Difference between Financial Planning and Accounting
October 14th, 2008 by admin
Training for financial planners has additional requirements not expected of accountants in the form of ps146 ASIC compliance. Both accountants and financial planners are expected by their respective industries, professional bodies and clients to have underlying educational requirements however this is only a legal necessity for financial planners and not accountants in the majority of their work environment. Financial planners are regulated by ASIC in their requirement for them to undertake RG146 PS146 courses if they want to operate as authorised representatives for licence holders. Accountants excluding auditors and taxation agents are not legally required to be educated as regulation comes through the Corporations law which requires any accountant dealing with companies to use the Australian Accounting Standard Board’s accounting standards which are in fact the international accounting standards.
The difference comes in the way regulation occurs, financial planners’ education is regulated while the compliance requirement of following legally enforced standards is the regulation tool used by ASIC to control accountants. It is legally possible for an accountant to have never undertaken an accounting course and still be in charge of accounting at a large corporation. A financial adviser alternatively needs to be ASIC compliant and as a minimum must do RG146/PS146 courses. The majority of providers offer this qualification in the form of the Diploma of Financial Services (Financial Planning) which ordinarily would give full ASIC RG146/PS146 compliance. The full ASIC training is not required if a financial planner is willing to be restricted in the type of advice they are prepared to give.
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