Association debuts benchmarking tool

The National Association of Personal Financial Advisors has launched a new benchmarking tool that will help advisers measure their practices against those of fellow NAPFA members. The tool, created by Moss Adams LLP and released at the NAPFA National Conference in Chicago today, allows advisers to understand the trends in their business, establish prices, assess client fit and productivity, figure out capacity, evaluate productivity and set goals. "This gives NAPFA members a tool that they can use to compare themselves to advisers who are strictly fee-only," said NAPFA president Richard Bellmer of Deerfield Financial Advisors Inc. in Indianapolis. "It is a practice management tool to see how advisers compare with their peers." Based on the 2006 NAPFA Membership Benchmarking Study, the tool measures the gross profit margin and indicates the potential problems with productivity, pricing, products and clients. It then diagnoses the reasons for problems that come up in the operations of any given company. The tool creates benchmarking metrics for setting future goals, creating and implementing an action plan. Moss Adams LLP is a Seattle-based accounting and consulting firm.