Who you'd be trusting with your files
Everything your licensee will want on file, answered here rather than behind a form: how we're set up, how we handle client data, what our insurance covers, and what happens if you leave.
The problem we kept running into
Every principal we spoke to had tried the obvious fixes. Hire locally, and spend three months recruiting a paraplanner who might leave in eighteen. Engage a freelancer, who may be excellent but is rarely available when you need them and carries no cover when they aren't. Buy software, which helps, but doesn't sit on hold to Services Australia for forty minutes.
Meanwhile the adviser register kept shrinking, the CSLR levy landed on the firms that stayed, and DBFO changed the paperwork without removing the strategy work behind it. The practices still standing are working through queues rather than pipelines.
So we lead on speed rather than savings. Whether the economics work in a given practice depends on its volumes, charge-out rates and how much recovered adviser time can be billed.
So we did the expensive part first
Most providers recruit only once you've signed. That's understandable, since carrying payroll for unassigned staff is expensive. It's also why onboarding takes months, and why the person in the pitch often isn't the person who ends up doing the work.
We recruit and train ahead of demand: a structured Australian advice induction before anyone touches a client file, then supervised live work before placement. Employing people ahead of demand costs us money. It's also the reason we can start in a fortnight, and the reason continuity survives a resignation.
What we won't do
We don't give advice. PLTCo is not an Australian Financial Services Licensee and does not provide financial product advice or credit assistance unless formally authorised to do so. We prepare work on instruction; your adviser determines the scope, selects the strategy, decides whether the advice is appropriate and issues it. Review, approval, supervision and compliance responsibility stay with the adviser and licensee. That boundary is the product, not a limitation of it.
We also won't sell you something you don't need. If your queue is clear, we'll say so on the first call — you'll ring back when it isn't.
What we commit to
Four things we hold ourselves to on every engagement, written the way they appear in our service agreements.
A named Australian lead on your account
One Australian-based person who knows your practice, checks work before it reaches you, and is reachable during business hours. Not a shared inbox or a ticket queue. We pay Australian salaries for that layer because without it, you'd be managing an offshore team yourself, which is precisely the job you're trying not to have.
Trained before they touch your files
Everyone completes an Australian advice induction and supervised live work before being assigned to a practice. We carry that cost before there's a client to assign them to. It's expensive, and it's the only honest way to start an engagement inside a fortnight.
Corrections at our cost
If work doesn't meet the standard agreed in your service schedule, we fix it and you don't pay for the fixing. It's in the agreement rather than a goodwill gesture, because a guarantee you have to negotiate isn't one.
Thirty days' notice, nothing else
No minimum term, no exit fee, no lock-in. During the notice period we finish work in progress, hand everything back in a usable format, and confirm access revocation and deletion in writing. We'd rather keep clients by being worth keeping.
Security and compliance
Outsourcing arrangements sit within your licensee's obligations, so this section is written for whoever has to sign off on us.
Least-privilege access
Work happens in your approved systems, on unique named user accounts with least-privilege permissions. Access is revoked when a team member leaves your engagement. We minimise copies of your data and keep work within approved environments — controlled temporary processing, migration staging and system logs are a normal part of the work and are covered by agreed retention terms.
Privacy Act 1988 alignment
Handling follows the Australian Privacy Principles: secure transfer, audit logging, data minimisation, controlled retention and deletion, and a notifiable data breach protocol. Documented policy supplied on request.
Approved systems only
Managed environments — no personal devices, no removable media, no personal cloud storage.
Vetted people
Background and identity checks, signed confidentiality undertakings, annual privacy and security training for everyone on an Australian engagement.
Documentation for your file
Service agreement, outsourcing schedule, data-handling policy, business continuity plan and security controls summary — before you sign, not after you ask.
Accountability stays put
PLTCo prepares work on instruction. The adviser sets the scope, selects the strategy and decides whether advice is appropriate; the adviser and licensee retain review, approval, supervision and compliance responsibility. Nothing in this arrangement moves an obligation off your licence.
If your licensee has its own outsourced service provider due-diligence questionnaire, send it through. We'd rather complete yours than ask you to accept ours.
Kind words from practices we work with
Our licensee's due diligence was the part I dreaded. PLTCo had already answered most of it in writing before we asked, and completed our own questionnaire rather than sending theirs back.
We went in expecting the usual offshore pitch about cost. They talked about turnaround instead, then told us on the first call that two days a week was probably enough. It was.
Grace has been with us eighteen months now and knows our templates better than some of our own staff. That continuity is the whole value. I stopped re-explaining things a long time ago.
Due diligence questions, answered upfront
A few providers will send you a checklist of questions to ask. Helpful, except you still have to chase the answers. Ours are below, including the ones where our answer isn't especially flattering.
Are you ISO 27001 certified?
Where do your people physically sit?
Who has access to our client data, and how do you prove it?
What happens to our data if we leave?
Is the person in the pitch the person doing our work?
What's your staff turnover?
Do you hold professional indemnity insurance?
What if a client complains?
What happens if we want to exit?
Who do we call when something goes wrong?
Can we speak to a current client?
Assessing us formally? Send your licensee's outsourced service provider questionnaire and we'll complete yours rather than ask you to accept ours.
AML/CTF: it depends on the service and the task
Anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing obligations are not identical across advice practices. What applies depends on the client, whether a designated service is being provided, and which tasks are outsourced. Some practices are reporting entities; some are not; some are for part of what they do.
Where PLTCo supports a reporting entity, our involvement can include:
- Personnel training appropriate to the tasks performed
- Customer due-diligence support and document collection
- Record keeping in line with your programme
- Escalation of exceptions rather than resolution of them
- Confidentiality, including tipping-off restrictions
The reporting entity retains responsibility for its AML/CTF programme, its risk assessment, and all reporting obligations. Our personnel do not access suspicious-matter reports or restricted AML investigation information unless specifically authorised and legally permitted.
Official Australian reference data
Published figures from official sources, shown with their period and retrieval date. Reference information only, not advice, not a personal estimate, and not a prediction.
Resident individual income-tax rates
Consumer Price Index, All Groups
Cash rate target
Insurance statistics & news
Published by the issuing agency, shown here for reference. These cards read from official ATO, ABS, RBA and APRA sources through a server-side adapter. Until that endpoint is configured they show an unavailable state and link to the source — no value is ever displayed as current unless it has been retrieved and dated. Cached values are labelled as cached and show their retrieval date. To be explicit: this reads published government data in one direction only. No client information travels to the ATO, ABS, RBA or APRA through it.
Have a chat with us
Bring your volumes. You'll leave knowing what the backlog costs — whether or not you engage us.