The best way to compete with robo-advisers

How can you compete with robo-advisers? Automate, automate, automate!

Every hour an adviser spends manually filling out new account forms, tracking down approvals or collecting client signatures is time he can’t spend building his book.

Girard Securities, a full-service broker/dealer that supports approximately 250 financial advisers, leverages sophisticated technology to automate document-driven processes such as new account on boarding, asset movement, advertising approvals and more. Learn how Girard uses Laserfiche document management software to automate its blotter.

Video Transcript

John Barragan, COO: Girard Securities is a broker-dealer that’s based in San Diego. We’re also a registered investment advisory firm. We have approximately 225 rep/advisers, about 325 total registered affiliated folks with us. Essentially the firm has been in business for about 10 years. We have a long history. We’re family owned.

We knew we could do a better job for our advisers and for our advisers’ clients. We had some situations where we had documents that were being lost because we didn’t have automated workflows, so there was a lot of manual movement of those documents. We wanted to automate our blotters. We also wanted to ensure that, from a compliance point of view, we had accurate books and records.

We used Laserfiche, as opposed to having manual paper files and things of that nature. So what we did was, we essentially said, ‘What could our advisers use to make the process more seamless, more automated and also help them remember that they needed to do these things?’

Claire Maurer, AVP – Adviser Relations: Before we were using Laserfiche, that all had to be manual. So the rep would have to make a copy of that check, they had to keep a paper log, so they would fill in that log with here’s the check I got, here’s the date I received it, here’s the date I forwarded it, then fill in some other information and keep a copy of it that they’d attach in the back. They kept this all month and at the end of the month, they’d send it to their manager. It was cumbersome for them to keep track of those, to make copies of those, to make sure that everything was recorded. And then it was cumbersome for us to go around and make sure they submitted it.

Now that we’ve implemented Laserfiche, the blotter process works so that reps submit an online form and they attach a check, so anytime a rep receives a check in their office, they import it into Laserfiche through Laserfiche Forms and it automatically gets archived in our database. And it records that on the rep’s profile in Laserfiche, that they have submitted a check item, so their blotter requirement for that month is complete.

We’ve also built in a system of notifications so that if a rep doesn’t submit an item, they get a notice five days before the end of the month. We’ve also added nothing to blotter indicator so that there’s a Laserfiche Form option if they actually have nothing to submit for that month. They just go and they let us know ‘I have nothing applicable to submit for this month’ and they record that. That will also complete their blotter requirement.

Our team is really excited to not have to do follow up. They don’t have to track all the advisers they supervise to see who’s done it and who hasn’t. They’re really excited to have those automatic notifications built in. In Laserfiche, we’re also all able to create some custom searches and some custom displays so that our home office can go in, easily pull a report of everybody’s blotter history and export that when we need to in audit situations.

Barragan: The efficiencies in our automated process have vastly improved our turnaround time and the customer experience.