AdvicePay Financial Advisor Blog

It's been a busy month at AdvicePay! Perhaps fueled by the early and ongoing purchase of Halloween candy, our team has been working like crazy to bring you enhanced features and customization tools. We're happy to share that many of these have been completed in response to your feedback! Thank you for helping to make AdvicePay better.

---

Have you subscribed to our blog yet? If not, you're missing out on tips and free tools to help you get even more out of existing AdvicePay capabilities! Take a moment now to enter your email address and click subscribe. 

---

What we’re most excited about

Audit Log

Now view a "paper trail" of key actions performed in AdvicePay by users connected to your account. 

Turn On/Off Select Client + Advisor Email Notifications

Customize the emails both you and your clients receive by turning off select notifications.

Custom Unpaid Invoice Reminder Interval Settings

Customize when your clients receive their upcoming or overdue invoice reminders.

Add Custom Messages to Client Emails

Say it your way with this new customization feature.

Email Log

Access a real-time, chronological log of relevant system emails sent to clients, users on your account, and yourself.

articulating what we do

Growing up, I was told my grandfather was a financial planner. He had a thousand clients and hit a home run - or was it a grand slam? - with some Chinese stock. Or so the legend goes.

I was also taught about how much my grandfather cared for people - his clients, his neighbors, his family. Based on my early memories of him and the stories I’ve heard over the years, I am confident he served his clients with integrity and to the best of his abilities with the resources available to him. However, I’m not sure "financial planner" accurately describes the work he was doing - at least as I understand comprehensive financial planning today.

At AdvicePay, we are asked this question often, and it’s an important one to consider. Charging a fee “too frequently” can make clients feel nickel-and-dimed, and may stress the relationship if the client feels they’re being charged more often than they’re talking with or receiving services from their financial planner. On the other hand, charging “too infrequently” will make each fee larger when it does occur, potentially causing sticker shock and more disruptive cash flow for your clients.

What's the Most Common Fee Frequency?

There are four common fee frequencies, each with different pros and cons, depending on your business and the clients you serve.

Features & Fixes

• Database Conversion
• Invoice Data Added to ACH Payment Failure Refund Transactions
• Customer Email Sync with Stripe
• Removed Extra 'Here' in Failed Payment Email Notification
• Payout Display Bug Fix

What We’re Most Excited About

Here’s a fun paradox for the financial advisor — while you spend your entire day planning other people’s finances, your own billing systems are some of the most challenging parts of your job. Like the therapist who is the most challenging client for other therapists, you need to seek solutions from those who may understand the intricacies of your profession. Central to the issue of why billing for financial advisors is so challenging is the task of finding compliant payment processing solutions. The retainer model is gaining popularity with financial advisors as a means of serving a new set of clientele that is not asset-laden. One of the key obstacles to this model is sourcing a payment processor that regulators are happy with.

As the shift toward a retainer model for financial advisors becomes more popular, broker-dealers have been presented with a new set of challenges. To remain compliant in a retainer model, they have to work with financial advisors to make sure the monthly fees that come out of their customers’ accounts every month transmute into valuable services. As a result, many broker-dealers have been hesitant to touch the retainer model. The reality, however, is that the industry is moving further in the direction of a monthly fee structure. This is particularly true when it comes to dealing with a younger set of clientele, where retainer fees for financial planning that have been extricated from asset management typically become a standalone service. Regulators in many states have already caught on to the trend, and those that haven’t are being pushed to do so. Broker-dealers are finding that they too have to follow suit, and are looking for methods to make the shift seamlessly.

Tapping into a new generation of financial advisor client is an ideal way to scale your business. The retainer model, whereby you bill a monthly fee for investor advisory services, answers the call from a younger set of clientele for financial planning that suits their needs. This group of Gen X and Y’ers is looking for professional advice on financial management, but does not necessarily have a broad enough set of liquid assets to feed the Assets Under Management (AUM) model. You might be sitting in a situation where you’d like to cater to both client types — a combination of the younger and the more mature, the asset heavy and the asset free — or can see the potential in using a combination of both models for certain clients. Whatever your unique situation is, you are more than likely figuring out whether you can have your cake and eat it too — or, as the case may be, have a piece of each type of cake and eat them all.

When it comes to financial planning business models, the monthly retainer is the equivalent of a style icon or musician ahead of their time. While charging recurring fees for investment advice responds creatively to the current needs of a younger financial market, it might feel as though other parts of the industry have not quite caught up. As a result, deciphering how to ensure that your billing remains compliant with local regulation can be challenging. There are good reasons for regulators wanting to be cautious when it comes to billing methods. Their aim is to protect investment advisors’ clients from potential abuse. The struggle comes in when you as an honest, transparent financial advisor are looking to charge for your services and seem to find cul de sacs at every turn.

July Release Notes Summary

What We’re Most Excited About: