How would you like to be able to show clients a list of all of the things you’ve done for them lately?



What if you could automatically feed that list of achieved tasks from your CRM system to a secure personal website for each client?



Or how would you like to be able to assign clients tasks from your firm’s CRM system, and feed these To-Dos automatically to each client’s secure personal website?



This is all totally doable right now.



In fact, these are just a couple of the many powerful features in the new Advisor Products integration with Redtail Technology.



Integration between Advisor Products and Redtail extends one of the advisory profession's most powerful customer relationship management (CRM) software applications to a client-facing application.



Redtail’s easy-to-use web-based CRM system helps you manage your internal staff; Advisor Products' secure Client Portal system helps you communicate with clients effectively.



Redtail CRM tracks and organizes all your client activities. Featuring online calendaring as well as task management, Redtail is easy to use and offers a low cost of ownership.



The Advisor Products Client Portal lets you provide each of your clients with a secure financial home page. Information is fed from your firm's applications for performance management, financial planning, and client relationship management. Client Portals also feature a vault and newsletters written by Advisor Products that are personalized to each client’s profile, making a great presentation of all the information clients need from you.



Utilizing eXtensible Markup Language (XML) feeds, data flows automatically from Redtail to Client Portals and vice versa. The XML feeds save you time and money because you don’t need to re-key data from one application to another.



Using the Advisor Products-Redtail integration is simple. In Redtail, which is a web-based CRM, there’s a page where you fill in details about an Activity your firm is performing for a client.



At the bottom of every Activity page is a checkbox to “Share with Advisor Products.” Checking that box automatically sends that activity to your clients' portals.



Whenever your firm completes an activity for a client, you can insert a note about the completed task in the Activity page in Redtail and it will flow automatically into the corresponding client's portal.



Clients, thus, can see all of the work you do on their behalf. That's important since most of the work advisors do is unknown to clients.



The Advisor Products Client Portal system features a “To Do Manager.” The To Do Manager is where all Achieved Tasks are displayed to your clients.



When you click the “Share With Advisor Products” checkbox in Redtail, that activity is displayed in your client’s secure personal portal as an “Achieved Task.”



In addition to showing clients all of the work your firm does for them, you can also assign clients tasks in Redtail that will automatically be fed for display in To Do Manager.



From the Activity page in Redtail, just pull down the Category menu and choose “Portal Client To-Do.”



That Activity in Redtail, as well as any updates to it, will be fed into the client’s portal.

The integration of these two applications means nothing falls through the cracks with clients anymore.



The integration of Advisor Products with Redtail also makes it easy to provision new client portals, as the demographic information from Redtail can be automatically fed into the Client Portal Platform.

We’ve made it very easy for you to remind clients why they need you.



All the tasks you’ve completed for a client over the past 12 months are now conspicuosuly displayed on each client’s home page.

This important new feature in the Advisor Products Client Portal is integrated with Redtail Technology’s CRM. So when you input an Activity in Redtail, it shows up automatically in a client’s portal.



With advisory firms under financial pressure because asset values have plunged in the past year, showing each client a list of tasks you’ve completed is a way of building loyalty. In light of the bear market and advisor Ponzi-scheme scandals, it is critical to regularly include this information in client communciations.

Advisor Products today released Email Templates For AdvisorVault, enabling automatic email notifications to clients when portfolio reports and other documents are posted.

You can customize and save these template emails in AdvisorVault, and they'll be branded with your firm logo and each client's name merged into the salutation. This enterprise-wide console for communicating to clients en masse streamlines required recordkeeping for financial advisors.



With advisory firms battered by the global financial crisis, increasing efficiency is a central focus and Email Templates For AdvisorVault saves time and money.



With Email Templates for AdvisorVault, an advisory firm sets up a mass email to its clients one time and then uses it over and over again. This streamlines notifications when posting a batch of documents or reports. For example, if an advisory firm uploads all of its clients’ reports from Schwab PortfolioCenter or Advent Axys to AdvisorVault, a template email can be sent in seconds to all clients at once. The same branded email also can be sent when a single client’s report is posted.



AdvisorVault is integrated with Advent Axys and Schwab PortfolioCenter, the two most popular portfolio management software applications used by independent advisory firms. When an advisory firm using Advent Axys or Schwab PortfolioCenter batch prints all of its clients’ reports to Adobe PDFs, the resulting file can be uploaded using AdvisorVault’s 256-bit high encryption. Based on an identification code unique to each client, each report automatically posts to each client’s vault. In addition to PortfolioCenter and Axys, many other applications used by advisors can leverage AdvisorVault’s batch-document capability.



