Richard Etheridge – Prestwood Etheridge & Russell

16 June 2015

After 26 years as a paraplanner, Richard Etheridge of Prestwood Etheridge & Russell Ltd, has his procedures and processes down to a very fine art, he tells Rob Kingsbury

Richard Etheridge, managing director, Prestwood Etheridge & Russell Ltd, has 26 years of paraplanning under his belt. In that time he has gained a wealth of knowledge and experience. He has structured an approach to his working day that means he works 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday and when he leaves on the Friday, he knows the financial plans for client meetings for the next week are done and dusted and ready for use.

It is an approach that has been developed and tweaked over the years and is both possible and maintained by having as its basis a set of highly polished templates and strict adherence to tried and tested procedures. If there has been an incident that has affected the firm or its clients, then the firm will have a procedure applying to it to ensure it is effectively handled in the future. These procedures have been agreed by and are followed by the practice as a whole, which enables anyone within the business to know exactly what to do in every situation and where they are with every client at any time.

“This means we don’t have to have original thought in routine situations,” Richard says. “We focus where it is needed, which is absolutely key to running the business efficiently.”

For the 26 years Richard has worked alongside his father, the firm’s financial planner, Paul Etheridge. Paul also set up Prestwood Software, which offers the cashflow modelling software ‘Truth’, and a combination of cashflow modelling and practice management (back office) systems called ‘Professional’.

It is no surprise, therefore, that Richard uses Prestwood software in his approach to dealing with clients. “I make full use of the diary programme which tells me exactly what I’ve got to do every day in terms of the standard procedures to follow for the clients that are coming in over the next three months. We have a 90-day procedure for the regular annual planning meetings where we have a countdown to ensure certain things are done by certain times. That is process and date driven by the software,” he says.

Once the client information is collected, then updating the software, finding the right template, inputting the data and taking out what’s not needed can all be done in an hour-and-a-half to two hours, Richard says. “We’ve got the templates just right and we use standard agendas and standard text as well as libraries of documents and standard illustrations, all of which are hugely helpful and help cut down massively on time taken for these routine elements of the process before, during and after the financial planning meetings.”

Having the standard procedures, Richard adds, means that should a crisis occur – maybe a client dies or a client needs a situation resolving immediately – “you have the time and the resource to deal with that in the manner it needs to be dealt with”.

Professional Paraplanner