethered and therefore it was logical to provide practitioners with a service and software solution that could bridge the two.

If you are in practice would it not be helpful to be the virtual CFO to your client not just the business?

If you are an accountant at an SME, would you like your business owners to work with a forward thinking practitioner? One that can overlay the owners’ personal financial needs into your financial forecast for the business, to help you build an integrated model?

Experience from business and many hours of discussion at ICAEW financial planning committee meetings has led to the establishment of “All in Place”, the first ICAEW Accredited Software for members to engage in personal financial planning.

How Does All in Place work?

Business profits, salaries and dividends are there to pay bills, fund lifestyles and meet future goals and liabilities.

Simplistically, the software allows you to capture the income your clients earn from their business together with investment income, estimate income tax and its due dates. Input personal outgoings and planned capex, thus enabling you to have complete oversight of your client’s ongoing personal cashflow needs-be it monthly through to annual, short to long term. 

If you can plot your clients personal cashflow needs accurately, you can build that into the business forecasts.

As inflation bites it is vital to stress test not just the cashflow of the business, but also that of the business owner, so there are no surprises for them or for you! Undoubtedly personal cashflow problems impact a business too.

Furthermore, the software allows you to build a financial health-check for your client, highlighting relevant planning and risk matters

Would like to know more? Book a demo, we’d love to show you around