A licensee running AdviceDocs manages its advice practices from a single panel: a six-digit join code that brings new practices in, the list of member organisations already operating under the licence, and three starter-template slots that decide what each of those practices begins with. The same arrangement gives the licensee’s owners and admins a way into each practice’s advice documents and the research behind them.
How does an advice practice join a licensee on AdviceDocs?
Two values are needed, and neither works alone: the licensee’s six-digit AFSL number and a six-digit numeric join code. The practice enters both on the "Join your licensee" step during signup, and AdviceDocs accepts the pair only when both resolve to the same active licensee organisation. A correct code paired with the wrong AFSL fails, and so does the reverse. Both fields are normalised to digits and must be exactly six long, so a licence number that is not six digits cannot be used to join.
The licensee’s owners and admins find the current code at Account → Licensee. The panel shows the code, a copy button, and the date on which it next changes. Practices that join this way appear in the panel as member organisations. In most cases those are the licensee’s Corporate Authorised Representatives, but AdviceDocs only records the join — it does not check ASIC’s register or verify authorised-representative status, so the panel is not an authorised-representative record.
- The licensee opens Account → Licensee and copies the current six-digit join code.
- The licensee sends that code and its AFSL number to the practice that is joining.
- During signup the practice chooses "Join an existing licensee" and enters the AFSL number and the code.
- AdviceDocs verifies the pair against one active licensee and shows the matched licensee’s name on screen before signup continues.
- On completion the practice appears in the licensee’s member organisations list, and access for the licensee’s owners and admins follows shortly after. A practice still awaiting approval is listed but cannot be opened until it goes active.
Why does the licensee join code change every month?
Join codes rotate automatically on the 1st of each month. The moment the new code is issued the old one stops verifying, so a code that leaked, or that is sitting in a forwarded email from last quarter, has a working life measured in weeks rather than indefinitely.
There is no self-serve button for a licensee to regenerate its own code on demand. Monthly rotation is the mechanism, which makes the code something to hand out deliberately for a known intake rather than a permanent invite link to publish. The Licensee panel displays the date of the next scheduled rotation, so an admin can see roughly how long a code they have already shared has left.
What templates does a practice get when it joins a licensee?
A licensee can upload its own starter template into three fixed slots: Statement of Advice, Record of Advice and Portfolio Report. Uploads are per slot, and so is the fallback — a licensee that uploads only an SoA leaves its practices on whatever AdviceDocs default exists for the other two document types.
Each practice that joins receives its own copy of the resolved set, brand-customised at signup: AdviceDocs applies the practice’s logo, colours and business details to the licensee’s structure and wording. Colours, fonts and logo placement are applied deterministically; the pass that replaces leftover sample text is a best-effort one, so a practice can adjust anything it did not get right. That copy belongs to the practice and can be edited there. It is not a shared read-only reference, so a practice keeps ordinary control of its own templates while starting from the structure its licensee chose.
If a licensee uploads a new starter template, do existing practices get it?
No. Customisation runs once, at the practice’s signup. Uploading or replacing a starter template changes what future signups receive; practices that have already joined keep the customised copies they were given and continue editing those.
The practical consequence is that ordering matters — settle the three slots before circulating the code to a new intake of practices. Replacing a slot swaps what the next signup receives. The previous upload is retained but is no longer served, and the Licensee panel offers no way to bring it back, so keep your own copy of any bundle you might want to return to.
What can a licensee see inside a member practice?
The licensee’s owners and admins receive genuine member-level access to every practice that joined through the code. From the Licensee panel they can switch into an active member organisation and work in it exactly as an ordinary staff member of that practice would — no more and no less. The boundary is what they can change, not what they can open.
- Open to them: the practice’s advice documents, the research and supporting documents uploaded to produce them, its templates, its team list, its business details and its document-usage figures — the same view any member of that practice has.
- Closed to them: the practice’s invoices and payment details, which are restricted to its own owners and admins.
- Not theirs to change: licensee staff arrive as members rather than admins, so they cannot invite or remove users or change anyone’s role.
- Not universal: only the licensee’s owners and admins receive this access, not every member of the licensee’s staff.
The access follows the role. When someone stops being an owner or admin of the licensee, the memberships granted to them across member practices are removed.
Does a licensee still need a separate system to audit its advisers’ files?
Yes for the judgement, no for the gathering. AdviceDocs does not assess advice, score files or flag compliance issues, so a licensee still needs its review process and whatever it uses to record the outcome. What changes is the part before the review starts.
The usual reason for a second subscription is that the advice document and the evidence behind it live in different systems. The Statement of Advice is produced in one place, the research and product comparisons sit in a CRM or a shared drive, and a reviewer has to reassemble the pair before the file can be assessed at all.
On AdviceDocs the two arrive together, because a document is generated from the material uploaded against it. Opening a practice’s document gives a reviewer the output and its inputs in the same place, per practice, with no export step.
That removes the collection step, not the judgement. The judgement stays with the licensee’s review team, which is simply no longer spending the first part of every file review chasing attachments. For the same workflow seen from the practice’s side, read how AdviceDocs works for advisers.
Frequently asked questions
Where does a licensee find its AdviceDocs join code?
The join code sits on the Licensee panel of the AdviceDocs account area, and only the licensee organisation’s owners and admins can see it. The panel shows the current six-digit code, a copy button, and the date on which the code next rotates.
Can a licensee generate a new join code on demand?
No. AdviceDocs rotates every licensee join code automatically on the 1st of each month, and there is no self-serve regenerate button in the Licensee panel. The previous code stops working as soon as the new one is issued.
Do practices that have already joined receive a licensee’s newly uploaded starter template?
No. Starter-template customisation runs once, at the moment a practice signs up. A starter template uploaded or replaced afterwards applies to future signups only, and practices that have already joined keep the customised copies they were given.
Can a licensee change anything inside a member practice on AdviceDocs?
Yes — a licensee’s owners and admins work inside a member practice as ordinary members, so they can open and edit its advice documents and templates in the same way its own staff can. What they cannot do is administer the practice: they join as members rather than admins, so they cannot invite or remove users, change anyone’s role, or see the practice’s invoices and payment details. It is an employee’s view of the practice, not a restricted auditor view, and licensees should treat it accordingly.
Does AdviceDocs check advice for compliance?
No. AdviceDocs does not assess advice, score files or flag compliance issues. It generates advice documents from the material an adviser uploads and keeps the document and that material together, so a reviewer opens both at once instead of collecting them from two systems. Deciding whether the advice is appropriate remains the licensee’s judgement.