Running the annual household review
How the Financial services pack runs a client's annual review, from asking for changes and statements to stated asset values and the next review date.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Financial services businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
Launching soon. The Industry CRM add-on described in this article is launching soon. This article describes it as it will work at launch.
The annual review is where an advice relationship is either renewed or quietly lost. Done well, it catches the new baby, the change of job, the inheritance and the policy that lapsed without anyone noticing. Done badly, it is a meeting where the adviser reads out last year's notes and the client nods politely, and both leave knowing little more than when they arrived.
Most of the difference lies in preparation. Achekam's Financial services pack runs the annual review as a workflow that starts before the meeting and ends only when the next review date is set.
The household review record
The pack keeps a Household review for each client household. It holds the household's members and its assets, as the client states them. That last phrase runs through everything below. The record is what the client has told you. It is not a valuation, and the pack does not pretend otherwise.
The pack is designed for a financial adviser or a bond originator, so household reviews sit alongside loan applications as the two main kinds of record. Most advisers will live in the household reviews; originators in the applications.
Asking for changes and current statements
The review workflow starts by asking the client for two things: what has changed since the last review, and current statements for what they hold. The request goes to the client as a workflow step, and the client's answer moves the task on.
Asking ahead changes the meeting. Instead of spending the first half hour on "has anything changed?", you arrive knowing about the new job, with this year's statements already in front of you. Make the questions concrete, because "any changes?" gets "no" far more often than the truth deserves:
- Who is in the household now? Births, marriages, divorces, deaths, children who have left home or come back.
- What has changed at work? A new employer, a promotion, retirement, a business started or sold.
- Has anything changed in anyone's health that could affect cover?
- Have you bought or sold anything large, taken on debt or paid it off?
- Please send current statements for each investment, policy and retirement fund.
Some clients will not answer the request at all. Do not let that cancel the review. Phone them, explain briefly why the questions matter, and offer to go through them at the start of the meeting instead. A review held with partial information is still better than one postponed until next year, and the conversation often tells you why the client went quiet in the first place, which can be the most useful thing you learn all year.
Holding the review
The meeting itself is the next step in the workflow. The pack does not tell you what to advise; that is your professional work. What it does is make sure the review is a step that has to be done, rather than an intention that slips from one quarter to the next. In South Africa, the Financial Planning Institute's Code of Ethics and Practice Standards sets out the ethics principles, practice standards and rules of professional conduct that its members and CFP professionals follow when advising clients.
Use the information that came back from the request as the agenda. Go through each change the client reported and ask what it means for their cover, their savings and their plans. Note anything the client mentions that was not in their written answer.
Asset values as the client states them
Every asset value in the pack is as the client states it. The pack shows no investment performance, and nothing is read from product providers or lenders. That limit is deliberate, and it shapes how you use the record:
- Write down each value with the date of the statement it came from.
- Where the client gave a figure from memory, say so on the record.
- Do not present the household record to a client as a valuation or a performance report. It is a summary of what they told you.
- Where performance matters to your advice, rely on the providers' own statements and file them with the review.
A record that reads "as stated by the client on this date" protects both of you when a value later turns out to have been different.
Setting the next review date
The workflow ends by setting the next review date. That date drives the following cycle, so set it in the meeting, with the client, rather than leaving it to be worked out later.
Not every household needs exactly a year. A client close to retirement, expecting a large payout, or in the middle of a divorce may need an earlier check; set the date to suit their situation rather than the calendar.
What to record after the meeting
| Item | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Who attended | Shows which household members took part in the advice |
| Changes reported and statements received | The factual base for the advice |
| Advice given, or why no change was advised | The core of the record |
| Actions agreed, with owner and date | Stops follow-ups being lost |
| Documents to be signed as a result | Starts the signing step |
| The next review date | Starts the next cycle |
Record these on the day. Notes written a week later are thinner and less reliable, and a reviewer can usually tell.
If the review leads to new advice that the client must sign, the route is the same as at onboarding, described in onboarding a client: FICA and the record of advice. For the checks and figures the pack deliberately leaves with the practice, see what the adviser pack leaves to your own checks.
Draft your pre-review questions now, in the words your clients use, so the request that goes out before each review comes back complete the first time.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
