Shaun Green
Elemnta has released interim research results revealing a significantly deeper-than-first-estimated capacity crisis facing Australia’s financial advice sector.
The interim results reveal that data and implementation inefficiency are emerging as two of the largest structural barriers to advice accessibility, growth, and profitability in the sector, with the findings demonstrating advisers are spending far more time on non-advice work than the profession recognises.
Key interim findings
The following three insights help illustrate the sector’s growing capacity crisis. The figures are drawn from the interim findings of the Elemnta–Marshan Consulting 2025 Adviser Efficiency Analysis:
1. The 41% perception gap
Advice practices estimate that around 45% of their effort goes into non-advice operations, including time spent on implementation, compliance, and administration work. In reality, the figure is closer to 86% – revealing a 41% perception gap in how advisers allocate their time.
This 41% perception gap means advisers are spending almost double their estimated time. Such a blind spot is limiting practices to price their advice services accurately, or plan capacity to reflect their true workload. It is also leaving many operating on razor-thin margins and struggling to remain profitable.
2. Retirement strategy complications
Retirees and pre-retirees comprise the largest users of financial advice services in Australia. The interim research findings discovered an alarming retirement market error rate imposed on advisers from the counterparties they most often deal with (platform and product providers).
When implementing retirement strategies, advisers are yoked by a provider error rate of between 12% and 42%, depending on the complexity of the strategy. Such implementation errors cost practices an annual average of $22,400 (per one hundred clients, per annum), representing avoidable time and financial leakage that is further eroding the sector’s credibility and profitability.
These numbers cover retirement planning only and are distinct from other practice areas which may also suffer similar error rates and inefficiencies.
3. Product implementation performance
The study also reveals a stark divide in efficiency between product types:
- Modern Platforms: Applications cost practices an average of $760 per application, take 8 hours 25 minutes to complete, and have a rejection rate of 12–18%.
- Industry Funds: Applications cost an average of $1,645 per application, take 17 hours 20 minutes, and have a rejection rate of 30–35%.
This efficiency divide means adviser profitability and sheer workloads varies markedly depending on which platform or product providers they interact with.
A system under strain
The interim findings come as the financial advice sector grapples with rising compliance obligations, manual data handling, and fragmented technology. With adviser numbers continuing to fall and demand for advice surging, inefficiency is a defining constraint on industry growth.
Shaun Green, CEO of Elemnta said, “The early results confirm that inefficiency has quietly become the largest cost centre in advice, as firms face far greater profit and practice burdens than we first thought.”
“The perception gap itself is alarming (the gap between what practices think they spend on administration, compliance and implementation and the reality). Interim data shows a clear trend towards advisers either overcompensating for or grossly underestimating the drain of time from non-advice effort. This underscores why some advice businesses are barely profitable – if at all.” Mr Green added.
“These early figures are a confronting set of numbers, and we felt it necessary to release them now to begin focusing the entire advice ecosystem on understanding the impacts and prioritising solutions for its collective immediate benefit,” he concluded.
Elemnta-Marshan Consulting 2025 Adviser Efficiency Analysis
The full report and analysis from the Elemnta–Marshan Consulting 2025 Adviser Efficiency research will be released in early 2026, offering the industry’s most comprehensive analysis of operational drag, financial waste and technology fragmentation in advice delivery.
Elemnta will continue to expand its research collaboration with partner platforms and advice firms to track the evolution of capacity and efficiency across the sector.