Northern Ireland adviser tools
Designed to help you give efficient and effective advice - find out more about the tools developed by the Money Advice Trust.
Common Financial Statement CASHflow
The Common Financial Statement (CFS) is a budgeting tool that can be used by advisers to make debt repayment offers to creditors on behalf of clients. It helps advisers to:
- gain an accurate overview of a client’s income, expenditure, assets and liabilities
- ensure repayment offers are fair and sustainable in the long term
- present the information to creditors in a standard format.
The Money Advice Trust worked with the Finance and Leasing Association and the British Bankers’ Association to agree the standardised budget sheet format with built-in ‘trigger figures’ for spending areas. Supporting creditors have agreed to accept offers made using the CFS, providing the offers are made by independent money advisers, based on expenditure within trigger figures, and follow CFS guidelines.
Apply for a licence
To use the CFS and access the trigger figures you need to apply for a licence. You can apply if:
- You are a third-party organisation negotiating debt repayment offers on behalf of a client to creditors, or
- You are an organisation that is involved in making decisions about whether a debt repayment offer should be accepted.
Go to the CFS website for more information, FAQs and resources, including details of Wiseradviser’s CFS e-learning module.
CASHflow is an assisted self-help debt advice resource. It supports clients to make repayment offers directly to their creditors with assistance from a money advice agency. CASHflow:
- helps people in debt to negotiate with their creditors themselves
- increases adviser availability by freeing up more time to spend with individuals requiring a casework service
- reassures creditors that people in debt have received full debt advice, and their financial statements have been reviewed by an adviser.
How it works
Registered advisers can give clients access to the CASHflow web portal to complete a financial statement in their own time, before getting it approved by an adviser. Each statement has a unique code and features the CASHflow logo once it has been approved. This reassures creditors that the client has gone through a recognised money advice process and has agreed their financial statement with an adviser. The web portal also provides practical resources for advice agencies and clients.
Visit the CASHflow page of the Money Advice Trust website to find out more.
