How Our Financial Planning Outsourcing Service Works

This article is part of our Financial Planning Outsourcing service. For paraplanning-specific details, see our Paraplanning Services page. For post-advice administration, see our Adviser Admin Outsourcing page.

What Is Financial Planning Outsourcing?

Financial planning outsourcing is an umbrella service that gives advisory practices access to dedicated offshore professionals who handle the technical and administrative work that sits behind every piece of client advice.

Under this umbrella sit 2 distinct service streams. Paraplanning handles pre-advice preparation: Statements of Advice (SOAs) in Australia, and detailed advice documents in the US and UK. Adviser Admin handles everything that comes after advice is delivered: forms processing, compliance documentation, CRM updates, client onboarding workflows and general practice administration.

Both streams are delivered across all major financial planning platforms. For a breakdown of platform-specific capabilities and how they affect outsourced paraplanning, see our software capabilities overview.

The distinction matters because the skill sets, quality assurance standards, and turnaround expectations differ significantly between the 2 streams. A paraplanner building an SOA needs deep technical knowledge of product structures, contribution caps, and legislative requirements. An adviser admin processing implementation paperwork needs precision, system fluency, and compliance awareness. Knowing which stream you need is the first decision point. If you are unsure, see our guide on choosing the right admin support or choosing the right paraplanner.

Which Engagement Model Fits Your Practice?

Felcorp offers 3 engagement models, and the right one depends almost entirely on your volume of work. 70% of our client base operates on the Fully Managed model, but each model exists for a reason.

Volume drives the decision. If your practice sends 2-3 SOAs per month with no predictable rhythm, On-Demand makes sense despite the higher per-unit cost because you are not paying for idle capacity. Once you have enough consistent work to keep a full-time person productive, the Fully Managed model becomes the clear choice. Most small businesses start with 1 staff member and scale to 2 as workflows stabilise.

For firms needing 6 or more full-time staff, the Pod Engagement gives you a self-contained team with its own management structure and the option to buy out the pod operation entirely after a specified date. This is worth exploring if you are building a long-term offshore capability rather than supplementing existing capacity. For more detail on pod-specific considerations, see our article on important considerations for Pod Engagements.

How Does the Trial Period Work?

Every engagement starts with a trial, and the trial exists to answer the question most firms cannot answer upfront: what does success actually look like for this outsourcing arrangement?

The trial is structured around 60 to 80 hours of billable work, with 40 of those hours dedicated to process and technical onboarding. During onboarding, our team encapsulates your standard operating procedures, maps your systems and document locations, establishes communication protocols, and sets the performance metrics and SLAs that will govern the engagement long-term.

The typical trial runs for 1 month. The first week covers onboarding and communication setup. The remaining weeks are genuine billable work where we deliver real output against your actual job queue.

During the trial, Felcorp identifies your current operational issues, the scope of work required, the resourcing model that fits, and the performance targets that should apply. This includes turnaround times, time budgets, QA metrics, and compliance requirements. By the end of the trial, you have clear, measurable definitions of success that both sides have agreed to.

What You Receive at the End of the Trial

At trial completion, Felcorp delivers 2 documents:

• Letter of Advice - outlines trial performance, the SOPs we have isolated and documented, and the metrics we have captured during the trial period.
• Formal Proposal - details cost, available service models, and the contractual terms for ongoing engagement.

From there, the practice decides whether to proceed and which engagement model to adopt. 85% of practices move into a full-time staff engagement after their trial. Around 10% with lower or less predictable volume transition into our On-Demand service. Large enterprise organisations typically proceed with Pod Engagements.

The trial is designed so that if it does not convert, neither side has wasted excessive time on setup. Onboarding during the trial is intentionally kept to the operational minimum. Full infrastructure onboarding only happens once a practice commits. For a more detailed look at how our trial compares across service types, see our article on BPO trials and pilot programs.

What Happens After You Commit?

Once a practice decides to proceed, full onboarding takes 2 to 3 days. This is separate from the trial onboarding and covers the infrastructure layer that we deliberately hold off on until commitment is confirmed.

Full onboarding includes setting up firm-controlled email addresses for your Felcorp staff, provisioning access to all relevant platforms, establishing security access under your firm's protocols, and aligning Felcorp's security policies with your own data handling requirements. Felcorp's data security standards are enterprise-grade and strictly enforced across every engagement.

The SOP that was documented during the trial becomes a formal component of the engagement contract. Performance reporting against the agreed SLAs begins immediately from the first month of the full engagement.

For a step-by-step breakdown of the full onboarding process, see our onboarding and setup guide.

How Does Quality Assurance Work?

Quality assurance at Felcorp operates through a tiered management framework that is independent from the staff member delivering your work. Every engagement is supported by 3 layers of oversight.

This structure means your staff member is never operating in isolation. When a paraplanner has a technical question about a product structure or a compliance requirement, they have an internal escalation path before it reaches you. When a deliverable is completed, the QA team checks calculations, strategy alignment, product accuracy, and formatting consistency against your documented SOPs before the work lands in your inbox.

Error tracking is maintained across all engagements. Trends are reviewed to identify process gaps and inform training priorities. If a deliverable requires revision, turnaround follows priority guidelines with the QA review time tracked separately for ongoing staff development.

For more detail on how quality assurance fits into our broader service model, see our article on quality assurance frameworks for BPO delivery.

How Do SLAs Protect Your Engagement?

Service Level Agreements (SLAs) define the turnaround expectations and time budgets for every standard job type allocated to your Felcorp team. They are contractually stipulated performance guarantees that Felcorp must meet, reported on monthly with full transparency.

