Breaking the growth-cost cycle

We’ve spoken with TCSPs of all sizes, from boutique firms to global administrators. Different markets, different systems — but the same challenge keeps coming up. Compliance costs are rising and eroding margins. 

How most firms handle filings

Across the industry, most firms fall into one of three camps.

1. Outsourcing to specialists
You pay a third party £75k to £100k a year to manage filings. It sounds efficient, but since you still sign off the forms, someone in-house still needs to review their work. Instead of removing the task, you’ve just added another layer of coordination and cost.

2. Building large internal teams
Others bring everything in-house. We spoke with one global TCSP that had 15 people dedicated purely to AEOI filings. Fifteen salaries focused on reporting instead of client work. Each year, the team grows a little bigger, but margins stay the same.

3. Managing everything manually
Many firms still rely on spreadsheets, emails, and manual checks. Each filing season becomes a scramble to meet deadlines. Mistakes creep in, stress levels spike, and growth grinds to a halt.

Different approaches, same outcome. The cost of staying compliant keeps climbing — while profitability stays flat.

The cost and growth cycle

When firms grow, compliance grows too. More clients mean more filings, more reviews, and more people needed to stay on top of it all.

We see this pattern every day. Even as a technology provider, we feel it ourselves. Growth brings complexity, and complexity brings cost. 

Breaking that cycle takes more than hard work. It takes a change in how the work gets done. That is where automation and AI come in. They do not replace people. They help teams work smarter, stay compliant with confidence, and grow sustainably.

What scalable compliance looks like

One mid-sized TCSP used eFileConnect to submit more than 1,100 AEOI filings in a single month. Automation helped them scale their process, keep data aligned with regulatory standards, and complete filings faster and more accurately than ever before without increasing overheads. 

It shows what’s possible when the filing process stops depending on human bandwidth and starts running on smart systems instead. 

Why it matters

When your filings are validated against regulator schemas before submission, errors never leave your office. When audit trails are automatic, regulator queries take minutes, not weeks. And when knowledge lives in the system instead of one person’s head, your team becomes stronger and more resilient.

All of which reduces your risk of fines for late filings or errors. 

The takeaway

Breaking out of the cost and growth cycle means scaling differently.
Automation turns effort into efficiency and gives your people the space to focus on what truly drives growth — your clients.

Find out how eFileConnect can break the growth-cost cycle for your firm and book a demo now.