While attending the TD Ameritrade Institutional 2013 National Conference last month, I connected with Dan Cox, regional sales director for eMoney Advisor.
eMoney Advisor has been rather quiet in recent years, crossing my radar only once or twice with news of new product features and functionality.
For 2013, eMoney Advisor is ready to jump out of the gate and get in front of advisers to demonstrate how the platform can complement an efficient workplace.
So what is eMoney Advisor?
Cox replied, “It’s a fully integrated financial planning software package, bundled with account aggregation and a client portal.”
“Part of the bundled package is a secure client vault where [advisers] can upload and download any document and collaborate with other financial professionals,” added Cox.
While attending the TD Ameritrade Institutional 2013 National Conference last month, I connected with Deborah Fox, founder of the Fox Financial Planning Network.
In our conversation, Fox provided insight on the need for systematized workflow solutions in the financial services industry.
“We wanted to provide tools in a way advisers could get quick results to fully systematize their practice and think through their business model,” said Fox.
You’ll see how the network resources are not just a list of PDF files listing the steps advisers should follow to prepare for a client meeting, but includes CRM plugins (Redtail and Grendel are the first ones to support this integration) and live training webinars and discussions with Fox and other experts.
Now, goalgamiPro leverages Veo® Open Access from TD Ameritrade Institutional, streamlining the process of entering household asset information into the software.
“We’re fully integrated with Veo,” said Ringquist, “[allowing] advisors to bring accounts and holdings data into the application, which eliminates all that time and makes quick planning even quicker.”
goalgamiPro has also added a new data sheet with cash flow illustrations, further enhancing the conversations advisers can have with clients about planning opportunities.
“There are two ways to look at the viability of goal planning: one is through the balance sheet, but it doesn’t address ‘financeability,’ when cash will be available to meet goals,” added Ringquist. “So we’ve provided that cash flow report [which is] another way to evaluate the client’s goal plan.”
Orion Advisor Services is the beneficiary of a one-two combination of innovative technology
While attending the TD Ameritrade Institutional 2013 National Conference last week, I connected with Jon Reiners, director of institutional business development for Orion Advisor Services.
In our conversation, Reiners announced that the leading portfolio service bureau recently surpassed $100 billion in total assets administered under its platform.
“Of that $100 billion in assets we have,” said Reiners, “$35 billion is collectively here with TD Ameritrade.”
Also, Reiners detailed one new feature to be released in the next few weeks called Orion Mail, where statements suitable for email are automatically generated using custom Orion report data.
Year-end “best of” lists are flooding my feeds, and I’m reading the majority of them as they offer good insight on what audiences of different media outlets and publications read the most.
This year, I’m going to split the Best of FPPad in 2012 feature into three categories: Videos, Podcasts, and Posts.
Videos were a new initiative I launched in 2012 to diversify the format of content featured here at FPPad.
This time last year I assembled my two-camera video setup that I could pack into a backpack and transport in an airplane overhead bin. I started with sit-down interviews, then branched out with point-of-view style interviews, iPad app demos, and then live On Air broadcasts.
I must say that the videos have been a big hit, as the FPPad YouTube channel surpassed 10,000 views and 50 subscribers this year. Have you subscribed yet?
So to kick off my list for this year, here are the top five videos (determined by view count) from FPPad in 2012.
1. How to hide endorsements from your LinkedIn profile for financial adviser compliance
Any time social media is mentioned for financial advisers, compliance rears its ugly head. This year’s most watched video addresses a new feature LinkedIn added earlier this year called Endorsements.
Generally, Endorsements are a quick and convenient way to highlight skills and expertise of LinkedIn connections, but the hard line the SEC and FINRA draws on prohibiting testimonials of any kind clouds whether or not Endorsements can be displayed on a regulated adviser’s profile.
The conservative approach is to simply hide Endorsements altogether, leading to the substantial interest in this how-to screencast.
Note that LinkedIn’s profile design changed late this year, so the process of hiding Endorsements has changed, reflected in this updated screencast, How to Hide LinkedIn Endorsements in the New LinkedIn Profile (which has a decent chance of becoming the most watched video for 2013…).
2. Veo® Mobile app for iPad from TD Ameritrade Institutional
All the major custodians now offer iPad apps for affiliated financial advisers. One app with extensive functionality is Veo® Mobile from TD Ameritrade Institutional.
Inside the app, advisers will find account management options, trading functionality, and streaming video from CNBC. It’s the all-in-one app advisers on the go can count on while away from the office.
3. Orion Advisor Services’ Eric Clarke discussing TD Ameritrade Institutional Veo® Open Access
In one of the first series of video spotlight interviews, I spoke with Orion Advisor Services President and CEO Eric Clarke about his company’s integration with TD Ameritrade Institutional’s Veo® Open Access platform.
This type of content shaped what was to come for the remainder of 2012, as I added content that highlighted financial planning technology developments that really matter to your business.
