Building a Finance Referral Partnership: What Accountants Need to Know

A finance referral agreement is the document that turns an informal accountant-broker introduction into a repeatable revenue line. Most firms skip it until someone asks who disclosed the commission, when the client consented, and what happens to the fee if the deal falls through.

Why the paperwork does more work than the handshake

Referral arrangements between accounting firms and finance brokers usually start at a networking event, then run for years on goodwill. That holds up until someone asks a question goodwill cannot answer: who was supposed to disclose the commission, when did the client consent, and what happens to the fee if the deal settles nine months later.

Demand is not the constraint. The ABS counted 2,814,778 actively trading businesses in Australia at 30 June 2026, with 996,203 of them employing staff. Businesses in that population replace vehicles, plant and technology on a cycle, and the person who sees the cycle first is usually the accountant.

A written finance referral agreement does three jobs. It defines what you are allowed to say, which keeps you inside a licensing exemption where one applies. It creates the evidence trail your professional obligations already assume exists.

It also makes the fee predictable, which most firms discover they care about only after the first deal settles.

Where credit law actually bites

Start with the distinction that decides how much of this applies to you. The National Consumer Credit Protection Act covers credit provided to individuals for personal, domestic or household purposes, along with residential investment property. Equipment finance written for a company or a trading trust generally sits outside it.

If your referrals are all business-purpose asset finance, the licensing conditions below are not your obligation, though the disclosure and privacy points further down still are.

Where the credit is consumer credit, ASIC's Regulatory Guide 203 sets out what a referrer must do to stay inside the exemption from holding a credit licence. For an upstream referral, where you pass the client's details to the broker, RG 203.120 lists five requirements: a written referral agreement with the licensee specifying the conduct you can engage in, a referral made incidentally to carrying on another business, the consumer's consent to their details being given to the licensee, delivery of those details within five business days, and disclosure to the consumer of any benefit such as commission you may receive.

For a downstream referral, where you simply tell the client who to call, RG 203.119 requires you to disclose any benefits in the same form as the contact information. Give the broker's details in writing and the commission disclosure goes in writing too.

RG 203.117 marks the line you cannot cross. If you go beyond naming the broker and passing on details, and instead suggest the client apply for a particular credit contract with a particular credit provider, the exemption stops covering you.

A good finance referral agreement quotes that boundary back in plain terms, because it is the clause your staff will actually need.

Worth knowing about the other side: a licensee holding written referral agreements carries extra licence conditions, including keeping a register of referrers and only contacting a consumer within a specified period and in a specified way. Ask to see your entry in that register.

What a finance referral agreement needs to cover

Each clause below exists because an arrangement somewhere fell over without it.

Your professional obligations sit on top of it

APES 110, the Code of Ethics issued by the Accounting Professional and Ethical Standards Board and compiled as at July 2025, treats a referral fee as a self-interest threat to objectivity. It does not prohibit the fee. It tells you what has to happen around it.

AUST R330.5.1 is the operative requirement. A member in public practice undertaking an engagement in Australia who receives a referral fee or commission shall inform the client in writing of the existence of the arrangement, the identity of the other party or parties, and the method of calculation of the fee or benefit.

Note that third limb. A line reading "we may receive a commission" does not meet it.

AUST R330.5.2 should shape your client list before you sign anything. A member in public practice shall not receive commissions or other similar benefits in connection with an assurance engagement, and the Code states that no safeguards could reduce that independence threat to an acceptable level.

If you audit or review a client, that client sits outside the referral arrangement. Decide it at the scoping stage, not when the fee lands.

Privacy is the clause most firms write last

Passing a client's name, contact details and a description of what they want to finance is a disclosure of personal information. Under APP 6 of the Privacy Act, an entity may disclose personal information for a secondary purpose where the individual has consented, or where another exception applies.

The OAIC's guidelines note that consent can be express or implied, and that valid consent requires the individual to be adequately informed and to consent voluntarily.

Implied consent is where arrangements get uncomfortable. A client who mentions an equipment purchase during a tax planning meeting has not agreed to have their details sent to a third party.

Express consent, captured in the conversation and recorded in the file, costs one sentence and removes the argument. It also satisfies the RG 203.120 consent condition for consumer credit.

Getting the money side right

If your practice is registered for GST, a referral fee is business income and the invoice carries GST like any other taxable sale. The ATO requires registration once GST turnover reaches $75,000, within 21 days of exceeding the threshold.

For an established firm that is a non-event, but settle in the agreement whether the quoted fee is GST inclusive or exclusive. That argument is tedious and avoidable.

Decide too whether the fee is payable to the firm or to an individual partner. The APES 110 disclosure attaches to the member, while the income belongs wherever you direct the invoice.

What to do next

Scope it first. List the clients excluded because you provide assurance services to them, and put that exclusion in writing.

Then ask your broker for their finance referral agreement rather than drafting your own. The licensee carries the register and the licence conditions, so their document is usually the one that governs.

Read the fee and clawback clauses properly, and if the conduct scope is vague, ask them to write in the exact sentence your staff may say to a client.

Last, move the disclosure into a document you already send. A standing paragraph in the engagement letter covering the existence of the arrangement, the other party and the method of calculation deals with AUST R330.5.1 once, rather than in a scramble on every referral.

If you are setting up a finance referral arrangement, Emu Money's partnerships team can take you through how the agreement, the disclosure and the referral process work in practice. Talk to the partnerships team.