Most financial advisers with whom I speak say that they look forward to generating quarterly reports and client presentations about as much as they do to an SEC audit.
That isn't the case with adviser Jim Joslin, chief executive of TFC Financial Management. He looks at the process as a learning experience, and that is a large part of why he is adding a new online service from Assette to his firm's technology tool kit.
“Personally, I enjoy it. It forces you to think a little bit more clearly, and it's one of the ways we are able to differentiate ourselves,” Mr. Joslin said of the report creation process.
He said that the firm spent years developing the programming and calculations in Microsoft Excel necessary to create the statements that it has used up until now. TFC maintained its account data on Advent Software Inc.'s Axys system.
The problem, however, was that this process just wasn't scalable enough for Mr. Joslin's growing firm, which has 230 clients and assets under management of $525 million.
To address this, TFC is adding Assette EasyReports to the process, which will allow his team to create and deliver customized, PowerPoint-based, monthly or quarterly client reports and presentations in a PDF format.
Although Assette is probably not a household name for advisers, it has been around for 11 years and has specialized in data integration and portfolio statement generation for larger institutional clients, including Boston Private Bank and Trust Co. and SEI Investments Co.
With the EasyReports application, Assette has pre-built connectors into Axys and The
Charles Schwab Corp.'s PortfolioCenter — two of the more common portfolio management systems. The online application pulls out an adviser's data, compresses them, encrypts them and brings them into a secure data warehouse for processing.
Assette creates templates and maps the various data fields and objects that will be used in the reports. Because the interface used for editing is PowerPoint, advisers can very easily customize and make changes, and it makes training new users much simpler and faster.
Firms that manage less than $500 million in assets pay a one-time implementation fee of $2,000 and a monthly charge of $309; firms with $500 million to $1 billion in assets pay a $2,500 implementation fee and a monthly charge of $499.
I am unaware of a product or service that can be compared on an apples-to-apples basis with Assette's. Advisers manage to achieve their reporting needs in an almost innumerable variety of ways.
These range from the most basic, labor-intensive and time-consuming, such as creating reports in-house using products they already own, such as Microsoft Excel and Word, or in combination with Crystal Reports, which costs $420.
To be sure, other advisers turn to products such as Assemblage from Trumpet Inc., which costs about $1,000 a year, or they outsource report creation to a consultant. Many full-service broker-dealers also offer similar reporting services and there are outsourced offerings from companies that specialize in performance reporting, such as Black Diamond Portfolio Reporting LLC and Orion Advisor Services LLC.
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YOUTUBING YOUR WAY TO NEW CLIENTS
Creating a video-centric website has allowed George Van Dyke to attain an in-depth education in the often mysterious ways of the Internet, something he said far too many advisers lack.
Although it isn't the most beautifully de-signed website in the world, investmentvideos.net lives up to its name, having dozens of videos on topics ranging from retirement and estate planning to investing for women.
Access to the site is free — but to view the videos, a visitor is required to register.
This last point is a key aspect of what Mr. Van Dyke hopes will make the site successful.
“The first purpose in setting this up was to give people good information, but also to capture a name and e-mail address,” he said.
The site is an experiment that isn't connected with Mr. Van Dyke's day job as an adviser at Synergy Financial Group, where he manages $50 million in assets.
Without any marketing, about 400 to 500 people a month are visiting the site, though only 10 to 15 a month register to view content.
Thus far, the videos are a combination of PowerPoint slides and footage of Mr. Van Dyke speaking at breakfast seminars that he has stitched together using a software application called Camtasia Studio from TechSmith Corp., which sells for $299.
He spends $30 a month for an online service from AWeber Communications for tracking and automatically sending follow-up e-mails to viewers.
Presently Mr. Van Dyke, who is mastering Google Analytics and AdWords, is attempting to combine this with a better understanding of keyword searches in order to improve how well the site competes in search results.
There is another challenge that he faces.
“The only way to go from conversion to client is to get to someone local — and the chances are that they'll have to be local to turn them into a client,” Mr. Van Dyke said.
Although the site has been up for two months, and he has yet to turn a subscriber into a client, he said that he is continuing to lay the groundwork for future success.
“Essentially I'm trying to reach an underserved audience of people who can attend these seminars from the comfort of their own home or office; they don't have to find a babysitter; [instead, they spend] 30 minutes at their office or 30 minutes at home, at their convenience, not mine,” he said.
E-mail Davis D. Janowski at [email protected].