And I know, I know, it’s “VAY-oh” Open Access, not “VEE-oh!”
4. FPPad Spotlight: Mike Wilson of AdvisoryWorld at T3 2012
This is a dark horse winner for 2012, as AdvisoryWorld (and their portfolio statistics offered to advisers) doesn’t garner much attention from the other media outlets to which you subscribe.
Nevertheless, this video continues to receive consistent traffic from a variety of locations, including the AdvisoryWorld.com website (see, there’s a lesson in this for you: put video, arguably ANY video, on the home page of your website. People will watch some or all of it!)
5. T3 2012: Competing Against Robo Advisers: Delivering Advice in a New World – Part 1
The final top five video of 2012 was filmed at the 2012 T3 conference in Dallas, TX. It features a panel session with Blueleaf CEO John Prendergast and inStream co-founder Alex Murguia discussing the controversial topic of robo advisers, or online financial advice and financial planning platforms that are competing against traditional financial advisers and wealth managers.
Both Prendergast and Murguia outline strategies advisers can implement to take on challengers like Personal Capital, Wealthfront, Betterment, LearnVest (hey, why doesn’t LearnVest have an https:// certificate?!?), and others.
I hope you enjoyed the video recap, so be sure to return over the next week to view the best podcasts and posts from FPPad in 2012.
When a technology vendor advertises a product as being “mobile compatible,” what does that really mean?
More often than not, mobile-compatible products usually display static reports and charts on mobile devices like tablets and smartphones. But that’s not really taking advantage of mobile device capabilities, most notably a device’s touchscreen.
TrustFort, primarily known for its portfolio reporting technology to broker-dealers and RIAs, is now moving ahead with mobile app development with several of its partners that goes beyond basic report presentations, and instead provides a rich, interactive user experience. Such an environment lets both advisers and clients drill down into the details of financial and investment plans, touching different elements and expanding certain sections to view more detailed information.
Hear more about the mobile app development underway from TrustFort president and CEO Atindra Barua.
Instead of customizing Salesforce in house, many advisers are leveraging third-party utilities found in the AppExchange. One of those utilities comes from Orion Advisor Services, called Orion Connect.
For details on Orion Connect and several new functions it offers, I spoke with Orion Advisor Services president and CEO Eric Clarke in the video spotlight below.
I continue to try and add to the ways you can learn new things about technology in financial services and wealth management.
This year, I launched both a YouTube channel and an iTunes Podcast featuring a variety of content, interviews, and screencasts on topics ranging from apps to workflow. With nearly 8,000 YouTube views and over 1,000 podcast downloads, you clearly are engaging this content and are likely sharing it with your colleagues.
Now I’m going to try another new way to deliver content to you.
Live Google+ Hangouts
Google+ Hangout with John Schobel and Blane Warrene of RegEd
Starting this Friday, November 2, I’m going to interview vendors and thought leaders live on Google+ Hangouts On Air.
Tune in this Friday at 4:15pm Eastern, 1:15pm Pacific, for my interview with Advisor Websites co-founder Bart Wisniowski. My agenda includes the one thing advisers are missing on their website and details of recent partnership announcements.
How to Watch
To watch Friday’s Hangout, you’ll need a free Google account. When logged in, simply visit my public Google+ profile, and at the top, you should see a button to join the Hangout On Air. That’s it!
And if you’re so inclined, feel free to submit your questions for Bart Wisniowski in the comments below, or you can tweet them to me at @BillWinterberg during the live broadcast.
I connected with Neal Ringquist, President of Advisor Software, Inc. and talked about the trend he’s seeing of advisers turning to quick financial planning tools in their business.
One of Advisor Software’s initiatives for 2012 is to supply advisers with that tool, a web-based program it calls goalgamiPro.
“[Advisers] can quickly generate a plan and a conversation with a client, collate the material, so the discussion with the client is about goals. It’s about them, and it personalizes that discussion,” said Ringquist in an interview.
For more information on goalgamiPro and the trend towards quick financial planning tools, view the video interview.
TD Ameritrade Institutional’s integration of an award-winning trading platform will help advisers manage options strategies in just a few clicks
Time and inflation are eating away at your clients’ portfolios in the current low-return market environment. In response, many of you are considering options to diversify investment strategies, hedge specific sector exposure, or increase portfolio income.
But implementing complex options strategies across hundreds of client accounts exponentially increases the resources you must allocate to traditional portfolio management.
In my latest video spotlight, I spoke with TD Ameritrade Institutional’s Jon Patullo about the company’s recent integration of thinkpipes®, named “Best for Options Traders” in 2011 by Barron’s Online Broker Survey, into the Veo® platform.
Patullo also provides a brief overview of the thinkpipes dashboard and how easy it can be to roll a set of options contracts forward across multiple accounts.
Videos were a new initiative I launched in 2012 to diversify the format of content featured here at FPPad.
