Attua / Industries / Advice and broking

AI for advice practices and mortgage broking firms

Advice and credit are licensed, documented and reviewable. So this page follows an engagement from first enquiry to annual review, and at every stage names the gate: the point a licensed person has to decide, and no draft gets past them.

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Two licences

Two different licences, one shared admin problem

A financial advice practice operates under an Australian Financial Services Licence, directly or as an authorised representative of a licensee, with the best interests duty, the Code of Ethics and the ongoing fee arrangement rules shaping how every file has to look. A broking firm operates under an Australian Credit Licence or as a credit representative, with the responsible lending obligations and its own best interests duty since 2021. Different regulators' guidance, different documents, different language.

The admin underneath is remarkably similar. Both businesses collect a large pile of client documents, both write a document that explains a recommendation, both need a file that proves what was considered and when, and both live or die on a review and follow up cycle that nobody has time to run properly. A practice with 3 advisers and 4 support staff is mostly a document handling business with judgement attached at specific points.

That is the useful frame. The judgement is the licensed part and it does not move. The document handling is where a drafting workflow earns its place, and the two should never be confused, least of all in a file that ASIC or a licensee audit might read.

Stage by stage

An engagement from enquiry to annual review

Stage one

Enquiry and engagement

A referral arrives by phone, from an accountant or through your website. Somebody has to work out what the client wants, whether you can help, what it will cost, and get the engagement and disclosure documents out. Done well this takes a day. Done badly it takes 2 weeks and the client goes elsewhere.

What drafts: the summary of the enquiry, the engagement letter and fee or credit proposal disclosure from your own approved templates, the initial meeting agenda, and the document request list tailored to what this client has said rather than a generic checklist.

The gateWhether you take the engagement, and what the fee is, is the principal's decision.

Stage two

Fact find and document gathering

This is where months disappear. Payslips, bank statements, superannuation statements, insurance policies, rates notices, trust deeds, tax returns, identity documents. Half arrive, the wrong versions arrive, and a support officer spends their week chasing. Open banking through the Consumer Data Right has helped with transaction data, but policy documents and deeds still arrive as photographs.

What drafts: a checklist specific to this client, chase messages at sensible intervals, a check on arrival that the document is the right type and covers the right period, and the data entry preparation so a paraplanner or support officer is checking rather than typing.

The gateIdentity verification, and the judgement that the fact find is complete enough to advise on.

Stage three

Research, modelling and strategy

The modelling happens in your software with its assumptions visible: projections in Iress Xplan or Midwinter, serviceability through your aggregator's tools and the lender calculators. Nothing we build does any of that, and I would walk away from a brief that asked for it.

What drafts: a summary of the client's position as the file now shows it, the research notes in a consistent format, and a comparison of the options the adviser or broker has chosen to consider, stated plainly for them to correct.

The gateThe strategy, the product selection and the lender choice. Entirely the licensed person's.

Stage four

The advice document

A Statement of Advice, a Record of Advice or a credit proposal is the most expensive document in the business, and most of its length is restatement: the client's circumstances, the scope, the fees, the risks, the implementation steps, the disclosures. The expensive part to produce is the restating. The valuable part is the reasoning.

What drafts: the restatement sections, from the file rather than from a previous client's document, with every figure carried through from the modelling and marked where the file has a gap instead of filled with something plausible. Nothing is drafted that cites a rate, a return or a product feature the file does not already contain.

The gateThe adviser or broker reads every line, writes the reasoning, and signs.

Stage five

Presentation and authority to proceed

The meeting where the recommendation is explained. What matters afterwards is the file: what was discussed, what the client asked, what was changed as a result, and the authority to proceed properly recorded.

What drafts: a file note from the meeting recording with the client's consent, a plain language summary for the client, and a list of the open questions that need answering before implementation starts.

The gateThe client's informed consent, and the adviser's judgement that it was informed.

