Financial Planning Tools features explained
for Wealth Management
Solutions that support comprehensive financial planning for clients, including retirement, tax, estate, and cash flow planning.
Every feature we track for Financial Planning Tools products, with a description of what each one means.
Client Collaboration and Communication
Features related to advisor-client interactions and communications
- Client feedback tools
- Mechanisms for collecting and managing client feedback
- Client portal
- Secure online access for clients to view their financial plans and information
- Client task management
- Assignment and tracking of client action items
- Co-browsing capability
- Ability for advisors and clients to simultaneously view and interact with the same screens
- Collaborative goal setting
- Tools allowing clients and advisors to collaboratively establish financial goals
- Document sharing
- Secure exchange of documents between advisors and clients
- Maximum document storage
- The maximum amount of document storage available for client files
- Mobile app access
- Dedicated mobile application for client access on smartphones and tablets
- Notification system
- Customizable alerts and notifications for clients and advisors
- Virtual meeting integration
- Built-in or integrated video conferencing capabilities
Data Integration and Aggregation
Features related to gathering and integrating financial data
- API availability
- Availability of APIs for custom integrations with other systems
- Account aggregation
- Ability to automatically collect and consolidate data from multiple financial institutions
- Banking integration
- Direct connections to banking systems for transaction data
- CRM integration
- Connectivity with customer relationship management systems
- Data import capabilities
- Support for manual data imports from various file formats
- Document management integration
- Connections to document management systems
- Investment platform integration
- Direct connections to investment platforms and custodians
- Number of supported institutions
- The number of financial institutions supported for direct data aggregation
- Real-time data updates
- Frequency of automatic data refreshes from integrated sources
- Tax software integration
- Ability to share data with tax preparation software
Estate Planning
Features related to estate planning and wealth transfer
- Beneficiary management
- Tracking and management of beneficiary designations across accounts
- Business succession planning
- Support for planning business ownership transfers
- Charitable legacy planning
- Tools for incorporating charitable giving into estate plans
- Dynasty planning
- Multi-generational estate planning tools
- Estate distribution modeling
- Tools to model different estate distribution scenarios
- Estate document inventory
- Secure storage and management of estate planning documents
- Estate tax projection
- Projection of potential estate tax liabilities under different scenarios
- Gifting strategy analysis
- Tools to optimize lifetime gifting strategies
- Maximum generations modeled
- The number of family generations that can be included in wealth transfer planning
- Trust planning tools
- Support for analyzing different trust structures and their implications
Financial Goal Management
Features related to setting, tracking, and managing financial goals for clients
- Automated goal recommendations
- AI-driven suggestions for realistic goal setting based on client financial profile
- Goal adjustment tools
- Ability to adjust goals based on changing circumstances
- Goal creation wizard
- Intuitive interface for creating various types of financial goals (retirement, education, home purchase, etc.)
- Goal linkage to accounts
- Direct connection between specific accounts/investments and designated goals
- Goal prioritization
- Ability to rank and prioritize multiple financial goals
- Goal progress tracking
- Visual indicators of progress toward financial goals
- Goal-based reporting
- Customized reports showing progress toward specific financial goals
- Maximum number of goals
- The maximum number of distinct financial goals that can be tracked simultaneously
- Multi-timeline visualization
- Ability to view multiple goals across different time horizons simultaneously
- What-if scenarios
- Simulation tools to test different financial scenarios and their impact on goals
Investment Portfolio Management
Features related to managing and analyzing investment portfolios
- Alternative investment support
- Ability to include and analyze alternative investments within portfolios
- Asset location optimization
- Tools to optimize which investments are held in which account types for tax efficiency
- Custom asset allocation
- Ability to create and implement custom asset allocation strategies
- ESG/SRI screening
- Capabilities for environmental, social, governance or socially responsible investment screening
- Maximum securities tracked
- The maximum number of individual securities that can be monitored within portfolios
- Model portfolios
- Pre-configured investment models based on risk profiles and objectives
- Performance reporting
- Detailed performance analytics including returns, benchmarking, and attribution
- Portfolio optimization tools
- Advanced optimization algorithms to maximize returns for given risk levels
- Portfolio rebalancing
- Automated or manual tools to rebalance investment portfolios to target allocations
- Risk analytics
- Advanced risk measurement tools including volatility, drawdown, and stress testing
- Tax-loss harvesting
- Tools to identify and execute tax-loss harvesting opportunities
Reporting and Analytics
Features related to generating insights and reports from financial data
- Benchmark comparison
- Ability to compare performance against relevant benchmarks
- Customizable reporting
- Ability to create and customize client-facing reports
- Export capabilities
- Options for exporting reports in various formats (PDF, Excel, etc.)
