In a typical week...

It has struck me that some of our Members may have slightly fanciful notions as to what a Director of a modestly-sized national IFA Network may get up to in the course of a week.  Perhaps I might be out there on the golf-course whilst poorly-paid minions slave away in the sweat-shop which is our admin office in Cardiff...

Well, the last week has contained both typical and atypical elements.  The atypical bits are easy to spot - supervising the completion of the FSA RMAR only happens twice a year, but its certainly stressful whilst it remains incomplete.  Thankfully that is all now done and dusted,  until we go through the same purgatory next September.  Hard on the heels of the RMAR, we had the auditors in for their annual visit - which sort of keeps you on an adrenalin-fuelled roll.

In between such delicacies, it's been business as usual.  We're working with one of our AR's to facilitate a mailshot to approximately 150 accountancy firms in their immediate area, so the final touches have been made to the wording and enclosures.  We're in talks with two new accountancy firms who look like they might now be joining us - so quite a bit of detail to confirm and agree on.  I've spent some fun time with our accountant playing with our budget and business plan for the coming year - this time around with an increasing level of confidence when we realised how close last year's figures were to projections.

Alongside of this, I have endeavoured to keep abreast of developments as we supervise the novation of agencies across for existing firms that are restructuring, as well as for one firm which left us last year, but where the fallout appears to be never-ending.

Much more importantly, we have been absorbing the implications of the FSA's RDR Interim Report, and considering how this is going to affect our Members and our business proposition.  A longer-running project to revise our supervisory structures has come to fruition in a new set of guidance notes which we have posted in our Members area of the website, and which is also being mailed out in hard copy over the next few days.

Finally, having been mulling over the implications of the financial chaos for quite some time, a set of new ideas and resources have been coming together.  As a result we have put together a booklet of materials, aimed at helping our Members ride out the rocky markets whilst hopefully moving their businesses ahead in a challenging time.  This builds on our earlier set of resources, published in February - "2008 - Planning The Year Ahead".

And my life will be complete if somebody actually reads the stuff!