The financial planning process consists
offollowing six distinctive and sequential steps: establishing and defining the
client-planner relationship; gathering client data including goals; analysing
and evaluating the client’s current financial status; developing and presenting
recommendations and/or alternatives; implementing the recommendations; and monitoring
the recommendations. Yet technological innovation and co-planning are redefining
the process. The delivery of a financial plan is becoming even more complicated
with the emergence of mobile technology and tablets.
While many advisors have tablets, few are using them in the planning process.
Today, co-planning is typically conducted via video-conference or in front of a
big screen television in the advisor’s office.
Let us review the financial planning
process in context with today’s technology, some being used by online financial
planning companies. The first way is that tablets have been
incorporated is in the plan presentation stage. It is easy to create a PDF or
document and then view it on a tablet. Ultimately the six steps merge into a
single experience that supports full co-planning. The new co-planning process,
though, dispenses with the static financial plan. Rather, it creates a live, ever
changing plan, driven by market data and the changing needs and circumstances
of the investor. This evolving planning environment enables advisors and their
clients one opportunity to continually review, update and tweak the plan in
real time.Technology is more investor-centric today. Investors are demanding
technology that can show their financial life in one place. Most software has
the functionality, but the trend now is to make it easy to use.In addition to
the client portals, one of the biggest improvements in financial planning is
the way that information is being provided to the investor. Established, larger
firms have invested a great deal of their technology budgets on improving user
interfaces. Newer firms are using the latest interactive technologies and
making equipment choices based on the ability to interact on a tablet or a
website.Another important factor is that new technologies offer more intuitive ways to engage clients. In many ways, software companies have broken new ground by incorporating a technique that integrates elements of gaming, such as point scoring and competing with others into their software.Other tools help present complex information in ways that may be easier for investors to understand. Mind mapping, a series of diagrams that visually organize information is a good example of this technology. Advisors use the correlations engine and easy user interface to help clients understand portfolio risk, showcase hedging strategies and compare portfolios.