- Interactive dashboards
- Dynamic visualization tools for exploring financial data
- Peer group analytics
- Comparison of client situations against similar demographic groups
- Regulatory compliance reporting
- Generation of reports required for regulatory compliance
- Report generation speed
- The average time required to generate complex financial reports
- Scenario comparison
- Side-by-side comparison of different financial scenarios
- Scheduled reporting
- Automated generation and delivery of periodic reports
- White-labeling options
- Ability to brand reports with advisor/firm branding
Retirement Planning
Features specific to retirement planning and analysis
- Healthcare cost projections
- Estimates of healthcare and long-term care costs in retirement
- Longevity risk analysis
- Analysis of the impact of different life expectancies on retirement plans
- Monte Carlo simulations
- Probability-based analysis of retirement outcomes using multiple scenarios
- Required Minimum Distribution calculator
- Tools to calculate and plan for RMDs from retirement accounts
- Retirement account optimization
- Analysis of optimal contributions and withdrawals across different retirement account types
- Retirement income projections
- Tools to project income needs and sources during retirement
- Retirement income strategies
- Tools for modeling different retirement income strategies (e.g., bucket approach, systematic withdrawals)
- Retirement lifestyle modeling
- Ability to model different spending patterns and lifestyles in retirement
- Simulation iterations
- The number of iterations used in Monte Carlo simulations for statistical reliability
- Social Security optimization
- Analysis tools for optimizing Social Security claiming strategies
Security and Compliance
Features related to data security, privacy, and regulatory compliance
- Audit logging
- Detailed tracking of all system access and changes
- Data encryption
- Encryption of sensitive data both in transit and at rest
- Data residency options
- Control over geographic location of data storage
- Disaster recovery
- Comprehensive backup and recovery capabilities
- Multi-factor authentication
- Additional security layers beyond password protection
- Regulatory compliance frameworks
- Built-in support for regulatory requirements (GDPR, CCPA, etc.)
- Role-based access control
- Granular permission settings based on user roles
- Secure client communication
- Encrypted communication channels with clients
- Security certification level
- The level of external security certification achieved (SOC 2, ISO 27001, etc.)
- Vulnerability testing
- Regular security testing and vulnerability assessments
Tax Planning
Features related to tax planning and optimization
- Alternative Minimum Tax analysis
- Tools to project and plan for potential AMT implications
- Capital gains planning
- Tools to manage and optimize capital gains realization
- Charitable giving strategies
- Analysis of tax-efficient charitable giving options
- Estate tax planning
- Tools for estimating and planning for potential estate taxes
- Multi-state tax planning
- Support for tax planning across multiple state jurisdictions
- Tax bracket management
- Strategies to manage income levels relative to tax brackets
- Tax projection tools
- Capability to project tax liabilities under various scenarios
- Tax update frequency
- How frequently the system updates tax rates, brackets, and rules
- Tax-efficient withdrawal strategies
- Analysis of optimal account withdrawal sequences to minimize taxes
- Tax-loss carryforward tracking
- Ability to track and utilize tax losses carried forward from previous years