About The Disciplines Represented

Different individuals and firms will have different ways of dealing with their clients. The following is a basic outline of what each type of professional does, to help give you a better idea of the type of adviser you may need. Different disciplines have very different regulatory responsibilities. This should be one of your key questions when initially meeting a financial professional. Disciplines are listed in alphabetical order.

Accountants
Will usually carry out the following services for you:

• Completion of tax returns
• Producing accounts for self-employed or business owners
• Providing tax and strategic planning advice for businesses

The more qualified Accountants are Chartered Accountants who have to abide by a code of conduct set out by the Institute of Chartered Accountancy. You do not have to have any qualifications to market yourself as an Accountant, but Chartered Accountants and Chartered Certified Accountants have to have passed professional qualifications.

Book-keepers
Mainly for those who are self-employed. Most book-keepers will understand the basic principles of Accountancy but they will usually be less qualified and therefore cheaper than Accountants. A book-keeper will often work with Accountants running the day-to-day accountancy package and will then hand the job over to the Accountant to produce the year end accounts and undertake any required tax planning.

Debt Counsellors
Many of these organisations will be run by charities and volunteers. They seek to help those who get into debt organise their monthly repayments and deal with creditors, often coming to arrangements in the worst cases.

Insolvency practitioners
In some circumstances individuals will need to make arrangements with those to whom they owe money, the creditors. An Insolvency Practitioner is experienced in dealing with the negotiations to make a clean break from previous debts.

Insurance broker
An Insurance broker works to try to find you the best insurance deal for the risk that you need to cover. This would usually include all aspects of business insurance, household and car insurance as well as private medical insurance. Insurance brokers need to be authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority.

Financial Advisers – general
Some advisers will concentrate on product sales and finding the most suitable product for a client, whilst others will focus more on planning, setting objectives and providing advice. However, each will probably end up helping with:

• Retirement planning and financial independence
• Mortgages and debt repayment
• Saving for a specific purpose
• Investing
• Protecting
• Tax planning

Each individual Financial Adviser must be authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority in order to give advice. Within this group there are three main varieties of Financial Adviser with the differences explained below:

Financial Advisers (Whole of market/Independent)
These advisers will usually aim at providing holistic financial planning and when a product is required will select from those in the whole of the market. Independent Financial Advisers must go a stage further and always offer their client the option to pay for the advice they receive by fees.

Financial Advisers (Limited Group of companies – also known as Multi-tied)
These advisers will mainly receive a commission from the product they recommend to you, although there is no reason why they cannot charge fees (depending on their terms of business). The products they recommend to you will come from a limited range of pre-selected plans, which they hope will fit a client’s needs as well as any others on the market.

Financial Advisers (Single group of companies – also known as Tied)
These advisers also mainly receive a commission from the product they recommend you to purchase, although, again, there is no reason why they cannot charge fees (depending on their terms of business). When selling a product they will recommend a plan from the range available in the company they are tied to only.

Mortgage broker
These can operate as Whole of Market, Multi-tied and tied agents in the same way as Financial Advisers. The same rules apply to mortgage advisers and brokers as apply to Financial Advisers in that the work they do is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority and is only available once certain threshold qualifications have been passed.

Solicitors
Legal advisers who often have an impact on individual’s finances. Solicitors will often be involved with:

• Conveyancing for a mortgage
• Writing and executing Wills
• Arranging and administering trusts
• Divorce and other financial separations

Solicitors are members of the Law Society and a Solicitor can only trade as such having attained the relevant qualifications.

Will-writers
Generally these professionals will have not attained the same level of qualifications as Solicitors but are used to dealing with the specific aspect of Will-writing. Consequently they will usually charge less to draw up a Will than a Solicitor, although the regulatory protection will not be quite as robust.

Other
Other organisations are represented most notably Christian Banks. These organisations have a clear Christian focus throughout their entire operation.

Most, but not all ACFA members have some form of protection from a regulatory or professional body.  Each FSA registered financial adviser must be individually authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority. It is important to ascertain your adviser’s qualifications and professional status at the first meeting/contact.  ACFA can take no responsibility for advice given as a result of contact made with a member through this Site.