Simply Paraplanner

We are a job board website connecting financial planning firms with virtual employees and contractors to help make work experience more accessible in the financial planning industry.

In general, a paraplanner is a member of the financial planning team that prepares, implements, and reviews a client’s financial plan. A paraplanner is considered to be the middle or back office of a financial planning team. Paraplanners range from entry-level to very experienced and help with all aspects of creating the financial plan. Paraplanners can be client facing, but do not lead client relationships like the advisor. 

The title can encompass a wide variety of roles, including Client Service Associate, Paraplanner, or Associate Planner. Some firms even leverage talented paraplanners as Lead Planners. Paraplanners can be responsible for both back-office tasks or serve in client-facing roles. The exact tasks that a paraplanner will do varies from firm to firm.

We do not have in-house paraplanners, but rather connect you with the perfect hire for your firm. Whether you’re looking for an as needed or full-time paraplanner, we have hundreds of paraplanners across the country looking for virtual work.

We specialize in virtual only positions. We do require that all positions being posted on our site be virtual positions.

No! You can hire for many different types of positions through the SP website. We have helped place Client Service Associates/Operations Associates, Paraplanners, Associate Planners and even Lead Advisors. Our goal is to provide a platform for people who want to hire virtually and that is not limited to just paraplanners.

Yes, paraplanners range from entry-level to experienced. Below is a brief description of the difference between an entry-level paraplanner and an experience paraplanner though there can be varying levels in between: 

• Entry-Level: Data entry and basic analyses to be reviewed by experience paraplanner or the advisor
• Experienced: A paraplanner who is a CFP, can interact with clients and present plans (though they are not leading the relationship), be the go-to person on the team for all financial planning related items, and manage lower level paraplanners.

The short answer - as many as you want them to! There is a lot of flexibility when hiring a virtual paraplanner. Many paraplanners require a minimum of 5 hours per week, but you can hire for up to full-time.

Hiring virtually allows firms to choose the BEST person for their team regardless of location and typically cost less due to the lack of overhead expenses on a physical office space. In order to hire virtually, you will want to make sure your business is set up to function virtually. This means having all your documents accessible on the cloud! You can check out more details on our blog post on How to Successfully Manage A Virtual Team

This primarily depends on how you want to interact with your paraplanner. If you hire a 1099 contractor, it is important to remember that they are considered self-employed and running their own business. You are hiring their business to provide paraplanning services. This means that you cannot require them to work within certain hours. You give them a task and a deadline and they choose when they work on the task. You also cannot control if they work for other firms.

The pay for a paraplanner will be based on their experience level and the tasks that they will be performing as well as whether they are W2 or 1099. The starting hourly rate for an entry-level paraplanner is $30/hour.

This is a very common concern amongst advisors. Cyber security is extremely important and it is important you establish your expectations with your paraplanner and outline these expectations within your contract. Some examples would include: private wifi or secure VPN, encrypted hard drive, virus scanning software and secure document sharing software.