Why Technology is Key for the Best Financial Advisors in the Digital Age

Just the other day, I was on the phone with one of my favorite clients. During the call, he requested a few pieces of information, particularly the tax information for each of his accounts in order for his accountant to complete their taxes. During our conversation, he asked that I mail him the information. As you could imagine, I paused for a brief moment and said, “Do you realize that I can post this information to your portal and you can access it immediately?”

It’s surprising that with all of the advancements in technology many financial advisors still do not embrace it, and some go out of their way to avoid using it. We’ve heard all the reasons including, “My clients are older and just don’t use technology.” We respectfully disagree with their objections.

There are many ways that our investment in technology benefits our clients, and while many applications are behind the scenes where clients may not realize the benefits, there are some, like a client portal, that are intended for clients to use.

At a minimum, financial advisors should offer an online portal for their clients. Let’s look at the top 3 reasons financial advisors should be using an online portal to better serve their clients.

Convenience

At Glassman Wealth Services, we have designed a unique, secure online portal for each and every one of our clients. The client portal is a very powerful tool which, if used correctly, can save clients enormous amounts of time and help to protect their personal information.

Not only do we use the client portal to distribute quarterly performance reports, it’s a one-stop place where clients can access all of their account information even for accounts that we may not manage. From a big-picture view to specific details like account performance on any given day, each client can access the information they need to know about their portfolio when and where they like.

For this client, I let him know that I could place the tax forms he needed within the tax section of his portal and from there, he could simply login and obtain the forms by downloading each report to his hard drive.

Secure access for accountants

I also let him know that we can create a separate login for his accountant to access only the tax reports required, therefore, when the accountant needs particular tax information regarding his portfolio, they have the ability to obtain that information without having to rely on the client to send them this information.

Protecting personal information

Financial planning firms, like Glassman Wealth Services, frequently send and receive sensitive personal information to and from their clients, so it’s very important that this information is protected. I wanted to be sure that our client was aware that even mailing information, especially tax forms, has an inherent risk when trying to protect personal information. Using his secure online portal could potentially help to reduce those risks.

I also explained that using the portal to share information such as his tax forms, is a much safer delivery method than email as well. A major misconception is that password-protected documents within an email are 100% safe (unless someone has the password to the document). However, because of ongoing developments in technology and the sophistication that many hackers now have, password protected documents within an email can easily be accessed.

Once our client was aware of all the capabilities of his portal, he was very excited to use these additional features.

In our “need it now” society where time is critical to success, at a minimum, a client online portal is one piece of technology that should be a best practice for all financial advisors.

Does your financial advisor offer access to your portfolio information through a personal online portal? Do you think having an online portal to have access to your financial information is important?