Financial advisers love websites and applications that increase their efficiency and improve interactions with clients — even if those online tools are not specifically designed for advisers.
Here is a sampling of the apps advisers have raved about to me recently.
Google Voice (google.com/voice) is a free voice-mail service that can route incoming calls to multiple telephones. It also comes with enhancements that allow users to customize personal greetings and to receive voice mails by e-mail as either audio files or transcribed text messages.
Noah Seidenberg, president of Seidenberg Investment Group, uses Google Voice to forward all his office phone calls to his mobile and home numbers. Mr. Seidenberg says it makes his workday run more smoothly.
“It is fantastic. It will track you down anywhere and simply makes the phone a much more powerful tool,” said Mr. Seidenberg, whose firm manages $100 million in assets.
Dial2Do.com is another free phone service that offers users various ways to accomplish tasks by using voice commands.
By speaking commands into a phone, the user can send an e-mail, text messages, record reminders, post updates to Twitter or even listen to Internet music files or other audio content.
Advisers report that the transcription is very accurate, allowing verbal dictation of e-mails to colleagues or clients while on the go, and even providing the ability to post things to
Evernote
(Tech Update, Nov. 2).
Another fave,
Rememberthemilk .com also works with Dial2Do.com. It's an organizational program that takes the to-do list to a new level by allowing the user to manage various tasks in Google Calendar and Gmail. The user can also share lists with others via e-mail.
An upgrade to the “pro” version allows the user to create to-do lists for smart phones. Versions are available for the Android smart phone operating system, BlackBerry, iPhone and Windows Mobile (a 15-day trial is free and a one-year subscription costs $15).
Mikogo (mikogo.com,) is a screen-sharing application from BeamYourScreen that can be used for online meetings, web conferencing and remote support.
Advisers report that it allows them to be more accessible to clients and that it reduces the need for face-to-face office visits.
Brian Plain, an adviser with Pillar Financial Advisers LLC, has been using it for several months and he is most impressed with the program's ease of use.
He said his clients seem to love the web conferencing.
“I frequently use it for follow-up items from prior client meetings,” he said, adding that it even appeals to clients who are not computer-savvy.
Pink Notes Plus (available at alphamedia.net in Version 4, for $24.95 per user for the first 100 users) is a business-oriented instant messaging program from Alpha Media Inc. with two dozen features to help with day-to-day office tasks.
“It is basically a replacement for those pink messaging pads in the office,” Mr. Seidenberg said.
It also lets Mr. Seidenberg's assistant quickly and securely send him documents that need to be signed. All he needs is a laptop and an Internet connection.
His assistant prints the documents as a PDF file and sends them instantly using Pink Notes Plus. Mr. Seidenberg then opens the documents with a program called
PDF-Xchange, which allows him to initial the document with his mouse.He sends the signed document back using Pink Notes Plus, which also has a feature that allows the user to automatically send a carbon copy of the document to a compliance-monitored e-mail account.
Egnyte is an online file storage and backup service from Egnyte Inc. that allows advisers to securely store their documents away from the office. It's available at egnyte.com for $15 a month for one user and includes 20 gigabytes of storage Each computer that an adviser uses with the service gets assigned its own backup directory on egnyte.
Russ Thornton, a fee-only registered investment adviser and owner of Thornton Wealth Management LLC, said that he uses it as a hosted file server where he stores all his client and company documents.
“It has sharing capability and allows you to upload and download files, as well as versioning capabilities that make it good for compliance tracking,” he said, adding that one of his favorite features was a small backup program that runs in the background and constantly backs up local files on his desktop without being a nuisance or intrusive.
E-mail Davis D. Janowski at [email protected].
