Tag Archives: dbCAMS

FPPad Bits and Bytes for December 14

Matt Abar, CEO of FinFolio

Watch today’s FPPad On Air broadcast at 4:15pm ET, as my guest will be Matt Abar, CEO of FinFolio.

Visit my Twitter profile page around 4:00pm ET for the broadcast link.

 

Now on to this week’s stories of interest:

Greg Friedman is set to finally bring Junxure to the cloud and beat back the Salesforce-ification of the industry from RIABiz.com

[Over 10+ years, Junxure desktop has attracted 10,000 users across 1,500 firms. It’s a great accomplishment for a niche CRM provider, but the momentum and innovation in cloud services, including cloud CRM, is challenging Junxure’s raison d’être. Will they be able to successfully pull off a transition of some or all of their users to the cloud?] As Greg Friedman takes Junxure to the cloud, he’s taking the gloves off with Salesforce — bolstered by new technology and a sense that the CRM giant is leaving much on the table in functionality and quality of service.

Surface to Air: Is Surface Going to be a Player in Financial Services? from WealthManagement.com

[Microsoft’s surface has a huge gap to close if it wants to be a contending tablet. Apple’s iPad has sold over 100 million units worldwide, and Microsoft chooses not to disclose early numbers of its Surface RT. Will the introduction of the $900 Surface Pro change anything? I doubt it.] Along with Windows 8 tablets for sale this year is Surface, a Windows 8 tablet that is meant to bully the iPad into submission. The likelihood of that in the near future? Slim, says financial services experts.

Total Rebalance Expert Integrates With Morningstar Office(SM) from MarketWatch

[Isn’t Morningstar Office supposed to be rebuilding their internal rebalancer? I’ll need to check with them once again, but for now, advisers using TRX’s rebalancer (see: Total Rebalance Expert CEO Sheryl Rowling on how rebalancing software saves advisers $325,000 per year) don’t have to wait for Morningstar anymore in the wake of this latest integration.] Total Rebalance Expert (TRX) today announced a data integration agreement with Morningstar, Inc., a leading provider of independent investment research. Now, advisors can automatically import their portfolio data from Morningstar Office(SM), a global practice and portfolio management platform for independent financial advisors, into TRX’s software platform to streamline and simplify the rebalancing process.

Half-financed by RIAs, AssetBook rolls out ‘Radar’ to put big RIAs in its range from RIABiz.com

 [You’re likely aware you have alternatives in portfolio management software to the heavyweight products from Advent, Schwab, and Albridge. AssetBook, born from descendants of dbCAMS, is a very good and low-cost solution with many of the same features offered by those mentioned earlier. It’s also a service bureau, meaning you don’t need to spend each morning reconciling transactions and new positions that come in your overnight data feeds. So for less than $30/account/year, AssetBook is one to consider for advisers looking to move to the cloud and to benefit from the experience and service of a portfolio services bureau.] AssetBook Inc. has long been a niche choice for smaller RIAs looking for an affordable platform. But, with a new portfolio-reporting platform full of bells and whistles expected to roll out in the first quarter of 2013, the McHenry, Md.-based software company is luring larger firms away from more established competitors.

TD Ameritrade Institutional Earns Top Marks for Advisor Satisfaction in Financial Planning Magazine’s 2012 Tech Survey from MarketWatch

[Let’s cut to the chase: TDAI’s Veo® Open Access now has over 60 vendor integrations, received the most “very satisfied” ratings in this year’s Financial Planning Tech Survey, and services thousands of TDAI’s 4,500 RIAs. If you had to start over today and choose a new custodian, who would you choose?] TD Ameritrade Institutional’s Veo(R) open access initiative, an industry wide-effort to deliver quality technology integrations to advisors, has helped the custodian secure top scores for advisor satisfaction in this year’s Financial Planning Tech Survey.

One Simple Step to Prevent Backlash from Clients

The Internet community (including the Twitter population) is buzzing about the latest Terms of Service posted by Facebook this week regarding the company’s unrestricted rights to use any content posted on their site.  This resulted in significant backlash from irate users, whereupon Facebook promptly revised the terms.  For more details, read:

PC World: Facebook Owns Your Business Data
CNN: Expert: Social networkers risk ‘losing control’ of privacy
AP: Facebook backtracks on terms of use after protests

There’s a lesson in this story for financial advisers.  Yes, you can prevent client backlash by polling them ahead of implementing new policies.  This principle also applies to vendors to the financial services industry.

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What are Morningstar’s Plans for dbCAMS?

cams.jpgOur firm uses dbCAMS for a variety of portfolio management procedures, including daily account reconciliation, rebalancing, and quarterly reporting.  The creators of dbCAMS, Financial Computer Support, Inc. (FCSI), was recently acquired by Morningstar.  Morningstar purchased FCSI and its dbCAMS product to enhance the company’s visibility in advisers’ day-to-day management of client portfolios.

Not much mention has been made about Morningstar’s plans for dbCAMS, but I recently came across the Fall issue of Morningstar Advisor that sheds some light on their plans.

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Morningstar Announces FCSI Acquisition

MSToday I learned from Financial Advisor Magazine’s breaking news email that Morningstar announced an agreement to buy FCSI, the makers of dbCAMS+ software.  This is important news to me as my firm is a current user of dbCAMS as mentioned here, here, and here at FPPad.com

Click here to see the article on Financial Advisor Magazine.

Click here to see a similar article on Business Week.

We also received an email from Chris Boruff at Morningstar’s advisor channel that provided more specific details on the timetable of the acquisition and what it might mean to current dbCAMS users.

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Quickly Change Managed Accounts in dbCAMS

CAMS Command Window ThumbThe portfolio management software (PMS) currently used in my firm is dbCAMS+.  While many advisers and back-office support staff that I talk to feel dbCAMS+ lacks powerful features, I find that there are hidden gems in the software if you know where to find them.

dbCAMS Command Window

For example, I discovered the Command Window buried in dbCAMS’ Tools menu not too long ago.  The Command Window allows scripts, both basic and complex, to be executed in order to modify database information.  One example where the Command Window has proved to be very powerful is when I need to change non-managed assets of a client to managed assets as they increase their level of service with the firm.

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Idenfity Clients Holding Indymac Products

IndymacIf you’re at all involved in operations and client security reporting, you likely need to identify all of your clients that hold Indymac Bank products.

Over the weekend, Indymac Bank was taken over by federal regulators and control was transferred over the the FDIC.  Click here for the CNN Money story.

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