Stage six

Implementation

Applications to providers, submissions through ApplyOnline, rollovers, insurance underwriting, settlement bookings. This stage is pure coordination and it is where client experience is won or lost, because a client who hears nothing assumes nothing is happening.

What drafts: progress updates to the client at each milestone, follow ups to providers and lenders that have gone quiet, requirement responses assembled from documents already on file, and a status read across every file in progress.

The gateSubmission to a lender or provider, and any response that commits the practice.

Stage seven

Ongoing service and review

For an advice practice this is where the revenue and the regulatory risk both live. Review meetings have to happen, the annual fee consent has to be obtained and recorded on time, and the service promised in the engagement has to be the service delivered. For a broking firm the equivalent is the post settlement cycle: fixed rate expiries, annual check ins, refinance conversations.

What drafts: the review cycle schedule and who is overdue, the review pack assembled before the meeting, the consent renewal paperwork prepared ahead of its date, and a read on which clients have had nothing from you in 12 months.

The gateObtaining consent, and confirming the service was actually delivered.

Stage eight

Complaints, breaches and the uncomfortable file

Complaints have to be handled within set timeframes before they reach the Australian Financial Complaints Authority, and licensees have reporting obligations for reportable situations. The work is reconstruction: what happened, in what order, with what evidence.

What drafts: a dated chronology of the file with a reference on every line, a register summary for the responsible manager, and the first draft of a response for a person to rewrite in their own words.

The gateEvery word that goes to a client or a regulator. No exceptions, no templates.

Hard limits

Where a draft stops being a draft

The gates above are not procedural politeness. A document that leaves your office is advice, or it is a credit recommendation, and the person named on it carries it.

So these are excluded by design, not by policy:

Any recommendation about a product, a strategy, a lender or a structure
Serviceability assessment, preliminary assessment or any conclusion about whether a loan is not unsuitable
Projections, returns, rates or fee calculations generated in prose rather than carried from your modelling software
Communication with a client that an adviser, broker or authorised staff member has not read and sent
Anything that reads as personal advice, including a reply to a client question in an email
Submissions to lenders, providers, the complaints authority or a regulator

What is left is the fact find, the chasing, the file note, the restatement, the review cycle and the reporting. In most practices that is the majority of the hours and almost none of the value, which is exactly the trade worth making.

Both sides

What differs between an advice practice and a broking firm

Advice practices

The constraint is paraplanning capacity and the review cycle. A practice with 250 ongoing clients and 2 advisers cannot physically deliver 250 reviews without the preparation being largely automated, and the consent rules mean a missed date has consequences beyond a disappointed client.

First workflows are usually review pack assembly, file notes from meetings, and a register that shows the review and consent position for every client in one view.

Broking firms

The constraint is document chasing and pipeline visibility. A broker with 40 live applications across several lenders has no single view of what each one is waiting on, so the follow up happens when a client rings rather than before they need to.

First workflows are usually the document checklist and chase, lender and client progress updates, and a post settlement contact cycle that actually runs instead of sitting on a list.

If you want the sequence worked out before anything is built, that is AI strategy. The build sits in AI implementation.

Systems

Software an advice or broking practice already runs on

Iress Xplan, AdviserLogic or Midwinter: Client records and modelling as the source of truth. Read for drafting, with notes and tasks written back after a person confirms.
Mercury Nexus, Salestrekker or BrokerEngine: Pipeline status, document checklists and drafted client and lender updates at each milestone.
ApplyOnline and lender portals: Requirement responses assembled from documents already on file. Submission itself stays a human act.
Outlook and your document store: Inbox triage by client and urgency, incoming documents identified and filed, drafts prepared where the adviser already works.
Your compliance register: Review and consent positions, complaints summaries and file chronologies assembled for the responsible manager to verify.
Class, BGL or your SMSF administrator: Annual review inputs collected and summarised so the adviser reads a position rather than assembles one.

