Technology plays an important role in today’s financial planning, helping firms to increase efficiency, improve compliance and deliver more sophisticated and comprehensive plans for clients. Are you currently utilising modern adviser software? In this blog, we explore how you can streamline your tech stack and processes with EV’s end-to-end financial planning tools.
Advising clients on the best financial plans to meet their life goals takes advisers considerable time and effort. Leveraging cloud-based software to ease this process has become a widespread practice. But how well connected is your tech stack and how effective are your existing solutions in enabling you to provide the best possible financial outcomes to clients? To keep up with the competition, adopting efficient financial planning tools that streamline your advisory firm’s tech stack is critical.
Why advisers need efficient financial planning tools now more than ever
As the financial services industry, as well as customer expectations, continue to increase in complexity, financial advisers can hugely benefit from sophisticated financial planning tools that streamline the advisory process and improve customer experience.
Challenges around time efficiency, advice suitability, accuracy and regulatory compliance make operating optimal financial advice processes difficult to achieve. Luckily, the advent of innovative tech solutions takes much of the guesswork out of crafting and validating financial plans, and proactive adviser firms are leveraging financial planning tools to optimise processes.
Challenges that end-to-end financial planning tools can help alleviate
So, what are the issues advisers face that these software solutions can ease? Here are some of the core challenges efficient financial planning tools can address for your firm:
- The time it takes to prepare thorough financial plans
- Simply, but effectively, explaining plan details and calculation results to clients in a way that is easy for them to understand
- Ensuring process and advice consistency and visibility across advisers in your firm
- Advisers’ ability to show the suitability of their advice, and that it meets clients’ goals and circumstances
- Avoiding bias recommendations
- Ensuring traditionally siloed systems are integrated to efficiently account for all factors of a financial plan, including risk appetite, cash flow and capacity for loss
- Meeting ever-evolving regulatory requirements
- Sufficient record-keeping for auditing purposes
Additionally, with more financial advice services available online than ever before, customers have come to expect a modern digital experience. This extends to easy remote dealings, speedy service delivery and more cost-effective solutions. By optimising your tech stack with efficient financial planning tools, you’ll be better placed to meet client expectations while maintaining a competitive edge in the market. Firms that remain using old methods and legacy solutions are at risk of getting left behind.
Introducing EVPro: the comprehensive financial planning toolkit to streamline adviser systems and processes
Designed to enable efficient financial planning and analysis and deliver better client outcomes, EV’s end-to-end financial planning software, EVPro, lets advisers build, assess, review and solve client plans within one comprehensive solution. EVPro simplifies and enhances adviser processes through a suite of sophisticated tools and features, whilst providing a seamless experience for clients. The tools are fully integrated, so you can deliver consistent and repeatable financial planning, from one-off product advice through to comprehensive lifetime plans that incorporate risk suitability and cash flow planning.
A modular approach
EVPro consists of five modules that address risk profiling, investment solutions, financial life goals, plan analysis and problem solving that, when combined, offer you a complete end-to-end financial planning solution. However, if you have unique needs, you can also create your own “best of breed” tooling by selecting the individual modules best suited to your requirements.
The benefit of opting for a modular solution is that you can either have a complete digital toolkit that inherently accounts for all considerations in your financial planning process, or you can cherry-pick modules that best support how your existing processes work. A modular solution means that you aren’t restricted by your technology, but rather empowered tools at your disposal.
Comprehensive risk profiling
Defining risk is a crucial consideration that should be efficiently handled by your financial planning tools. EVPro offers comprehensive risk questionnaires that accurately identify clients’ attitudes to risk and allows you to check the risk suitability of funds and portfolios against clients’ risk profiles.
Beyond just mapping asset allocations, EVPro Risk enables advisers to identify the right combination of funds to optimally suit a risk profile, and seamlessly connects with the risk suitability of client portfolios. As portfolios are updated in line with the risk profiling metrics, you can instantly see the subsequent impact on the overall plan. Additionally, EVPro’s cash flow functionality combines seamlessly with the risk suitability to reveal the probability of a plan working, taking into account client investments, expenses and goals.
Suitable future modelling
EVPro’s robust calculation capabilities allow advisers to make more accurate, real-world forecasts in significantly less time. Built with stochastic modelling first for probability outcomes, the tool enables more productive client conversations by indicating the likelihood of a plan’s success. The metrics overall can be used to efficiently compare plans over time, more accurately.
Including comprehensive stress tests and backsolves, EVPro helps advisers consider both market risks and individual factors, and also identify problems in a plan that may have otherwise been overlooked. Tax calculations are also included to ensure tax allowances and tax-free cash are incorporated to deliver more thorough forecasts and better, realistic outcomes for clients.
Speed, efficiency and ease
Although EVPro boasts sophisticated functionality with a powerful set of calculations, the software has a simple, easy-to-use front-end compared to other financial planning tools. Because of its efficient, all-encompassing capabilities, advisers are able to:
- Easily create options through multiple what-if scenarios and swiftly compare plan revisions to ensure clients choose the best possible option
- Spend less time using the tool and developing plans, because calculations are accurate and fast
- Explain plans more easily to clients through additional graphs that show a range of outcomes, meaning more comprehensive planning based on specific scenarios
- Instantly understand a client’s capacity for loss using unique metrics based on cash flow and probability
- Ensure financial planning compliance through risk and client reviews at an adviser and firm-level
Powerful, yet easy to use, EV’s financial planning tools help you to quickly but effectively develop comprehensive and robust client financial plans.
Summary
Having an end-to-end solution to streamline your tech stack and operate a more efficient advisory process will help your firm to gain a competitive edge, deliver more sophisticated advice and communication to clients and be more confident in compliance and suitability.
EV’s cutting-edge financial planning tools can transform your firm’s capabilities. From risk management to problem identification and resolution, EVPro optimises financial planning processes, improves client conversations and empowers advisers to offer the best possible plans to ensure clients meet their financial life goals.
Leverage EVPro’s modules that are most suited to your firm’s needs or use all five modules combined for a holistic adviser toolkit.
What next?