Advisory firms can also batch upload a custom report in Axys or PortfolioCenter and AdvisorVault converts that data into HTML reports that contain links and are more dynamic than PDF reports. Email templates can also be set up to notify clients en masse whenever these reports are uploaded.



In addition saving the template text and firm logo, an advisory firm can set up a disclosure that will automatically be inserted into the bottom of every template email as well as an introduction. An advisory firm can define the “reply to” and “from” addresses that are displayed in each template email. In addition, all template emails can be previewed before they are sent and all mass template emails must be confirmed and approved before they are sent.



Email Templates For AdvisorVault includes text for common client communications associated with AdvisorVault, such as resetting a client’s password, enabling a vault for a new client, and provisioning an outside professional, such as an accountant or attorney, to access specified folders of a client’s vault. The dashboard for Email Templates For AdvisorVault allows an advisory firm to associate specific workflows or tasks with a specified email template. Features in Email Templates For AdvisorVault are explained in a 2½-minute help video.



AdvisorVault can be added to any advisory firm’s website for $1,000 a year. It is also bundled with a marketing website that includes a database of wealth management news articles, 10 email accounts, eight hours of support, and a website content management system for $2,100 a year. Online Portfolio Reporting for Axys or PortfolioCenter is an additional $1,500 annually.

Advisor Products just launched a streamlined interface for firms using AdvisorVault™ to upload portfolio reports from the two most widely-used portfolio reporting systems, Schwab’s PortfolioCenter® and Advent’s Axys®.



The way an advisory firm maps a report containing a client’s portfolio data to the client’s online vault is simple now. Mapping is a one-time procedure for setting up the Advisor Products Online Reporting Solution. It’s also used whenever a firms adds a new client to the system.



Until now, mapping a single client’s account data to the vault was a five-click process that typically took 30-seconds. Now, it’s a two-click, two-second procedure.



Most clients have multiple accounts—five to 10 accounts per client is common—and advisory firms using the system typically have 200, 300, 1,000 or more clients. The streamlined workflow is a big time-saver for advisory firms—literally 10 times faster. While it previously took 16 hours to map 400 clients with five accounts each, it now takes about 90 minutes.



The Advisor Products Online Portfolio Reporting Solution has also been enhanced to allow a client’s account to be mapped to different family members. A father and mother, for instance, can have different log-ins to view their own individual accounts, but they both are also able to see a child’s account.



Advisors can drag and drop files from their computer hard drive to any client’s online vault folder. Having the flexibility to drag a folder from your desktop or network drive to the online vault makes moving files in and out of the AdvisorVault™ fast and simple. Clients also can drag and drop files to the vault.



In addition, a client or an advisory firm can give outside professionals rights to access a specified folder in a client’s vault. For advisors working with estate planners or accountants, collaboration is much easier and totally transparent to clients.



With many clients seeking greater transparency from their advisor, online portfolio reporting is likely to grow in popularity. One of the HTML reports, for example, shows a client all transactions in his account. Since the system is so fast, advisory firms can provide clients a daily list of all transactions in their portfolio.



Advisor Products Online Reporting Solutions are fully-redundant and servers are behind dual redundant firewalls with web, authentication, and database servers in isolated subnets. Applications are monitored 24/7 and data are backed up daily and stored offsite weekly.



Web servers utilized by AdvisorVault™ utilize SSL 256-bit encryption for all activities, including the log-in screen and user interface as well as when uploading or downloading files. Uploaded files are stored encrypted and files are decrypted only when delivered to the end-user. Advisor Products staff can see partial file names residing in AdvisorVault™ but cannot view the contents of any client files.



AdvisorVault™ is hosted at a data center that’s achieved SAS 70 Type II compliance. SAS 70 is an internationally recognized auditing standard developed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), which means our hosting facility has had its control objectives and control activities examined by an independent accounting and auditing firm.



The hosting facility requires two-factor authentication, including biometric authentication, for anyone to enter, and all entrances and common areas are monitored 24x7 via closed-circuit cameras. Redundancy is built into the heating and cooling systems to maintain a consistent and optimal environment. The data center has on-site redundant power sources and redundant back-up generators, including a multiple-day fuel supply on-site, and it remained lit throughout the Northeast power outage of August 2003. Connections from Verizon, AT&T, Cablevision Lightpath, and Keyspan enter the building through separate trenches.