How it runs

A first project your responsible manager will sign off

A Diagnostic first. Several days in the practice, with the advisers or brokers, the support team and whoever owns compliance, looking at real files rather than the process diagram. I also want to see your licensee's current position on these tools early, because it shapes what is worth proposing.

The output is a short sequence, the exclusions in writing, and a note on anything your licensee will need to approve. Then one workflow, 4 to 6 weeks, running beside the current process on live files, measured on whether the support team uses the draft or redoes it. If your licensee needs evidence, the record of what each workflow produced is part of the build rather than an afterthought.

Illustrative example, not a client story

Example scenario: 220 ongoing clients and 2 advisers

Picture an advice practice with 220 ongoing clients, 2 advisers and 3 support staff. Reviews are scheduled 12 months apart, consent dates sit in a spreadsheet, and preparing a review pack takes a support officer most of a morning: current positions, insurance status, what changed since last time, what was promised at the previous meeting.

In this example the review schedule and consent position become one register that is current every morning, and each pack is drafted the week before the meeting from the client's own file, with the previous meeting's commitments listed and the gaps named. The support officer checks and completes it in half an hour. The adviser writes the advice, makes every recommendation and signs everything, and the practice stops discovering a missed consent date after it has passed. Illustrative example, not a client story.

Data

Client documents, credit information and consent

You hold more sensitive information than almost any other professional service: identity documents, bank statements, tax file numbers, medical disclosures from insurance underwriting, and in broking, credit information regulated under Part IIIA of the Privacy Act and the credit reporting code. A client who finds out their statements went through a consumer chat tool has a legitimate complaint, and so does your licensee.

How it is set up: business grade accounts with training on your data switched off, workflows scoped to one system each rather than the whole document store, tax file numbers and credit reporting information excluded from scope entirely, and a record of which workflow produced which draft so a file can show how a document came to exist. Meeting recordings happen with consent, are stored where your other client records are stored, and are covered in your privacy policy rather than mentioned verbally.

The practice also needs a written internal rule that a support officer can follow without asking: what may be put into which tool, what must never be, and who decides. Writing that and training the team is AI training, and in a licensed practice it is the part the licensee will ask to see.

Starting from $9,999 (AUD, ex GST)

Every job is scoped up front after a Diagnostic. Sam is based in Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, and travel is charged at cost from Brisbane. See the cost guide.

Questions

Common questions from principals and practice managers

Can it write the Statement of Advice?

It can draft the parts that restate information: the client's situation, the scope, the fees, the risks, the implementation steps. The strategy and the reasons why belong to the adviser, and so does every number, which has to trace back to the modelling rather than appear in prose. An adviser who signs a document they have not verified line by line has a problem that no tool caused and no tool fixes.

What will our licensee say?

Most licensees now have a position, and it usually turns on three things: where client data goes, whether a person reviews output before it reaches a client, and whether the file shows what happened. Those are answerable with evidence rather than assurances, and we build so they can be answered. Ask your licensee early, not after the build.

Can it assess serviceability or submit to a lender?

No. Preparing the data for a serviceability assessment is useful work. Making the assessment, or deciding which lender the application goes to, is the broker's judgement and sits under the best interests duty. Submission stays a deliberate act by a credit representative who has checked the file.

Our biggest problem is chasing documents. Does this help?

That is usually the first workflow and the one clients notice. A checklist built from what this particular application or review actually needs, drafted follow ups at sensible intervals, and documents checked on arrival for whether they are the right ones. The number of applications held up by a missing payslip is remarkable.

Can it record and write up client meetings?

Yes, with the client's consent, and it is one of the strongest uses. A file note drafted from the meeting while it is fresh is more complete than one written on Friday, which matters for both advice quality and for the file. The adviser or broker reviews and owns the note.

We are a small practice with one adviser and two support staff. Worth it?

Sometimes, and sometimes the honest answer is to fix your workflow in Xplan or Mercury Nexus first. If paraplanning is outsourced and the support team is on top of the review cycle, a project may buy you less than a process change would. I would rather tell you that during a Diagnostic than after a build.

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