Xplan Virtual Assistant: a VA who knows a thread from a task

Nobody ends up on this page by accident. You searched “xplan virtual assistant” because your practice lives in Xplan, the platform most of Australian advice runs on, the one everyone complains about at PD days and almost nobody actually leaves. And the person driving it, keying fact finds, building review packs, chasing implementation tasks, typing file notes at 9pm, is you, or a practice manager who was hired to run the practice and instead runs Xplan.

Here’s what the complaining misses: as an admin engine, Xplan is genuinely deep. Threads that fire tasks by role. Xmerge templates that can produce a review pack to your licensee’s standard. Fee consent workflows with signatures through the Client Portal. None of that machinery is absent from your site; the absent part is a person whose entire shift is spent operating it.

The weekly rhythm a VA runs in your Xplan

The review cycle first, because it never stops. Ahead of each review your VA pulls valuations and performance reports from Xplan Portfolio (IPS), assembles the pack through your site’s Xmerge templates, and checks every merge field actually populated, because every Xplan user knows the special pain of a $0 where a balance should be. Meeting booked, confirmations sent, pre-meeting document requests out. Afterwards, your dictated notes are typed into the file the same day, while they’re still contemporaneous, which is the exact word your licensee’s audit team will use.

Then the chase. In Xplan, implementation lives in threads: a thread fires tasks by role, adviser, paraplanner, client service, and the client-service tasks are the chase. Platform applications on HUB24 or Netwealth, rollovers sitting with a transferring fund, underwriting requisitions, PMARs from a GP’s reception that doesn’t answer before ten. Your VA works those tasks daily and keeps each status true, so “where’s my super transfer up to” is a thirty-second answer from the Client Hub instead of an archaeology dig.

Then consents. Since the DBFO reforms landed in January 2025, the old FDS-and-opt-in dance is a single annual consent against each client’s reference day, with a window from 60 days before to 150 after. Your VA keeps the register, generates each consent, sends it for signature, chases it to signed and files it against the record. Miss one and you’re switching off fees you’ve earned; the entire point of the register is that nobody ever has that conversation.

Underneath it all, the data entry that advice documents wait on: fact finds keyed for individuals, trusts and businesses, risk profiles recorded, the file kept clean enough that the next merge compiles first time.

The honest bit

Two things. First, if your site is hosted by your licensee, and most are, you don’t control user creation: the dealer group’s site administrator sets up the login and capabilities, and your licensee’s outsourcing policy needs to cover the arrangement. That’s normally a form and a register entry, not a fight, but it can add days to the start, and we’d rather tell you now. Second, no two Xplan sites are the same. Your threads and templates were configured years ago by someone with opinions, so even a VA with serious Xplan hours is learning your Xplan in week one. Anyone promising day-one autopilot on your site is selling something.

What stays with you

The advice. All of it, and this page refuses to be casual about that. Your VA never gives personal financial advice, never answers a client’s “should I” question, never picks a strategy, runs the modelling or writes replacement-product reasoning; WealthSolver, Risk Researcher and Xtools+ get opened by people qualified to use them. On SOAs and ROAs the VA does the production half, data entry, template population, merge checking, PDS and authority assembly, and lodges for your review. Outsourcing the function never outsources the responsibility: the section 912A obligations stay with the licensee, which is exactly why the placement runs on scoped capabilities, written escalation rules and your sign-off on anything client-facing. The financial advisers page covers the full compliance architecture.

What it costs and where to start

Xplan work prices at the admin tier, $12-17 AUD an hour excl GST, with specialist advice-process support at $18-25. Most practices run 15-20 hours a week, around $1,000-1,700 a month, on Australian business hours, so the platform and insurer chasing happens while their phones are actually answered. One budgeting note: Xplan is licensed per user through Iress or your dealer group, so the VA’s login usually isn’t free the way an admin seat is on clinic software. Ask your licensee what an extra user costs before you settle the weekly hours.

Placement takes 7-10 business days, the first 5-7 of them supervised inside your site, and the first month carries a recalibrate-or-replace guarantee; after that, 14 days notice is the only exit paperwork. The VA cost guide breaks down the full pricing maths, and if you also write loans, the mortgage brokers page covers that side of the desk.

When you’re ready, book a discovery call with Jenn. She has placed 48+ VAs into Australian businesses since 2024, and if an Xplan VA isn’t the right next hire for your practice, she’ll say so on the call. Bring your consent register and your open thread list; between them, they’ll show her exactly where the hours are going.