Part 2: Understanding your costs

It is widely known that IFA firms have faced some pretty tough times lately, with business hard to come by and rising costs, many outside of their control - PI cover being an obvious example. Working harder and selling more is always the logical option, but as any junior economist would tell you, this may well feed the problem, with variable costs often rising proportionately to sales as resources become stretched. Doing a 'few sums', or more accurately a cost-benefit analysis, it is not surprising that many advisers in this situation adopt the ostrich approach – burying themselves in the ...