Achieving a whole financial picture in Axys and APX

May 20, 2010

By: Susan Town

Comprehensive financial advice often begins with a whole picture view of a client’s assets. Frequently this can include assets that are “held-away” from an advisor’s management. “Held-away” assets can be varied and may consist of other managed accounts, retirement accounts, alternative investments, and bank accounts.  In order to compile and update data that is not available through Advent’s Custodial Data (ACD) platform, advisors often rely on a manual process by which accounts are updated on an advisor’s network by use of a client statement, online account access, or by information that may be passed along by a client to an advisor. This process is often times tedious, time-consuming, error-prone, and costly to the advisor. As a result, many firms are unwilling or unable to track all client assets on their portfolio management systems.

With the recent advances in account aggregation software, firms are now finding that a complete financial picture is easier to achieve than they originally thought. Advisors that have permission or access to their clients’ website logins can enroll in account aggregation services that will allow for a data import into their Advent Axys and APX portfolio management system. Through the use of screen-scraping or data feed technology, aggregation services extract transactions, positions, and prices from the clients’ financial services websites for import into an advisor’s Axys or APX software. Some of the most popular Advent compatible service providers of this technology are ByAllAccounts, Cash Edge, and Advisor Exchange.

As with the ACD data download, a routine data check of position reconciliations and investment data are essential in order to ensure optimal data quality, but the potential time and money savings for advisors is significant. In addition to these savings, a complete view of client data allows offices to regularly analyze, leverage, and make the best decisions for their clients’ financial situations.  A cost-benefit analysis for your office is important to determine if this type of service is appropriate for you. Tandem Business Specialists can assist you with your aggregation needs analysis, setup, and deployment.  Contact us for a free consultation.