It’s no secret that technology is key to helping advisors grow their businesses. The right tools, coupled with best practices, can drive efficiency and allow advisors to more effectively leverage their expertise—resulting in more clients achieving their goals, growing their wealth and ultimately referring friends, family and business contacts to your firm.
“Whether we recognize it or not, we’re all in the digital business and we live in a digital world,” noted a recent report from WealthManagement.com. “The advisory firms and institutions that recognize the world around them by learning how to adapt are winning outright.”
The technology available to advisors tends to revolve around the tasks advisors find themselves performing regularly. It’s fashioned with advisors in mind, so that they can scale their advice while staying compliant.
Whether it’s prospecting and onboarding a new client, crafting a financial plan for the next generation or building a legacy for a loyal investor, advice shines most brilliantly when magnified by a lens of carefully polished advisor technology.
For advisors looking to increase their efficiency, here are some of the most important components to include in your toolkit.
Secure Document Management and Storage
Clients trust advisors with all manner of sensitive financial information, which is why having a secure and easy-to-use document management system is vital to today’s tech-enabled advisors. Modern document management systems offer far more than a static storage vault; they’re flexible, dynamic and automated, providing a framework for hyper efficient workflows that keeps you ahead of your competition.
The best document management and storage systems save advisors significant amount of time – days, in some cases – on common workflows they need to execute on a regular basis.
Client Relationship Management Software
A client relationship management (CRM) system is an important component of organizing and updating client details. Using a CRM, advisors can securely store client details, notes from meetings and other interactions and improve communication efficiency. These systems often feed information into marketing tools (used to prospect new clients and retain existing ones) and financial planning tools (used to help clients achieve their goals). A well-designed CRM will also showcase its usefulness when generating client reports and bills.
Highly efficient CRM systems can largely automate client communications. Powerful predictive technology also makes it easier for advisors to generate briefs ahead of client meetings, while tracking task lists back at the office. And when CRMs can be integrated into compliance tools, this connectivity aids in collecting and tracking compliance-related investor data and ensuring it’s added to related workflows. This integration is especially important for compliance professionals, who would otherwise have to collect compliance data from multiple places, including CRMs, instead of having it all integrated into a “source of truth” central compliance platform.
Portfolio Management System
Investment management is fundamental to financial advice, whether an advisor chooses to actively guide and participate in a client’s investing decisions or turn those decisions over to a trusted partner. The best portfolio management systems provide transparency into client holdings and integrate with reporting, billing and trading systems.
Top notch portfolio management systems also help advisors model and automate their trades, giving advisors valuable time to prospect and onboard new clients, as well as maintain and reinforce existing client relationships.
Financial Planning
The growth of financial planning means this once-optional technology is arguably a must-have for today’s advisors. Whether they want to know if their retirement plan is on track or if they’re saving enough for a new vacation home, clients are demanding reassurance that their goals can be met by prudent investing and careful management of capital.
The best financial planning software works together with the other components of an advisor’s dashboard, like their CRM and portfolio management systems. Goals are translated into investment plans, models and trades, which eventually lead to financial achievements and wellness. These systems can also serve as a portal into held away assets or act as a gateway to netting greater wallet share.
Robust Compliance Solutions
In today’s ultra-connected environment, a single data breach or regulatory violation can be enough to severely damage, or even ruin, an advisor’s business. That’s why advisors are turning to compliance specialists and advanced administrative technology providers who develop and maintain firms’ non-core components.
Whether conducting an audit, filing timely paperwork with regulators, or performing a security review, having a compliance system and team in place is a proactive step to building a resilient and growth-oriented business.
The Evolution of Compliance
The same technology that’s vital to advisors’ business is also changing client service and expectations.
To stay ahead of the competition, advisors need to build compliance systems that anticipate regulatory mandates, cyber threats and client demands. The best way to ensure efficiency in your firm is by working with a trusted partner, like Smartria, that has experience serving advisors and building solutions that stay ahead of the curve.
At Smartria, we exceed your compliance needs, so you can focus on providing the absolute best advice. To learn more, schedule a demo today.