The Online Portfolio Reporting Solution represents just one of many applications integrated by Advisor Products into advisory firm marketing websites and client portals.

Dan Skiles, the face of advisor technology to 5,500 RIAs clearing through Schwab Institutional, resigned his post several weeks ago and started a new job today at Shareholders Service Group (SSG).



Why did the affable 38-year-old executive leave Schwab, by far the largest custodian serving independent advisors, for SSG, one of the smallest custodians? Partly, Skiles says, because SSG offered him a partnership stake and partly because SSG reunites him with former colleagues from his pre-Schwab days, but mostly because he wanted to see his two children more.



In March, when Skiles’ seven-year-old son, Luke, set the table for dinner for his wife and six-year-old daughter but set no place at the table for his father, who he assumed was travelling on business, Skiles says he decided his life was out of order.



“SSG is an opportunity to feel challenged and passionate about my work, which I was at Schwab, but also to still make it home for dinner every night,” says Skiles. “My dad went to Vietnam and was away from my brother for an extended period. He didn’t have a choice, but I do.”



Skiles is an expert on practice management and his role at Schwab landed him at the center of crucial advisor technology issues.



As vice president of Schwab Institutional advisor technology solutions, Skiles was responsible for running a department with 10 technology consultants who are stationed all over the country and charged with giving advisors free advice about implementing portfolio management software and other key systems. In addition, Skiles also oversaw Schwab Performance Technologies, a Schwab subsidiary that owns and distributes PortfolioCenter, a leading portfolio reporting software used by 3,400 RIAs.



A San Diego native, Skiles graduated from San Diego State University in 1993 with a bachelor's degree in recreation management and opened a rock climbing gym with several roommates. He worked in that business for only a few months before being introduced to Robert Reed, a senior executive at discount brokerage Jack White & Co., in 1994. At their first meeting, Reed, who was the No. 2 executive at White, asked Skiles to come back later that same day to meet Peter Mangan, who ran White’s mutual fund supermarket and fledgling RIA business. Mangan hired Skiles on the spot. (The rock clmbing business was sold within a couple of years sold but remains a successful company.)



Internet discount brokers like White grew wildly in the mid-1990s and Skiles handled everything from working on the phones with retail clients to manning the trading desk and helping define technology for advisors. In 1998, when TD Waterhouse purchased White, Skiles was tapped to explain the merged firm’s technology solutions to advisors, and he was instrumental in the design and implementation of VEO, a web-based interface for advisors to Waterhouse’s brokerage platform.



In September 2001, I invited Skiles to participate in a panel I was moderating at the FPA Retreat featuring technology chiefs from all three major custodians—Fidelity, Schwab, and Waterhouse. I invited all three executive to lunch, where Skiles met Rich Freyberg, who then headed advisor technology at Schwab. Freyberg told me after that meeting that Skiles was a “Boy Scout” (referring, presumably, to Skiles’ integrity and not his boyish, clean-cut looks). Several months later, Skiles went to work at Schwab Institutional.



Skiles had a tough job at Schwab because the giant brokerage competes with advisors for retail business and makes portfolio accounting software, a critical system in advisor businesses. Many RIAs for years were uneasy about allowing Schwab to provide their core technology system and custody services, a tension that came to a head in 2001 after Schwab announced it would stop selling its CenterPiece PMS system to advisors that did not use Schwab as a custodian. As Skiles rose in Schwab’s ranks and gained influence over decisions about the company's advisor technology, he was able to avoid hitting such hot-button issues, and relations between Schwab and its RIAs have in recent years been less controversial.



Working at SSG reunites Skiles with Reed, an executive VP and chief compliance officer at SSG as well as with Mangan, SSG’s CEO and majority owner. As I wrote in a recent post, SSG is now a custodian to about 500 RIA firms and it is experiencing a boom amid the economic bust. While the $2 billion amount of assets SSG custodies for RIAs is dwarfed by the big-name custodians—Fidelity, Pershing, Schwab, and TD Ameritrade—SSG has built a profitable business around smaller RIAs that the larger custodians don’t value as much.



According to Mangan, SSG is making inroads with established RIAs with an average of about $30 million of assets under management and who run portfolios of funds, ETFs, and stocks. It’s also gaining traction, he says, with advisors leaving regional and wirehouse brokerages who typically bring no assets initially but garner an average of $15 million in assets from clients within a year of transitioning to SSG. While SSG uses Pershing to clear, and Pershing has its own RIA custody business, Mangan says SSG has differentiated itself by providing diligent service to its advisors and putting together a unique technology platform.



