How advisers can avoid the CPD crunch at EOFY

With just over two months left of FY2024–25, there are a number of things advisers need to be mindful of to avoid the end of financial year (EOFY) scramble, not least of which is continuing professional development (CPD) requirements.

Speaking with ifa, Kaplan chief executive Brian Knight said that while advisers have gotten better at spreading their CPD training out across the financial year, the education platform still sees a significant rise in courses completed over Q4.

“We do roughly 200,000 content completion pieces every quarter but that will go, in this final quarter, to about 350,000,” Knight said.

“Some years ago, everybody would leave it until the last minute … We know that we’ll get this rush in the last quarter, but it’s nowhere near what it used to be.”

To make sure advisers aren’t spending more time than they need to in order to meet the 40-hour requirement, Knight said they might be inadvertently racking up CPD points throughout the year.

“A lot of [advisers] are doing courses now. So, if they’re doing a course and upgrading their education, they’ve got to make sure they count that in their CPD because they can actually count that,” he said.

“They need to actually think about any webinars and PD days or any external learning that they’ve had so that they get that counted in their record and they keep up to date.”

One of the key reasons advisers have been able to avoid the EOFY stress in this regard, according to Knight, is that licensees are now doing a lot more to make sure their advisers are engaging in CPD training throughout the year.

For example, Tribeca Financial head of advice Robert Devlin said the firm has made a conscious effort to provide engaging and relevant training for its advisers to ensure they are hitting their requirements while also actually benefiting from the content rather than just completing a tick-a-box task.

“I think [licensees should] encourage their advice teams to go out and go to these types of PD days and seminars and webinars, and make sure that they’re meeting people outside of their work bubble but then also bringing it in-house,” Devlin told ifa.

“We often will do in-house training and then link to, say, a Kaplan course. That’s something you can take away and do in your own time.”

He added: “Try to tie it with what we’re learning in the business. Make it relevant, make it interesting and topical, and obviously, then they can work together and build their knowledge together so that we’re all on the same page.”

While quick online courses can be useful in a pinch, Devlin suggested that advisers should try and engage in CPD content that adds value to them and they find interesting to ensure they are getting the most out of the legal requirement.

Beyond CPD

Lifespan chief executive Eugene Ardino pointed out that advice business owners have further considerations to keep in mind as the end of the financial year approaches.

“You’ve just got to make sure that you’ve got your end of financial year business/company obligations in place: updating financial records, super guarantee requirements, claiming any relevant rebates, for starters,” Ardino told ifa.

“Just making sure that you’re on top of all of that, it can be pretty overwhelming, but, yes, the idea is you’ve just got to plan and try not to leave all these things for June, particularly if you have staff, which most advisers would.

“So, it’s good to have external professional advisers that can help you with this stuff. Obviously, lean on your accountants for a lot of this stuff. But yeah, it’s all stuff you have to think about come end of financial year.”

Finally, although there is still eight months until the 1 January 2026 deadline for advisers to ensure their Financial Adviser Register (FAR) records are up to date, Devlin said that meeting those education requirements should also be top of mind for advisers.

“The new education requirements come into effect early next year so, although it’s not end of financial year, it’s certainly something we’re discussing with our advisers just to make sure everyone’s on top of it,” Devlin said.

“Some people have to do bridging courses. Some people have other requirements they need to complete but, as we know, that’s all coming at us quite quickly, so we’ve got that on our radar as well.”