Given the welter of compliance issues that they face, financial advisers remain understandably cautious about using social media.
Advisors Asset Management Inc., a business resource for advisers and broker-dealers, wants to change that.
The company recently rolled out a free eService platform to help its adviser and broker-dealer clients incorporate social media into their business mix.
Here is how it works:
A broker-dealer sends Advisors Asset Management a copy of its social-media policies and procedures or Advisors Asset Management provides a list of best practices.
The clients' firms get help with educating their representatives about creating media pages on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, as well as how to use them appropriately.
Along with helping its clients keep up with the times, this move lets Advisors Asset Management raise its profile in the financial advice arena. One component of the program is access to the company's Live Blog, which provides its opinions on key economic indicators, capital markets and
portfolio management.
To learn more, visit
aamlive.com/blog.
EFFICIENT ARCHIVING
The promise of paperwork reduction is eternally appealing.
This may explain why eFileCabinet Inc. has hooked up with Intuit Inc. to integrate its archiving system with the software vendor's popular small-business accounting software, QuickBooks.
Users are now able to link customer, vendor, invoice and bill information between the two programs. EFileCabinet pulls data such as invoice and check numbers, and vendor contacts, as well as all supporting documents, into storage.
Users can retrieve files using keywords.
The new feature also acts as a prompting device every time a transaction is saved in QuickBooks, allowing a user to store the address change, address or invoice in eFileCabinet. The integration upgrade requires a purchase of $299.
For more information, visit
efilecabinet.com.
REPORTING TECHNOLOGY
A technology-minded collaboration between custodian Trust Company of America and the Black Diamond Performance Reporting portfolio management system aims to make asset aggregation easier.
Black Diamond has integrated its reporting technology into Trust Company's custodial platform, thus providing clients online and mobile access to their portfolios.
The setup collects data from multiple custodians, giving advisers and clients a full view of assets. Using this program, Black Diamond's reporting engine configures a performance report for the company and reads it all through the digital screen of a single electronic device.
“We're changing the architecture of the management system by bringing all of this together and powering it by mobile technology,” said Dennis Noto, information technology officer for Trust Company. “The time is coming when an adviser will sit down with a client and together they will review a dynamic, real-time performance report on mobile devices.”
For more information on Trust Company's RIA custodian services, visit
trustamerica.com.
For more information on Black Diamond's performance platform, visit
blackdiamond reporting.com.
