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Can PersonalRIA Service the Middle-Market?

Personal RI

I stumbled across a company called PersonalRIA back in September.  I found it through the TechCrunch50 Conference, a venue created where the best start-ups launch their ideas and proposals in front of the industry’s most influential VCs, corporations, fellow entrepreneurs and press.  Coincidentally, TechCrunch50 is where I learned about DropBox, the completely awesome and innovative file backup, sync, and sharing platform that I use all the time.

For more on TechCrunch50, visit their website:  http://www.techcrunch50.com

Below is the presentation of the PersonalRIA platform presented at TechCrunch50.

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Schwab Institutional Webcast: Portfolio Rebalancer Enhancements

Schwab RebalancerOn my radar this week is a Schwab Institutional Webcast on the recent enhancements to their Portfolio Rebalancer utility.  After viewing an excellent demo of Tamarac on Day 2 of the NAPFA Technology Conferencein Las Vegas, I’m interested in seeing what Schwab is doing to position their own rebalancing and trading tools to streamline trading operations in independent adviser offices.

The webcast will be held this Thursday, November 20 at 4:00PM EST/1:00PST.  Unfortunately our company has an all-day offsite staff retreat scheduled for Thursday, so I’m not able to attend the webcast.  I’ll look for a link to the webcast archive and post it here if one is available.

It features Heath Batz, senior manager of online trading tools at Schwab Institutional, and Michael Granger, Vice President of Implementation and Client Management at Advisor Software, Inc

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Has Laborious Client Data Entry Met Its Match?

PreciseFPI recently ran across a new practice management tool on PRWeb of all places.  The tool is called PreciseFP and is available through Spectrum Input, LLC, a software service company based in Alpharetta, Georgia.  Spectrum Input, LLC was founded by Don Whalen, CFP® and Sebastian Skwarek, a specialist in Adobe technology solutions.

Click here to read the PreciseFP press release on PRWeb.

What PreciseFP aims to do is simplify the data gathering and entry process advisers face when bringing a new client into the firm.  I don’t quite make the connection with the phrase “precise financial planning (FP)” to data gathering, but still, the application has promise in streamlining the potential volumes of data gathered by advisers and their staff.  PreciseID is a cooler name, but it’s already taken by Experian.

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Run Quick Form 1040 Illustrations with Excel

Excel 1040Yesterday I responded to a question on the Financial Planning Magazine online discussion boards about running tax illustrations and comparisons using Excel.  

A few years ago I came across Glenn Reeves’ Excel 1040 tool.  This is a handy and fairly comprehensive tool based in Excel that does a good job performing many of the common calculations that populate Form 1040.  Included are worksheets to enter W-2 income, Form 1099 distributions, Social Security, Schedule B Interest and Dividends… the list goes on and on.

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Stop Sending “Dear Valued Client” Emails

emailI wanted to address a recent article by David Drucker in August’s Financial Advisor Magazine titled Keeping the Lines Open. Here’s the important section (my emphasis added):

Also basic but often overlooked are commonly accepted rules for an effective client e-mail. Says Gregory, you maximize its effectiveness by making sure your e-mail has a compelling subject line, is tightly written and edited, is addressed and targeted to one client at a time and is designed with a lot of white space, which makes the e-mails easier to read by allowing you to compose them in a noncluttered, eye-inviting manner.

“But Bill,” you might say, “I’d love to send out personalized and targeted emails to all of my clients, but with 250 clients, it would take many hours or even a full day.” Instead, I can imagine what “targeted” emails advisers might be sending now:

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Expand Outlook Efficiency with Switch Options

Command LinePreviously I wrote about creating a desktop shortcut icon to open an Outlook email window to avoid opening the entire Outlook program.  My instructions included a switch option ( /c ipm.note ) to invoke the message window.

The /c switch is just one of many command line options when running Outlook.  I found a nice concise list of the various command line switch options to perform specific tasks using Outlook. 

While most are not nearly as useful as the new message window switch, I like having a reference to this kind of information just in case I need it in the future.

Click here for the list of Outlook command line switch options (opens in new window)

Create a New Message Shortcut for Outlook

Outlook ShortcutIn my previous post today I blogged about only accessing Outlook three times during my day to reduce distractions.  Then I realized that even though I want to keep the program closed, I want to be able to send messages to clients and coworkers.

On a side note, let me say that I try to keep the messages I send to others concise and relevant for the recipients.  Nevertheless, my role and responsibilities require that I send out confirmations and notifications on internal matters such as security transactions, fund receipts and disbursements, and the occasional status update.

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Schwab Portfolio Rebalancer Enhancements

Schwab RebalancerSchwab Institutional recently announced updates to its online Portfolio Rebalancer utility.  In response to feedback from advisers, Schwab added several new features to the rebalancing tool.

Holding Information View

The first feature added is the ability to view holding information for a client either by account or in aggregate from the primary step.  This option saves a few clicks so the user can quickly identify the relevant holdings for any given client.

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Mint.com Adds Investment Tracking

Mint!Lifehacker.com recently announced Mint.com has added investment tracking to its list of features.  A highly requested and attractive feature, investment tracking should dramatically increase this service provider’s already rapid adoption in the market.

Mint.com is a free online personal finance management application that users can configure to track expenses by aggregating transactions from checking, savings, and credit card accounts.  Now that investment accounts have been added, Mint.com is getting closer to a complete personal finance product to compete with the likes of computer-based (as opposed to web-based) Quicken and Microsoft Money.  Note that Quicken does have an ASP-based product of Quicken Online, free for 30 days, then $2.99/month thereafter.

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Schwab Technology Complex Strengthens Custodian’s Presence

Technology RoomAt the end of April, Charles Schwab and Texas Tech University announced the creation of a Schwab Technology Complex on the University’s campus, and also named Danielle Winchester as the first Schwab Research Scholar.

Click the link to view the Charles Schwab and Texas Tech University press release.

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