One of the primary differentiating factors for financial advisors is whether or not they are a fiduciary. If you are a fiduciary, chances are you have a full page and multiple blogs on your website touting the label as a point of pride, as well you should—being a fiduciary is something to be proud of.

For all the time the industry spends talking about fulfilling the fiduciary duty, it is still just that—a duty. The tasks related to being a fiduciary take time and energy away from other duties, such as client service or growing your firm. 

Technology can definitely make you a better advisor, but can it make you a better fiduciary? 

The answer is yes. 

Today, we’ll show you five ways good technology can help you be a better fiduciary.

1. Increased Efficiency = Better Service

Advisors are notoriously busy. Between portfolio management, trading and rebalancing, managing your team, marketing your firm, and everything else, it can be a struggle to do something as simple as find time to eat lunch—let alone give clients the attention your fiduciary duties require. 

By putting more manual tasks on autopilot, you can free up time for yourself and others on your team to provide better service to clients, research the latest industry trends, and ensure your firm is compliant in all aspects of its fiduciary duty.

An added benefit of increased efficiency is that you can scale more easily, which opens you up to serve more clients and grow your firm more.

2. Anticipate Client Needs

The ability to monitor client portfolios and set up automatic alerts is one of the greatest gifts technology has given financial advisors. That advancement alone has saved advisors countless hours of manual labor. 

With a little work on the front-end, you can set up alerts for nearly every major milestone in a client’s life, ensuring that the big items never slip by you. 

And it’s not just about setting up notifications for you. By scheduling event-based notifications, you can automatically alert your clients when an RMD deadline is approaching, or just make sure you never miss a birthday.

3. Eliminate the Back-and-Forth with Clients

The right client portal is worth its weight in gold—or at least the weight of the server it’s hosted on. 

By giving clients access to their account information, you not only ensure they stay informed, you empower them to find their own answers, dramatically reducing the time and energy your team has to put into answering questions. 

Not only that, a good client experience will reduce the client frustration of waiting around for you to respond. Where it used to take two days and five emails to explain a minor detail in their portfolio to their satisfaction, they can now find the answer to most questions in 10 minutes with literally zero work on your part, freeing your team up even more.

4. Simplify Investment Analysis & Recommendations

Making the right recommendations is critical to your fiduciary duty and should never be fully entrusted to anything other than your team—but technology can greatly simplify your investment analysis process.

By leveraging a TAMP’s relationship with third-party strategists, you are adding the equivalent of an entire investment strategy team to your firm—without having to pay the strategists’ salaries.

5. Speed Up Advice Delivery and Planning

Crafting a financial plan for a new client can be a time-intensive process, especially if you are customizing it for individual clients and connecting it to data from their personal portfolio. 

Financial planning software allows you to aggregate data from multiple sources and then connect it directly to a client’s financial goals, ensuring that your recommendations are closely linked with their best interests from day one. 

In addition, planning software automates every aspect of reporting, allowing you to see long-term effects of your possible recommendations and providing a picture of the real impact before any big changes are decided. 

By creating reports in a matter of seconds or minutes as opposed to hours and days, you can give your clients the information they need when they need it so they can make more informed decisions.

With the right technology, you can become a faster, better and more efficient advisor—and fiduciary—and keep your clients happier in the process.

Want to be the best fiduciary you can be? Choosing the right TAMP will make sure you are building your practice on a solid foundation. 

Download our whitepaper on “How to Choose the Right TAMP For Your Business.”

0715-OPS-03/01/2021