SLAs get defined during your trial period. As Felcorp completes real work across the trial's 60 to 80 billable hours, we capture baseline data on turnaround times, complexity levels, and time budgets per job type. This data becomes the foundation for the SLAs written into your engagement contract.

Without SLAs, evaluating whether an engagement is working becomes guesswork. Both sides end up unclear on expectations, and misalignment builds over time until the engagement is at risk. SLAs remove that ambiguity entirely.

Example: How an SLA Works in Practice

A practice sends 3 to 4 advice requests of the same size and complexity to their Felcorp paraplanner each week. The practice requires every advice case completed within 72 hours of receipt.

During the trial, Felcorp completed 10 comparable advice cases with an average completion time of 8.5 hours per case. Based on that data, the contract SLA is set as follows:

1. 95% of allocated jobs to be completed within 72 hours (excluding weekends) of new request receipt.
2. All jobs exceeding 96 hours require a documented reason explaining non-compliance.
3. On non-compliance, 50% of the total time taken on overdue jobs is remitted back to the client as additional hours at no cost.

The SLA ensures that performance is measurable, reported transparently, and has real consequences if standards slip. For a deeper explanation of SLA structures in BPO, see our article on what is an SLA in BPO services or our broader guide on why BPOs need SLAs and KPI targets.

How Do You Send and Track Work?

Work can be submitted through the Felcorp Portal or through an agreed task submission method established during onboarding. Many of our clients use email, and we support that approach provided data security protocols are followed when disclosing sensitive client information.

Regardless of the submission method, every task request should include:

• Client name or reference - so the right file is pulled from your systems
• Scope of work required - the specific deliverable you need (SOA, review, implementation pack)
• Supporting documents - fact finds, product research, file notes
• Target completion timeframe - aligned with the SLAs in your contract
• Set time budget - hours allocated for this job type
• Firm-specific notes or compliance requirements - anything unique to this client or advice scenario

Standardising how work is submitted prevents delays caused by missing information. During onboarding, we capture exactly how your practice prefers to send and receive work, and we will always recommend the most secure delivery method available.

The Felcorp Portal

The Felcorp Portal is the central platform for submitting, tracking, and managing all work and relationship activity. Every client receives access, though it is not mandatory for all workflow interactions.

Within the portal you can communicate with your team and Felcorp management, upload supporting documents, set priority levels, view task status, download completed work, and track SLA performance. Each task receives a unique job number (for example, JN00500) with status updates reflecting progression from received to in-progress to QA to completed.

The portal maintains a record of communication linked to each task, which reduces reliance on email threads and centralises documentation for internal auditing and compliance purposes. Access permissions are role-based and limited to authorised users. For more information, see our Felcorp Portal resources.

Where Are Felcorp's Operations Based?

All financial planning offshore operations are based in Punjab, India. Staff work full-time from our offices with on-site supervision by division and quality assurance managers.

Standard shift times: 12:30pm to 9:30pm (AEST), Monday to Friday. Pod Engagements have the option to set custom shift timings to align with different time zones or workflow requirements.

Our offices operate with enterprise-grade security controls. Staff access is managed through role-based permissions, and all data handling follows strict protocols. For a broader look at how geography affects BPO quality and risk, see our article on geographic considerations in BPO.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between Paraplanning and Adviser Admin outsourcing?

Paraplanning handles pre-advice deliverables such as Statements of Advice (SOAs) in Australia and detailed advice documents in other jurisdictions. Adviser Admin handles post-advice work including forms processing, compliance documentation, CRM updates, and client onboarding workflows. Most practices need one or both depending on where their operational bottleneck sits. See our guides on paraplanning duties and scope and adviser admin duties and scope for detailed breakdowns.

What happens if the trial does not lead to a full engagement?

The trial is structured so that neither side loses excessive time or resources if it does not convert. Onboarding during the trial is kept to the operational minimum by design. If the arrangement does not fit, the practice has a documented Letter of Advice with performance data and SOPs captured during the trial, and there is no obligation to proceed further.

Can I scale up or change engagement models after starting?

Yes. Engagement models are designed to grow with the practice. A firm that starts with 1 full-time staff member on the Fully Managed model can scale to 2 or more as volume increases. Practices that outgrow the Fully Managed model and need 6 or more staff can transition into a Pod Engagement with its own dedicated management structure and eventual buyout option.

What if my staff member underperforms or leaves?

Every engagement is governed by SLAs and performance reporting. If a staff member is underperforming, Felcorp's management framework provides escalation paths, targeted training, and performance improvement processes. If a staff member leaves, Felcorp manages the replacement process through its own recruitment and onboarding infrastructure, minimising disruption to your practice.

How does Felcorp handle data security for financial planning work?

All data handling follows enterprise-grade security protocols enforced across every engagement. During full onboarding, Felcorp aligns its security policies with your firm's specific requirements, provisions access through firm-controlled email addresses, and establishes role-based access permissions. For a detailed look at security in outsourcing arrangements, see our article on how to manage data access and sharing in BPO.

Is outsourcing financial planning work a long-term solution or a temporary fix?

Felcorp positions outsourcing as a long-term partnership, not a transitional arrangement. We prioritise practices that share that mindset because the real value of outsourcing compounds over time as staff develop deeper knowledge of your firm, your SOPs mature, and operational efficiency increases. Engagements are designed to scale with the practice's needs rather than serve as a short-term stopgap.

Written by Tobias Fellas, Founder & CEO at Felcorp Support.