What's an Advice Fee Form?

The Advice Fee Form is used to renew, add, update or remove advice fees on any account type (superannuation, pension or IDPS). The online form can be used to set advice fees on an account that calculates on the balance of the account or the balance of the fee group. For retail clients, it also captures the advice fee consent requirements that apply where personal advice is provided under an ongoing fee arrangement.

Where your fees are not changing and you're renewing an ongoing fee deducted from an IDPS account, you can upload your own advice fee consent document into the Advice Fee Form. Our Advice Fee Deduction Consent Form will not be sent to the client as you have already collected consent.

The Advice Fee Form must be used for all advice fees deducted from superannuation accounts to ensure there is a valid consent in place before fees are deducted. Further information on trustee obligations in relation to advice fees and superannuation is set out in this letter from ASIC/APRA to trustees. 

The legislation requires all account owners to provide their consent.

The Advice Fee Form, the product application forms and the product switch form will include a number of services, which advisers must include when requesting client consent to deduct fees from their superannuation or pension account.

For superannuation accounts, these services are:

  • Periodic review of a superannuation account
  • Strategic superannuation advice
  • Management and administration of a superannuation account
    • Superannuation investment portfolio:
    • establishment and implementation
    • review and maintenance
    • corporate actions
  • Superannuation contribution strategy
  • Insurance in superannuation strategy
  • Superannuation withdrawal advice and management.

For pension accounts, these services are:

  • Pension establishment and commencement
  • Periodic review of a pension account
  • Pension management strategy
  • Management and administration of a pension account
  • Pension investment portfolio:
    • establishment and implementation
    • review and maintenance
    • corporate actions.

These service lists were developed after discussions with a number of financial adviser and dealer firms. While they may not align exactly to your current service offering, we’ve kept the service descriptions broad so they can fit alongside most adviser service offerings.

Accepting Advice Fee Form

After submitting the Advice Fee Form, your client will receive an email from Macquarie to their registered email address.

An example of the email your client will receive is shown below:

 


After clicking on the Review fees and services button, your client will be taken to a login page where they will log in using personal information registered with Macquarie.

Your client will then be asked to view the Advice Fee Deduction Consent document and accept the terms and conditions.

Please note, your client won’t be able to approve and submit their consent until they’ve viewed the Advice Fee Deduction Consent form.

They can view the form by clicking the View Advice Fee Deduction Consent link on the page. Once downloaded, your client will be able to open the PDF. It should appear in the bottom left-hand side of the screen.


Your client should then select Approve and submit your consent or Save request for later if they have any questions they'd like to confirm with you prior to submitting their consent.

Where the client selects Decline request for consent the Advice Fee Deduction Consents will appear in the Declined tab of the portal (see left-hand column).

Please check the Submitted and Declined tab regularly to stay up to date on the status of your clients' Advice Fee Deduction Consent forms.

Resend Advice Fee Form applications

You can view In-progress applications under the In-progress tab of the application work-in-progress screen in Adviser Online.

Simply select the application and click Edit to re-send the email to your client. 

How do I access a paper form?

When completing the Advice Fee Form, you can select ‘Print, Sign and Upload’  This enables the form to be generated as a PDF and printed out or emailed to the client. The PDF can also be executed using approved e-signature providers.

Cancelling a current fee arrangement

To remove an adviser service fee from an account, please use the Advice Fee Form. The Advice Fee Form can be completed online by an adviser or support staff.  

Once you’ve selected the relevant account within the portal, confirm you’d like to cancel an existing fee by selecting this option from the drop-down box in Stage 1. Once confirmed, the Advice Fee Form will display a message, confirming the existing consent will be invalidated and adviser service fees removed from the account upon submission of the Advice Fee Form.  

Once submitted, adviser service fees will be removed from the account. If you remove fees in the middle of a month, fees for that month will not be deducted from the account at the end of the month. 

Please keep in mind that if your fee arrangement was set to calculate on a group balance, this may impact the fees you receive. 

Adviser service fees available via the Advice Fee Form

The following advice fees are available on platform and are deducted monthly or upon closure of your account:

Calculation optionsTypeAsset Class
Account balance or group balanceTiered % Fee or Flat % FeeAll investments including cash
Account balance or group balanceTiered % Fee or Flat % FeeAll investments excluding cash
Account balance or group balanceTiered % Fee or Flat % FeeAustralian listed securities
Account balance or group balanceTiered % Fee or Flat % FeeInternational listed securities (IDPS)
Account balance or group balanceTiered % Fee or Flat % FeeManaged investments
Account balance or group balanceTiered % Fee or Flat % FeeSMAs
Account balance or group balanceTiered % Fee or Flat % FeeFixed income securities
Account balance or group balanceTiered % Fee or Flat % FeeTerm Deposits
Account balance or group balanceTiered % Fee or Flat % FeeCash
Account flat fee or group balanceFlat $ FeeN/A
Account ad-hoc feeOne-Off $ FeeN/A
Per transaction on the accountFlat % Fee or Flat $ FeeN/A

Adviser service fee end date

The account must have adviser service fees loaded on the last day of the month for advice fees to calculate for that month. This means where the expiry date or the end date on the Advice Fee Form falls on any day prior to the last day of the month, adviser service fees for that month will not be deducted from the account.

Grouping Wrap accounts

You can group some of your clients’ accounts together to make them easier to manage. Grouping can be useful when a client or their family holds multiple Wrap accounts.

Your clients won’t be able to see the other accounts in their account group unless you request otherwise (see below).
 

Type of account groups

Reporting Group

You can generate reports across different products for up to 20 accounts within the group. This includes a Portfolio Review report for the nominated group.

Fee Group

When grouping accounts for fees, these accounts will be automatically grouped for administration fees and adviser service fees (if applicable).

Group balance calculations for adviser fees

Tiered adviser fees and flat dollar adviser fees that calculate on a group balance are calculated in three steps:

  1. The total Funds Under Administration (FUA) balance of all accounts for the relevant asset classes are determined
  2. The fee is applied to that grouped balance to arrive at a total fee to be applied across all the accounts within the group
  3. The fee above is apportioned based on the proporation of FUA held for the relevant asset classes in the account.

Percentage based fees

  • Daily fee = applicable group balance x daily rate x account proportion of group
  • Where: 
    • Daily rate = (rate/365)
    • Account proportion of group = applicable account balance / applicable group balance
  • Flat dollar fee: 
    •  Monthly fee = monthly rate x account proportion of group

Worked example of monthly flat dollar fee calculated on a group balance:

 Average balanceMonthly fee (ex GST)Fee calculated (ex GST)
Acc1$500,000.00$833.33$490.19
Acc2$250,000.00$833.33$245.10
Acc3$100,000.00$833.33$98.04
Sum$850,000.00 $833.33

What impact will updating the accounts in the group have on adviser service fees?

Where an account within the group has advice fees that calculate on group balance, changes to the group may impact the advice fees calculated on the account. Impacts to advice fees will occur where the balance of the group increases or decreases, and changing the accounts within the group may have an impact on this. It’s important to consider the impact a change to a group may have on advice fees prior to updating a group via Adviser Online.

If you'd like to update the adviser service fees on an account due to a change in group, please submit a new advice fee form for each relevant account.

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