The four levels of modern financial planning.
Sophisticated financial advisors are already using high-end financial modeling software. The early adopters know that the key to providing high-net worth individuals with the service they expect involves the latest and greatest in technology. There is no getting around this. This is what the clients expect today.
“Clients like sitting down with their advisor and going through these models,” says Karim Rashwan, a product manager with Wolters Kluwer. “They like to see this stuff up on the screen. They like to see how the numbers change as you shift assumptions.”
In an age when digital devices are ubiquitous, the new offerings can’t be ignored. If your practice is still based on paper reports stuffed into a plastic folder, time to buckle down and get conversant with the modern advisor-level software. Programs like FP Solutions, a high-end product offered by Wolters Kluwer, are available different flavours, allow advisors to enter this digital realm at the level where they feel comfortable.
FP Solutions ranks its four different versions: Basic, Plus, Advanced and Business. That is, the advisor can choose the amount of "planning horsepower" they want to add to your practice. Each level up the ladder allows a higher level of complexity in terms of options and planning sophistication.
The Basic version of FP Solutions is targeted toward an advisor practice where the focus is on standard investment and insurance product recommendations. FP Solutions Basic makes it easy to give clients a clear, compelling picture of their financial situation. This version offers tools to model investment and retirement planning, education savings, lifestyle needs, investment deposit/withdrawals, loan and debt amortization, personal-use real estate, as well as Monte Carlo simulations.
One of the advantages of FP Solutions is that it has been programmed in various modules. The piece-by-piece approach means that features can be added as the advisor builds familiarity and competence on the product.
Moving up the ladder FP Solutions Plus includes additional modules that allow the advisor to do sophisticated tax strategies and comprehensive insurance needs analysis. Also included in FP Solutions Plus: disability capital needs (DI, CI, LTC), survivor capital needs (life insurance), commercial real estate, estate capital needs (tax and liquidity). An advisor can show the client how the right insurance coverage can give them peace of mind.
What more could anyone need?
Well, you can advance another level. With FP Solutions Advanced advisors can analyze a client's entire financial situation, no matter how complex it could be. Powerful administrative tools help guide the planning process. Advisors can do detailed income projections, advanced net-worth cash flow projections, as well as modelling the “change in financial position” so that advisors can show the value of their advice. The Advanced level also allows advisors to show clients how they can balance mortgages and RSPs.
At the very top of the ladder is the Business version of FP Solutions. This is where everything comes together and the program takes on its most comprehensive form. It is at the Business level that FP Solutions surpasses other products in the marketplace. FP Solutions Business gives the planner the ability to do both personal and full corporate planning. "This is where FP Solutions really stands out,” says Karim. “We are the only software package that allows multiple corporate earnings flows to be worked into a plan.”
The Business level version of FP Solutions includes planning features around estate freezes, family trusts, shareholder loans and share redemption planning, holding and operating companies, corporate-owned life insurance as well as corporate-owned investment portfolios and real estate. The Business level of the software is designed to help your clients in both family and business planning. “The biggest competitive advantage we have is that we are fully integrated at the business level. You can have a client with up to six companies that are all integrated into the client's net-worth picture,” says Rashwan.
Pay outs from companies are funneled into the final statement. A complicated picture of a high-end client with several businesses can be constructed. Corporate cash can be shown as money coming out of the business and into the personal financial picture. Other things like redemptions, buy-sell agreements and refundable dividend tax can all be flowed-into the picture and modeled. There is also a tax-optimization function that helps advisors identify the most advantageous tax story. “In this sense we're unique in the market. We have a cash optimization tool, which you can do manually.....but our optimization tool takes that whole process and automates it. That's a huge, huge calculation...that's the meat of the program,” says Rashwan.
Coming tomorrow: Education, “How the heck do you work this thing?”
“Clients like sitting down with their advisor and going through these models,” says Karim Rashwan, a product manager with Wolters Kluwer. “They like to see this stuff up on the screen. They like to see how the numbers change as you shift assumptions.”
In an age when digital devices are ubiquitous, the new offerings can’t be ignored. If your practice is still based on paper reports stuffed into a plastic folder, time to buckle down and get conversant with the modern advisor-level software. Programs like FP Solutions, a high-end product offered by Wolters Kluwer, are available different flavours, allow advisors to enter this digital realm at the level where they feel comfortable.
FP Solutions ranks its four different versions: Basic, Plus, Advanced and Business. That is, the advisor can choose the amount of "planning horsepower" they want to add to your practice. Each level up the ladder allows a higher level of complexity in terms of options and planning sophistication.
The Basic version of FP Solutions is targeted toward an advisor practice where the focus is on standard investment and insurance product recommendations. FP Solutions Basic makes it easy to give clients a clear, compelling picture of their financial situation. This version offers tools to model investment and retirement planning, education savings, lifestyle needs, investment deposit/withdrawals, loan and debt amortization, personal-use real estate, as well as Monte Carlo simulations.
One of the advantages of FP Solutions is that it has been programmed in various modules. The piece-by-piece approach means that features can be added as the advisor builds familiarity and competence on the product.
Moving up the ladder FP Solutions Plus includes additional modules that allow the advisor to do sophisticated tax strategies and comprehensive insurance needs analysis. Also included in FP Solutions Plus: disability capital needs (DI, CI, LTC), survivor capital needs (life insurance), commercial real estate, estate capital needs (tax and liquidity). An advisor can show the client how the right insurance coverage can give them peace of mind.
What more could anyone need?
Well, you can advance another level. With FP Solutions Advanced advisors can analyze a client's entire financial situation, no matter how complex it could be. Powerful administrative tools help guide the planning process. Advisors can do detailed income projections, advanced net-worth cash flow projections, as well as modelling the “change in financial position” so that advisors can show the value of their advice. The Advanced level also allows advisors to show clients how they can balance mortgages and RSPs.
At the very top of the ladder is the Business version of FP Solutions. This is where everything comes together and the program takes on its most comprehensive form. It is at the Business level that FP Solutions surpasses other products in the marketplace. FP Solutions Business gives the planner the ability to do both personal and full corporate planning. "This is where FP Solutions really stands out,” says Karim. “We are the only software package that allows multiple corporate earnings flows to be worked into a plan.”
The Business level version of FP Solutions includes planning features around estate freezes, family trusts, shareholder loans and share redemption planning, holding and operating companies, corporate-owned life insurance as well as corporate-owned investment portfolios and real estate. The Business level of the software is designed to help your clients in both family and business planning. “The biggest competitive advantage we have is that we are fully integrated at the business level. You can have a client with up to six companies that are all integrated into the client's net-worth picture,” says Rashwan.
Pay outs from companies are funneled into the final statement. A complicated picture of a high-end client with several businesses can be constructed. Corporate cash can be shown as money coming out of the business and into the personal financial picture. Other things like redemptions, buy-sell agreements and refundable dividend tax can all be flowed-into the picture and modeled. There is also a tax-optimization function that helps advisors identify the most advantageous tax story. “In this sense we're unique in the market. We have a cash optimization tool, which you can do manually.....but our optimization tool takes that whole process and automates it. That's a huge, huge calculation...that's the meat of the program,” says Rashwan.
Coming tomorrow: Education, “How the heck do you work this thing?”
