Tag Archives: Junxure

FPPad Bits and Bytes for February 18

Posted on February 18, 2011 by in Bits & Bytes

We’re attending the T3 Conference as you read this (follow the Twitter backchannel under #T32011), but through the magic of the Internet we’re able to post our week in review of all things tech in financial planning.

This week’s stories of interest start out with the recent request by the SEC to review advisers’ use of social media:

SEC Wants To Follow You On Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube… at Forbes.com

(Bill’s comment: Reporter Halah Touryalai raises the fair point that the SEC might have better issues to tackle than to babysit advisers’ social media profiles. But such is the consequence of the regulatory enviroment to which advisers are subject. All it takes are a few tweets from fraudulent advisers to ruin it for everyone. Can you imagine “RT @bernardmadoff: Just one week left to enroll in our 8% monthly guarantee fund. Accredited investors only please!“)

File this one under: “There Are Better Things The SEC Can Be Doing.” Financial advisors’ online activity on social media websites is being scrutinized by the SEC, according to a compliance consulting firm and a report in Investment News.

FINRA to Look at Social Media–Again at Financial Advisor Magazine

The issue of how to deal with social media isn’t going away for regulators of the securities industry.

CRM systems for the big guys from InvestmentNews.com

For larger advisory firms, choosing the right CRM system is like selecting the right marriage partner.

TradeWarrior and AssetBook Announce Integration Partnership at Marketwire.com

TradeWarrior and AssetBook are pleased to announce an integration between their software programs. The integration partnership between the two companies will provide AssetBook users access to TradeWarrior’s powerful rebalancing and trading capabilities. This integration marks the first 3rd party rebalancing integration available to AssetBook users.

T3 2011 Conference Live Blog: Junxure CRM

Posted on February 17, 2011 by in General

(Bill’s note: I brought just my iPad and Apple wireless keyboard to T3 and it’s proving to be a very flexible setup for blogging from the event. I’m being pulled in many directions, so I’ll blog when I have a few moments. Here’s the first in my series for T3.)

T3 2011 opened today with pre-conference sessions where vendors and technology companies demonstrated their products. Most vendors used the opportunity to demonstrate their products, talk about what’s new, and answer questions from the audience.

I first attended a split session with Junxure and Redtail CRM. Here are my notes from Junxure’s portion.

Robert DeFrancis, Director of Client Services and Sales for Junxure presented. Since Junxure is installed locally on most advisers’ servers (though it certainly could be installed on a virtual server), DeFrancis stressed the speed of desktop CRM. He pointed out that waiting 10 seconds for an online CRM’s screen to refresh could cost advisers up to 25 minutes a day in lost productivity.

He demonstrated both Junxure Mobile and ClientView Live, pointing out the Mobile runs well on iPads (roughly 10-15% of session attendees have iPads) My opinion is yes, Mobile runs well on iPad, but I find many screens are very overwhelming with a lot of data (e.g. the Junxure action screens).

Documents linked in Junxure can be viewed on iPads, but Junxure Mobile doesn’t export PDFs to iBooks or other apps. Orion updated their iPad app to do this, and I’d like to see Junxure do something similar.

Generally, I found Client View appealing and Junxure has taken care to design an attractive home page once clients log in. But one drawback is that Client View doesn’t yet support embedded video (e.g. YouTube or Vimeo) on the client home page. For advisers using more and more video in their practice, this is a nice value-add.

More notes like this will come over the course of the conference, so please check back at FPPad for more updates.

T3 Begins Thursday; Follow the Conference Twitter Backchannel

Posted on February 15, 2011 by in General

The second large industry conference of the year for independent financial advisers kicks off this Thursday.

The Technology Tools for Today (T3) Conference, a joint effort by T3: The Newsletter producers David J. Drucker and Joel P. Bruckenstein, begins with pre-conference sessions by many leading technology vendors and service providers.

Pre-conference sessions include presentations by Junxure, Laserfiche, Tamarac, MoneyGuidePro, and Smarsh to name a few.

Presentations

I’ll be there presenting two sessions. First, I’ll be a panelist in Friday’s session titled iPad: How Advisors Are Using it Productively along with Sandra E. Goodstein of Goodstein and Associates, LLC, and Russell Dunkin of McKinley Carter Wealth Services. Diane MacPhee, CFP®, Business Coach and owner of DMAC Consulting Services, LLC will moderate the panel.

Second, I’m teaming up with Jo Day of Trumpet, Inc to present Transformative Technology You Can Implement Now on Saturday. We have assembled a slide deck full of resources advisers can add to their practice to make clients and colleagues speak highly of their firm.

Visit the T3 Conference website for the full conference agenda.

