Shape clearer adviser reporting across the industry with our new research group

If you’re an adviser firm – or you work with adviser firms – you know that strong business decisions start with strong data. Advisers depend on business information from platforms and providers to understand performance, plan for growth and run sustainable firms – from assets under advice and fund details to models, flows, fees and charges.

When that information is clear and consistent, it becomes a powerful source of insight. However, it often arrives in different formats, with different definitions, and reports that don’t quite line up – limiting how effectively it can be used.

That’s why we’ve formed the Adviser Business Information Research Group: to explore this opportunity, understand the challenges, and work with the industry to identify how adviser business data can work better for everyone. 

Where good data falls short

Right now, advisers piece together business insight from multiple platforms and systems which can involve spending valuable time reconciling data instead of using it.

As an adviser, that can mean:

• Less confidence in reporting
• More manual effort
• Harder comparisons
• Slower decision‑making

As a platform, provider or tech firm, it can mean:

• Repeated questions from firms trying to interpret reports
• Bespoke data requests
• Inconsistent usage of the same information
• Missed opportunities to demonstrate value

A shared opportunity 

The Adviser Business Information Research Group exists to explore whether there is a better way to approach adviser business data – one that works for advisers, and for the organisations that support and integrate with them.

The aim is simple: to understand what information really matters at adviser business level, where inconsistency causes friction today, and whether a shared approach could remove ambiguity and create clearer insight for everyone involved.

For advisers, that could mean a more accurate and consistent view of their business - reducing the manual effort and operational risk, cutting the time and cost spent reconciling multiple reports, and freeing up more capacity to focus on client conversations and business growth. 

More reliable data can also support better ongoing advice, including clearer fee transparency and portfolio performance, helping firms evidence good outcomes and meet Consumer Duty expectations.

For platforms, providers and tech firms, it’s an opportunity to help shape a common baseline - reducing repeated queries and bespoke data requests, improving governance and oversight, and ensuring the value of the data you provide is clearly understood and consistently used.

Help shape what good looks like

This work will benefit from reflecting real‑world experience from across the industry. By getting involved, you can:

• Bring practical insight into how adviser business data is used today
• Help identify where inconsistency creates the biggest challenges
• Influence whether – and how – a more consistent approach could work in practice

Rather than prescribing answers, this work focuses on understanding the challenge together and exploring whether improved clarity could make a meaningful difference for adviser businesses over time.

Quillan Mackay, Programme Delivery Director: 

Adviser business data underpins so many day‑to‑day decisions, yet it could be clearer and more consistent. This research group is about bringing the industry together to explore whether a shared approach could make that data easier to access, easier to understand, and more useful for everyone involved. Outcomes could include less manual effort and more data consistency leading to improved client outcomes with better reliable data.

If you’re an adviser, platform, provider or technology firm with a stake in how adviser business information is used and understood, your perspective is important.

The Adviser Business Information Research Group is an opportunity to contribute to an industry‑led conversation about what good looks like – and how we can make it easier for advisers to turn data into meaningful business insight. 

We’d welcome your involvement: [email protected].