New Paraplanners

In response to the fantastic feedback we have had from everyone who has visited the site we have been reminded that not everyone has been in financial services as long as us!The site has been designed to be used by ALL paraplanners and those aspiring to the role, whatever their knowledge or experience.

For this reason we are launching a new section on the website specifically for those who are new to the industry or new to paraplanning or perhaps considering paraplanning as their next career move.

We hope that it will contain articles and information which is more appropriate to those new to the industry and also hope that it will provide a place for discussion and support so that those paraplanners at a similar level can share experience and knowledge.

We would therefore really appreciate your comments in two ways:

1. Firstly, what would you like this part of the site to be called? We have currently called it ‘New Starters’ but we are open to more exciting suggestions. You can find it under the ‘Education’ menu.
2. Secondly, what sort of information would you like to see in this section?

Please let us know, it will be great to hear your views.

Top tips for new Paraplanners

Elaine commented on the launch of our New Paraplanners post and following my reply has very kindly sent us details of some of the resources which helped her when she was starting out.

1. One of the best tools I ever used was a website called www.invidion.co.uk

It provides financial calculators (have a look yourself and see what you think) - one that is good in particular is the pension calculator which projects the fund the client will have, excellent for income forecasting in retirement. It does chargeable event, CGT, infact not much it doesn’t do!

2. I attach a spreadsheet I use for asset allocation - the only rule that comes with this is that you only delete data from the yellow areas - do not touch anything else. Input your fund, the asset allocation and this little spreadsheet works everything else out for you. Very handy also for building portfolios for clients. If you would like a copy please let us know.

3. When doing exams I found www.wizardlearning.com very useful - it gives so many sample questions, allows you to do them online, builds up CPD and you can compete against other members. I found it very inexpensive as they do packages where you can pick up to 5 subjects. You could share the user name with other people to cut the cost down i.e. if different people in the office were doing different exams.

4. I researched my funds using a package called analytics via financial express. It is expensive and not every ifa will want it but they would come to the office and do a free demo - I think it is roughly around £4,000 p.a. for 3 users. It is unbeatable in terms of what it does, it gives asset allocation of each fund, performance, benchmarking, allows you to build portfolios.

5. Finally just a comment for your site, paraplanners can come in at any level of experience and sometimes the pressures and expectations of your employer stop you from asking silly questions. You could have an anonymous section for embarrassing questions!