As advisors start to wrap up on the year and prepare for 2021, Envestnet | Tamarac is committed to supporting you with the tech tools and resources you need. Here are five best practice tips that are top of mind for high-performing advisors as they guide their clients forward.
1. Focus on year-end tax planning strategies
Think about ways to help your clients manage their tax burden before the end of the year. Tamarac offers several innovative tax tools to help:
- With our powerful new tool, Capital Gains Tax Budget, you can set a gains budget in Tamarac Trading to help you monitor a client’s realized gain information against an agreed-upon budget. The tool also provides an early warning to alert you when a proposed trade might exceed the annual budgeted amount.
- When it comes to taking advantage of tax-loss harvesting opportunities, our Tax-loss harvest and rebalance trade type lets you set a threshold for tax-loss harvest trades at the account level in either dollar or percentage. Other ways we support tax-loss harvesting include Directed trade for tax-loss harvest, which allows for a security-specific trade across many accounts after you’ve used the Saved Search tool to identify which securities are held at a loss, and Selected lot trading capabilities, available for supported custodians, which allow you to send specific lot trade instructions from Tamarac, so you have more precise control over sell transactions.
2. Take stock of your management fee billing process and associated workflow
Efficient year-end client billing is a critical component of every advisory practice. We believe it’s essential to be armed with all the tools you need to run a billing process that is streamlined and efficient. We make it easier for you to manage your billing process with these types of reports and tools:
- Bulk reports and Saved Searches help you audit and monitor data as you run your billing process. Combining the Account Billing History Bulk Report with a Saved Search to create a custom view allows you to access all relevant billing data efficiently within a single view. You can pull underlying data and view it on a single screen — and apply any filters that make sense for your practice.
- Billing History Report and Auto-Reconciliation help you monitor the critical items you care about, such as fees, current cash, and payment status. With these tools, you can audit cash balances prior to submitting fees to your custodian and have the payment status automatically updated from Unpaid to Paid with our post-management fee reconciliation automation. In addition, you have the ability to compare this cycle’s billing data against the last cycle to perform a detailed or quick sanity check that the fees are calculated as expected.
3. Take advantage of digital opportunities to deepen client engagement
Especially today, successful advisors take advantage of online client portals to help them engage with clients virtually. Tamarac’s award-winning Client Portal reinforces the value you provide to your clients by reminding them that you are there for them, with access to all their data and account activity from anywhere and at any time.
The Tamarac Client Portal helps you engage in timely conversations about what’s happening to client portfolios from an asset allocation and transaction perspective. By helping your clients better understand how current markets can impact their finances, you can guide them forward with a focus on long-term planning.
4. Consider the value of a document vault for electronic delivery
Our Tamarac Document Vault eliminates the need to transfer sensitive information via email, inspiring client confidence in file security. It lets clients upload and exchange files securely, conveniently, and efficiently. And you can generate PDF reports and post them directly to the Document Vault for your clients to retrieve.
5. Explore more opportunities for tech integrations
Deep and meaningful integrations can make a difference for your clients, especially when they can see a complete picture of their wealth. Through the powerful combination of Tamarac Reporting and MoneyGuide, you can better serve your clients with a more integrated and seamless experience:
- The refresh of client data from Tamarac Reporting directly into MoneyGuide allows you to run an updated financial plan with every asset accounted for, including managed financial accounts, outside aggregated financial accounts, and alternative assets.
- With robust two-way data integration into Tamarac from MoneyGuide, you can send Tamarac account, client, and Household information to MoneyGuide.
- The MoneyGuide probability of success in reaching goals meter, together with the account data, is all captured within the Tamarac Client Portal.
Learn more
Learn more about how our Tamarac tech tools and resources can help you provide more value to clients and increase your practice’s efficiency. For more details on the Tamarac platform, visit www.tamaracinc.com, or give us a call at 866-525-8811.
The information, analysis and opinions expressed herein are for informational purposes only and do not necessarily reflect the views of Envestnet. These views reflect the judgment of the author as of the date of writing and are subject to change at any time without notice. Nothing contained in this piece is intended to constitute legal, tax, accounting, securities, or investment advice, nor an opinion regarding the appropriateness of any investment, nor a solicitation of any type.
Envestnet and its representatives do not render tax, accounting or legal advice. Any tax statements contained herein are not intended or written to be used, and cannot be used, for the purpose of avoiding U.S. federal, state, or local tax penalties. Taxpayers should always seek advice based on their own particular circumstances from an independent tax advisor.