Skiles, who is the 13th employee on the SSG staff, will work on improving internal technology systems used by SSG to service advisors and to help build a technology platform used by its RIA clients. With the broad but undefined title of executive vice president, Skiles' likable personality and natural skills in marketing, communication, and sales as well as his knowledge of advisor technology is likely to help SSG gain a higher profile with advisors even as it is dwarfed by Fidelity, Pershing, Schwab, TD Ameritrade.

Clients demand and deserve a well-informed advisor. To help you stay on top the news and best thinkers, you may want to consider purchasing an Amazon Kindle.

Advisor Products added an interface for Black Diamond Reporting to its Personal Client Portal platform this past week, allowing financial advisors to securely stream holdings, asset allocation, and performance data to individual clients automatically daily. Using the latest technology for integration, an XML Web Service, the interface between Black Diamond and Advisor Products feeds each client of an advisor continuously updated performance reports with no work required by the advisor.

The Black Diamond report displayed on your clients’ Personal Client Portals has three tabs.

The recent integration of Albridge Solutions’ portfolio performance reporting application and Advisor Products Inc.’s Personal Client Portals™ system makes any advisory firm more scalable, efficient, and client-centric. But what’s more exciting is that it will promote financial planning to millions of American households by making it easier for them to understand, measure, and manage their progress toward achieving long-term financial goals.

Since the early 1980s, thought leaders, professional membership associations, and governing bodies have strived to professionalize personal financial planning so it can be embraced by the mass affluent. The elusive but irresistible goal has been to deliver financial planning advice within a prescribed, systematic, and ethical framework to the masses. The challenge has been that providing financial planning services while adhering to best practices articulated by the FPA, CFP Board, NAPFA, Fiduciary 360, and other such groups is extremely labor intensive.

If you’re one of the 3,400 advisory firms using Schwab PortfolioCenter™, we have some good news about sharing performance reports with your clients online. Online Reporting for PortfolioCenter, a new system now being beta tested by Advisor Products Inc. (API), is less costly, better designed, and easier to use than previous solutions for providing PortfolioCenter reports to clients online.

Online Reporting for PortfolioCenter costs about half as much as other such offerings, is built using a .NET framework with 256-bit encryption, and allows you to upload reports daily in just minutes. Online Reporting is simple:

Financial advisors for years have clamored for an all-in-one solution combining portfolio management, customer relationship management, and financial planning software into a single platform. Combining these three functions, which are essential to any advisory firm that wants to adhere to best industry practices, has been an elusive goal. Years ago, I branded the long-sought breakthrough application “The Silver Bullet,” evoking the legendary powers of the only weapon capable of killing a werewolf.

But the all-in-one application has proved elusive. So persnickety is the typical independent advisor (IA), he couldn’t work for anyone but himself. That’s why he chose to be an independent advisor. No single application incorporating portfolio management software (PMS), financial planning software (FPS), and customer relationship management (CRM) could ever be widely adopted. Uncompromising entrepreneurs don’t want a Veg-O-Matic—the kitchen appliance that sliced, diced, broiled, and boiled. A Swiss-Army-knife approach would be unacceptable.

An article in today's issue of Investment News, entitled "Performance Reporting Isn't Cutting It For Clients," contains some good points but also contains some confusing information.

The story is about how important it’s been for advisors to be able to post performance reports online daily. Since the market crisis erupted in early October, the need has become acute.

When writer Gertrude Stein said that “a rose is a rose is a rose,” she meant that things are what they are.

But sometimes that’s just plain untrue, as in the case of technology companies marketing client portals to advisors.

I’m shocked that it works so well, surprised it was not more complicated to set up, and amazed at how useful it is. I’ve got to admit that account aggregation from Advisor Exchange is good! It may even be on the way to becoming great!

The reason why I was so surprised is that account aggregation has taken so long to come of age that I began to think it might never really work. You see, when account aggregation first appeared a little over a decade ago, I was one of the first people to write about how great it was. I never thought it would take 10 years to get it right!

2008 was not a good year for a lot people. For Advisor Products, however, it was a great year.

While the Standard & Poor’s 500 lost 32% and the Dow Jones Industrials fell 37%, Advisor Products showed double digit sales growth. Moreover, we streamlined processes and dramatically improved our client service. I hope you can learn about how to improve your business by looking back at our key accomplishments in 2008.