Client Reporting Tools and Features Every Advisor Should Know

Financial advisors face the challenge of delivering a hyper-personalized, one-on-one experience that’s both efficient and scalable. On their own, accomplishing such a balance may seem nearly impossible, which is why today’s growth-focused advisors leverage powerful tech platforms and solutions to help automate and streamline where possible. 

Client reporting tools can help you communicate with your clients in a way that’s easy to understand and tailored to their specific needs. Considering the complexity most financial conversations tend to take on, having an easy-to-read report, for example, can be a major advantage. 

Not only does having the right client reporting tool in your back pocket make it easier to deliver tailored reports in a digestible way, but it also demonstrates your value as their trusted financial partner.

But what makes one client reporting tool stand out from the others? Let’s take a look at the specific features and functions wealth management firms may want to consider.

What are the Essential Features of Client Reporting Tools for Financial Advisors?

Client reporting tools can be your secret weapon for fostering trust, enhancing communication, and ultimately growing your firm. The question is: How do you know which one is right for you?

Your financial advisor tools and platforms should enable you to foster closer connections with your clients (and prospects), ultimately strengthening the relationship and further solidifying their trust in you. It should also help you operate more efficiently, communicate your value clearly, and support your compliance policies and procedures.

How Do Client Reporting Tools Improve Financial Advisory Services?

Client reporting tools help advisors enhance the client experience in a number of different ways, including:

• Greater customization: Your reporting tool should enable you to tailor reports to align with each client’s specific goals, risk tolerance, and investment timelines. Delivering clients a personalized report can better demonstrate your commitment to addressing their individual needs and reinforce your services’ value. 
• Automation: The more you’re able to automate, the less time you or your staff will need to spend on mundane, repetitive tasks. Additionally, automation can help ensure data isn’t mistyped and certain steps or clients aren’t forgotten. 
• Standardization: We can’t mention automation without touching on the importance of establishing a standardized and repeatable process. When your client reporting tool includes the flows and features necessary to automate certain functions, you can better ensure that every client feels well-cared for and receives the same high standard of care – no matter how large your firm grows. 
• Clearer communication: Every client will come to you with varying levels of financial literacy. By utilizing a reporting tool that generates visually dynamic, easy-to-understand reports, you can better ensure your clients know what you’re presenting them, have the right amount of context, and are interested in the information provided. 
• Educating clients: When your reporting tool incorporates educational content within reports, you can better explain key concepts and metrics that will be important for clients to understand as they interpret the data presented. This can be accomplished by using short, concise statements and easy-to-follow analytics, charts, and graphs. Educating clients is critical, as this can help them better appreciate and trust your expertise.

How Can Client Reporting Tools Help with Regulatory Compliance?

You cannot garner trust with clients and build a successful financial planning firm unless you take your regulatory responsibilities seriously. This includes creating compliance policies and processes that address the top concerns of SEC or state regulators. 

Compliance-friendly client reporting tools like Nitrogen can help advisory firms automate the recordkeeping process for all reports (and related client communications) and ensure compliance with client information privacy and data security regulations.

In the event your firm is audited by the SEC or state regulators, you’ll understand the importance of leveraging tools that are designed with compliance in mind. For example, your firm will have the ability to easily and quickly run reports and export data directly from Nitrogen – as opposed to spending months and countless hours digging into disorganized or out-of-date data.

How to Choose the Right Client Reporting Tool for Your Advisory Firm

As you continue to build your advisory firm’s tech stack, you’ll come across different client reporting tools with varying functions, costs, and abilities to grow or scale with your firm.

Here are some important factors to consider when weighing your options:

• Firm size: Depending on the size of your firm, you may need an enterprise solution that can support advisors spanning multiple teams or office locations. On the other hand, if you’re a small team or solo advisor, you don’t want to feel forced to pay for an oversized solution. 
• Scalability: Researching potential tech tools takes time and energy. Depending on the product, you may be required to lock into a certain long-term commitment or subscription as well. Because of this, you’ll want to find a reporting tool that can support your growth journey by scaling with you – whether that means supporting more clients or team members over time. 
• Data security: Again, cybersecurity is not only important for keeping your clients’ information protected, but it’s a top priority for regulators as well. Any tool you choose to incorporate into your firm should be able to keep your client data protected. 
• User experience: Your client reporting tool should make your life easier, not harder. If you find it to be clunky, inefficient, or otherwise hard to use, it’s not going to streamline your operations and support your growth goals. Along the same lines, your reporting tool should offer easy access to customer service team members and resources any time you have an issue.

Try Out Nitrogen Today

Ready to learn more about the powerful capabilities of our tech-driven client reporting tool? Schedule your free demo of Nitrogen today.