Twitter Backchannel

Just as with TD AMERITRADE Institutional’s 2011 National Conference, attendees of T3 are encouraged to use social media to connect and communicate through the backchannel.

The primary Twitter account for T3 is @T3fan and the hashtag being used for conference-related tweets is #T32011.

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/t3fan/status/19631983814508545″]

FPPad Bits and Bytes for February 11

Posted on February 11, 2011 by in Bits & Bytes

We’re taking today off (psst: it’s Bill’s birthday!), but before we go, here are this week’s stories of interest in financial planning technology:

Navigating the CRM labyrinth from InvesetmentNews.com

It’s obvious from my recent conversations with advisers that customer relationship management software still causes plenty of confusion.

Socialware Secures $3 Million in Funding at Marketwire.com

Socialware, the leader in social media compliance and engagement, today announced that it has secured $3 million in additional funding from existing investors, including FLOODGATE, G-51 Capital and Silverton Partners.

Fidelity® Unveils New Technology Strategy to Meet Rapidly Evolving Needs of Advisors and Investors at Fidelity.com

National Financial®, a Fidelity Investments® company and the nation’s 2nd largest provider of clearing services to broker-dealers1, today unveiled a comprehensive new technology strategy that will focus on making significantly larger investments in key areas its broker-dealer clients have indicated would best support their overall growth and efficiency objectives.

And Bill’s column Hop on the Mobile Bandwagon at MorningstarAdvisor.com

Orion’s MobileAdvisor provides another reason to embrace mobile computing.

FPPad Bits and Bytes for October 29

Posted on October 29, 2010 by in Bits & Bytes

Happy Halloween! This week’s edition of Bits and Bytes is full of all treats and no tricks.

Here are this week’s feature stories:

At Schwab IMPACT 2010, Charles Schwab Advisor Services selected the first Intelligent Integration partners. Here’s coverage from the web:

Junxure, Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics Are The First Schwab Intelligent Integration Partners from FPPad.com,
Schwab Looks To Integrate Registered Independent Advisers’ Tech Systems from WSJ.com, and
Schwab chooses some giant software partners, apparently with big RIAs in mind from RIABiz.com

Thanks to our sources on the ground (John Stone of Revenue Architects and Tim Welsh of Nexus Strategy) at Schwab IMPACT 2010, we now know the first Intelligent Integration partners announced by the company this morning.

Fidelity arms its RIAs for battle with white-glove brands from RIABiz.com

Fidelity WealthCentral for Family Offices integrates portfolio reporting and trading and allows a view of holdings including alternative assets. Services such as trust, partnership accounting, private foundation services and general ledger export services are included. Most important: it can provide an ultra-affluent client with a dedicated relationship management team and investment analyst/trader.

ByAllAccounts’ Survey Reveals the Top Reasons Financial Advisors Would Consider New Portfolio Management System from Marketwire.com

ByAllAccounts, Inc., the financial advisors’ choice for account aggregation, today announced survey results that show financial advisors are generally loyal to their portfolio management systems of record. Nearly 70 percent of survey respondents are somewhat or extremely unlikely to switch from their current system to a new one in 2011.

And finally, my blog post for October, Convert Business Card Info in a Snap, at MorningstarAdvisor.com

While attending a huge conference such as FPA Denver 2010 has many advantages, one minor drawback of connecting with so many new people is processing the large stack of business cards collected after returning home from the event.

Schwab Intelligent Integration Selection Contest Winner

Posted on October 28, 2010 by in General

True to form, you can’t win if you don’t play.

We received seven entries into our Guess Schwab’s Intelligent Integration Partners, Win Free Coffee! contest. With two correct selections each (Junxure and Salesforce), Tim Welsh and “Joe” received two points and had their names entered into a hat.

I debated about allowing points for selecting Tamarac Advisor CRM; while it’s built on Microsoft Dynamics CRM, I’m willing to bet that  Tamarac’s customization of Dynamics makes it different enough that Schwab may not embrace it under their Intelligent Integration ecosystem. Our prediction: in the long run, Tamarac will succeed without needing Schwab’s Intelligent Integration partnership, and Schwab will serve advisers well with the three other CRM systems, so nobody really loses. Ultimately, no points were awarded for selecting Tamarac Advisor CRM.

On with the contest winner. Our impartial name-selector (my son Daniel) picked:

“Joe”

So Joe, check your e-mail to confirm your mailing address. You’ll be receiving your Starbucks gift card shortly!

And thank you to all of you who took a few seconds to add in your guesses. Look to FPPad in the future for some more fun, interactive speculation on the future of adviser technology.

