3 Tips for Maximizing Planning Tools

Are you using your financial planning platform to its full potential? If not, you have plenty of company. Only 8 percent of advisors strongly agree they’re making the most of their financial planning software.1

With expectations for the client experience continuing to expand, it only makes sense to maximize the tools you have to give clients the level of personalized service they’re seeking. Here are three tips on how to get the most out of financial planning technology.

Tip #1: Give a Client Portal with Account Aggregation a 2nd Look

Client portals equipped with account aggregation have come a long way since the early days. Still, many advisors shy away from aggregation with the mistaken belief that it's not worth the effort. Recent eMoney research shows frequent portal users are more satisfied and refer more new clients to their advisor.2

A client portal equipped with aggregation unlocks a wealth of data for you that can help you customize your recommendations based on the bigger financial picture. Having more in-depth conversations based on personal, relevant data can in turn increase client loyalty and satisfaction.

Watch this video to learn how to communicate the benefits of the portal to clients:

If you want to know how your peers are leveraging a portal, read about how SouthState Wealth gets the most out of the technology here, and how Blue Trust uses aggregation to help multigenerational clients here.

Finally, if you're an eMoney user on our standard configuration, you'll notice we've invested in revamping the look and feel of our Client Portal this month; click the link below to learn more. For those on an enterprise configuration, know that your upgraded Client Portal is coming soon.

Tip #2: Look into Training (and CE) from Your Planning Platform

Did you know improving your planning tech skills can count toward CFP? continuing education requirements? Here at eMoney, we do our part to elevate the planning industry through valuable training. The annual eMoney Summit (held virtually every year in October) is the industry’s premier event for planning-led financial professionals, earning a spot on Kitces.com's best conferences ranking in 2023. It includes a wealth of opportunities for maximizing success with eMoney solutions.

In addition, each month we offer a free CE-credit webinar so you can acquire many of the CE credits you need, from wherever you are.

Sign up here to learn about the latest opportunities to level up your planning skills with eMoney, and check out our Events page to see what’s on the horizon.

Tip #3: Seek Out Planning Tech Tips from Your Peers

Did you know the Reddit community r/CFP has 21,000+ members, ranking among the top 4 percent of subreddits by size? A member there recently asked for users to share their top eMoney advanced techniques:

eMoney clients generously responded with some great tips, including our Estate Planning flow charts, which you can learn about in this video:

Another popular callout was our enhanced Roth conversion visualization within the Decision Center, which you can check out in this video:

Other users mentioned features they leverage for clients with closely held businesses and stock options. Check out the whole thread here.

Another forum to check out for tips on making the most of technology is Finteract. This is a free peer-to-peer community designed to empower financial advisors and their support staff members to gain insights and share best practices.

Maximizing Potential

A bonus tip for making the most of technology: Sign up to have the most popular Heart of Advice posts delivered to your inbox monthly and follow us on social media, where you can learn about webinars like this one:

Thanks for reading the Heart of Advice: LinkedIn Edition for March. Please let us know what future topics you’d like to explore in the comments section.

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Sources:

1. eMoney Planning with Purpose Research, July 2021, advisors n=393, end clients n=391.

2. eMoney Beyond the Plan Research, July 2023, n=504 advisors, n=1,003 end clients.