Your profile page carries two kinds of fact. The first kind, your registered name, FSP number, licence holder and business address, comes from the Financial Service Providers Register. You can't edit those here; they change when the record changes. The second kind is everything you write, and each part of it is labelled "provided by the adviser" with the date you last saved. This page goes through the form section by section.
Where the form is
You fill it in as the last step of claiming, and you can open it again at any time from "Profile" in your account. Every save shows you the public page as clients see it. Everything is optional except the name you go by.
You
- The name you go by. Shown everywhere on Sussed: results, your page, and the emails clients receive. Your registered name stays on the facts list, so a client can still match you to the public record.
- Photo. JPEG, PNG or WebP, under 5 MB. It's shown in a small circle beside your name on your page, so a square, head-and-shoulders shot works best. Results cards show your initials.
- Headline. One line under your name, up to 120 characters, also shown on your card in results. Say who you help and where: "First-home specialist in Dunedin, 12 years advising."
- About you. Up to 3,000 characters on who you help and how you work. It appears in its own section on your page.
Formatting the about text
The about box takes plain text with a little formatting:
- A blank line starts a new paragraph. A single line break inside a paragraph is kept.
- Two asterisks make bold, one makes italic.
- A line starting with a dash makes a bullet, and a line starting with "1." makes a numbered list. The list can follow a line of text without a blank line between.
- A link is written as the text in square brackets followed by the address in round brackets, and the address must start with http or https.
For example:
I work with first-home buyers across Otago, and with owners whose fixed rate is ending.
What you get:
- a call within one working day
- one point of contact from first chat to settlement
- **no fee** in most cases: the lender pays me
[How I'm paid](https://example.co.nz/disclosure)
Anything else, such as headings, images or HTML, appears exactly as you typed it.
Your firm
The company you trade as. The form lists the firms the public record connects to you: the licence holder, the advice provider, and any trading names. If yours isn't there, choose "Another company" and give its name and its 13-digit NZBN from nzbn.govt.nz. The licence holder named on the record stays as it is; this only adds the trading name shown beside yours, and your firm's page on Sussed lists you under it.
How clients reach you
Phone, email, website and a booking link, all optional and all shown on your page. Leave blank anything you'd rather not publish. Introductions through Sussed reach you by email either way, at your login address or the one you set for notifications in your settings. A website or booking link must be a web address; "https://" is added if you leave it off.
Where you take clients from
Clients browse by region and district. Tick the districts you take clients from, or tick "Nationwide" if you work with clients anywhere in New Zealand. You appear at the top of results in the districts you cover, above advisers who don't.
What you do
- Specialities. Tick any that apply, from first-home buyers and refinancing to non-bank lending and rural property. They're listed on your page.
- Languages. Tick the languages you advise in, and add any others. Clients can filter results by language.
- Lenders you work with. Comma separated, as you'd describe your panel. Shown on your page as "Lenders".
- Smallest loan you'll take. Any size, or $300k, $500k or $1m and over. This is never shown on your page. No request for a loan below it reaches you: requests we route skip you, and a client who picks you and names a smaller loan is told and offered a match instead.
- Years advising. A whole number, shown on your page.
Disclosure and availability
- Disclosure statement link. Licensed advisers must make their disclosure information publicly available. With a link, your page links to it under "Disclosure statement"; without one, that line says "Not supplied".
- Fee note. Leave it blank unless you charge clients directly in some cases. Fees are never mentioned on a profile otherwise.
- Accepting new clients. Untick it to pause introductions. Your page stays up with "Not taking new clients", and visitors are offered a match with another adviser instead. The same switch is in your settings.
Your profile score
Ten parts count towards a complete profile: your name, a photo, a headline, an about of at least 100 characters, a firm, at least one way to reach you, your districts or nationwide, specialities, languages, and a disclosure link. Each part you fill in moves you up within your group in results. The score drops when an offer runs out unanswered, when a client tells us you never got in touch, when a fee is billed on a client's report, or when a dispute goes against you. How results are ordered has the whole picture.
What you can't change here
The facts from the public record, including the licence holder, change only when the record does: update them with the Companies Office and they show here after the next monthly copy. Reviews can be replied to and flagged from your account, never edited. The address introductions go to is in your settings; you log in with the address you claimed with.
What's expected of what you write
What you add must be true, yours to publish, and within what your licence allows you to say. If something breaks those terms or the law, we take it down and tell you why.