Junxure, Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics Are The First Schwab Intelligent Integration Partners

Posted on October 27, 2010 by in Technology

Thanks to our sources on the ground (John Stone of Revenue Architects and Tim Welsh of Nexus Strategy) at Schwab IMPACT 2010, we now know the first Intelligent Integration partners announced by the company this morning.

Executive Vice President and Charles Schwab Advisor Services leader Bernie Clark announced the first CRM partners selected. They are:

UPDATE, 10:19AM EDT: Read Schwab’s press release from Marketwatch.com. And an odd observation; if Schwab is integrating with three CRMs, do they really need to partner with LaserApp to facilitate account form-filling? Why not integrate form-filling directly with the new Intelligent Integration partners? I suppose, though, that by supporting LaserApp, more CRM systems (e.g. Redtail, Goldmine, etc.) can be used to complete Schwab account applications, which helps everybody, but still supports a fractured, non-integrated ecosystem.

Last week we predicted Junxure, Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, and Tamarac Advisor CRM would be among the selections. It seems redundant at first to have included Tamarac Advisor CRM, as it is built on top of Microsoft Dynamics, but in my opinion, Tamarac Advisor CRM is substantially different from MS Dynamics as Tamarac has customized Dynamics’ out-of-the-box functionality to include data and fields relevant to wealth managers and financial advisers.

Now for the next important question: Who won our free coffee giveaway for guessing the correct partners? There are several people who responded correctly with two of the three partners, so tonight we’ll have an official hat-drawing from those names and reveal the winner tomorrow (the impartial name-remover from the hat is at day care right now).

Guess Schwab’s Intelligent Integration Partners, Win Free Coffee!

Posted on October 21, 2010 by in General

Schwab IMPACT 2010The countdown to Schwab IMPACT 2010 is underway. In less than five days, Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. will kick off its annual conference for RIAs with a host of education sessions, keynote presentations, and vendor expo events.

One event eagerly anticipated by advisers, vendors, and technology consultants (*wink*) is the announcement of Schwab’s Intelligent Integration partners. The first partners to be announced will be providers of CRM software to the investment adviser industry. Neesha Hathi, Schwab VP for Advisor Technology Solutions, defines Intelligent Integration as an “eco-system where all the applications live together.”

So the $64,000 question: Who will be the first Intelligent Integration partners?

Speculation is fun, and so are contests. So we at FPPad are holding a contest.

If you can correctly identify the Intelligent Integration partners, you win free coffee. How much free coffee? A $15 Starbucks gift card.

So leave a comment below with your guess of the CRM vendors you think will be selected as Intelligent Integration partners.

In honor of the new plain-English Form ADV Part 2, here are some plain-English contest rules:

  • If you correctly identify a vendor, you get one point for each vendor named. If your guess includes a vendor that is not announced as a partner, you lose one point for each vendor named. Oh! Yes, there’s a penalty for incorrect guesses. Otherwise you could write in all the names of CRM vendors in the market and win that way. So be selective. The submission with the most total points wins!
  • One entry per e-mail address. You must post a comment below. We apologize to those who cannot post to Internet forums due to compliance reasons. If you don’t leave a valid e-mail, we can’t contact you if you win. We won’t use your e-mail for anything other than contacting you if you win. Period. But we’d love it if you subscribed to our newsletter while you’re here!
  • Submissions must be posted by 11:59PM EDT Monday, October 25, 2010.
  • Employees of Charles Schwab & Co. and any vendors included in the Intelligent Integration partner announcement are ineligible.
  • In the of event multiple people with the highest number of points, one name will be drawn at random from a hat by my son Daniel. He’s 18 months old and is impartial to the contest outcome.

To start the submissions, here’s our guess on the first Intelligent Integration CRM partners: Junxure, Tamarac Advisor CRM™, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and Salesforce.com.

See how easy it is! Now submit your guess.

Junxure’s AdWords Campaign Fixed

Posted on August 23, 2010 by in General

Almost a year ago we wrote that Junxure’s Google AdWords campaign referenced version 7 of the software when version 8 was on the market. Today the current version of the popular CRM software for financial advisers is up to 8.7.

I spotted the following AdWords entry while purging my inbox.

Finally somebody got the version number updated. Now I have to offer some unsolicited feedback: is the version number even necessary? I think the ad can say “Get the latest version now!”

And now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

What’s the Latest Version of Junxure?

Posted on October 16, 2009 by in Software

So I’m reviewing my messages in GMail this evening and happened to glance over at the Google AdWords. In the top spot is an ad for Junxure CRM and boasts how “Version 7 Rocks!” (the mixed use of upper and lower case is interesting, too)

Isn’t Junxure on version 8 now?