Author Archives: Scott Rowe

For many financial advisors, payday is bittersweet.

There’s nothing better than money in the bank. Regardless of why you’re in the financial advice business, money is the practical means of bringing your mission, goals, and value to life. It’s a necessity that all advisors share.

But unlike most professions, payday isn’t a just day on the calendar that you eagerly await. It’s a process that requires serious administrative work. From managing custom fee schedules to sending invoices and tracking payments, your end of the quarter is likely a little stressful.

Want to remove the stress? Imagine a cleaner billing environment — one that creates less waste (time and money), less risk (your data), and less hassle (for your clients).

How do you clean up your billing environment? By going green of course…

The Benefits of Going Green with Paperless Billing

In the spirit of Earth Day (it’s not just an excuse to get kids to recycle at school), we are outlining the very real benefits of going green with paperless billing, and how you can do it.

Create an Environment with Less Waste

Waste, in the form of time, money, and sanity, is a common by-product of paper-based billing. Printing and mailing invoices to your client base require tons more upfront legwork than managing the process digitally. This work, to create, print, and ship invoices not only requires time (I don’t know about you, but time is a hot commodity over here), along with undue print and postage costs.

The whole process is enough to drive anyone crazy. But with paperless billing, everything is tracked and managed digitally, in one platform. You can set custom fee rules for each client, automate invoice delivery, and more easily track outstanding payments. With billing, green and transparency often go hand-in-hand.

Create an Environment with Less Risk

Risk is a four letter word in our industry (get it? It’s bad and it’s actually four letters ?). Reducing risk is always a plus for financial advisors, particularly as regulatory scrutiny continues to increase.

One way to reduce risk in the billing process is by keeping their sensitive information within the virtual walls of your portfolio accounting platform. Additionally, by allowing clients to process payment through a secured, online payment portal, you can further reduce risk by keeping client banking information (from checks) out of the mail.

Create an Environment with Less Inconvenience

Gone are the days of getting excited to receive a letter. Is it just me, or is 99.9% of mail credit card promotions and bills from the utility company? Today, more and more people are opting for seamless, online billing options. It’s easier, it’s more secure, and it’s easier. Yea, I know I said easier already. It’s that much easier.

Going paperless encourages clients to pay their fees online. Making it easier for clients to pay you is a real win-win situation. The client enjoys the lack of inconvenience, and you enjoy faster payments (more than half of our advisors who use paperless billing finish the billing process within 5 days of quarter-end).

How Orion Billing Technology Can Help You Manage Payday

Financial Planning Billing tools, available in Orion Connect, simplifies the billing experience for advisors and clients alike. The tool gives you the flexibility needed to manage the diverse billing needs of your firm, including:

• Electronic client setup to help ensure data accuracy from the start
• Custom fee accommodation for one-time and recurring billing
• Flexible billing rules to help meet the needs of every client
• Forecasting tools to calculate future fee instances and assist firm planning initiatives
• Easy invoice creation and delivery for more manageable billing periods
• Automated tracking capabilities to increase transparency
• Paperless billing options available through our integration with BluePay

Are you ready to reduce the strain, stress, and headache of traditional billing? Contact us today to see how your firm can benefit from Orion’s Financial Planning Billing Tools. Or, click here to log into Orion Support and chat with our SME Billing Team today.

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Roses, chocolates, a flying baby with heart-shaped arrows… Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, and we’ve got relationships on the brain.

What’s your Valentine’s Day strategy? Do you spring for the big box of chocolates? Go for the full dozen roses? Splurge on that new hot restaurant? Or do you take it another direction and create something sentimental, from the heart?

The choices can leave your head spinning, but they all share one purpose – to make the person you care
about feel:

• Valued
• Understood
• Assured that they made the right choice when they chose you ?

But what if you’re in a committed relationship with a bunch of people? Yup, you guessed it! We’re talking about the relationship between advisors and their clients. How do you embody the spirit of Valentine’s Day to demonstrate how much you love and cherish those relationships? Surely there’s a better way than buying thousands of Roses (although, maybe Costco has a deal).

Well call us Cupid, because we’ve got your back.

Here’s a shortlist of things that can help your clients feel the love this holiday season

1) More personalized than a homemade Valentine’s Day card

Report Builder 3.0
Which do you prefer, a generic card or one that was made by hand, specifically for you? Going the extra mile shows that you care and with Orion’s Report Builder 3.0, you can deliver that individualized experience in each client report. Your clients will love the personalization and you’ll love the easy-to-use functionality, with features like dynamic charts and drag-and-drop report design. Click here to learn more about custom report creation.

2) More engaging than a candle-lit dinner for two

Engage
Valentine’s Day is best spent with your loved ones. And when that entails an entire book of business, you either need 100 clones of yourself or a really great video reporting app.

Orion’s turnkey video reporting solution, Engage can help you with video (sorry, we haven’t mastered the cloning thing yet). Engage allows you easily shoot video, edit it, and overlay dynamic client portfolio information, such as performance. That means you can take one market commentary video and personalize it for your entire client base – so everyone feels like that special someone. Click here to learn more about turnkey video reporting.

3) More useful than that legend in your box of chocolates (which one is coconut again?)

Client Portal
Why do they make those legends to go with a box of assorted chocolates? Because people like knowing where to find the things they want. Surprises are fun sometimes, but not when the stakes are high – like a client’s finances or odd chocolate varieties (like orange cream. Who likes those anyway?).

Orion’s client portal is the one-stop-shop for all your clients’ financial needs. The intuitive navigation and sing sign-on help clients seamlessly access important information such as balance sheets, quarterly performance statements, account holdings, and your contact information – so they always have access to what’s most important to them. Click here to learn more about client portal features and options.

4) More comforting than a teddy bear

Mobile App
Your loved ones just want to be close to you, especially on Valentine’s Day. While it may be impossible to see every client on any given day, that doesn’t mean you can’t give them access to the next best thing – your brand.

Orion’s mobile app is a custom-branded extension of your client portal, providing quick access to relevant information, like portfolio values, account holdings, performance reporting, retirement calculators, news and market commentary, and your contact information. Learn more about how our mobile app can help your clients take their accounts with them wherever they go.

5) More appreciated than a fresh bouquet of roses

SMS Text Notifications
People love getting flowers for Valentine’s Day. They’re pretty and they smell good, but they aren’t very useful.

Orion’s SMS text notifications help you give clients something they will actually use – portfolio updates when they need them. You can pick and choose which data points you want to provide to each client via text, helping them stay up-to-date on the information that matters most. Click here to learn more about how client SMS text notifications can help you show your clients that you’re thinking about them.

Coming Soon – Event Based Notifications

Has Valentine’s Day ever snuck up on you? There’s nothing like a panic-fueled trip to the grocery store for a box of candy. And roses? Those are long gone. Looks like you’re settling for a nice fern. That’ll go over well…

Event based notifications are designed to help you avoid those unfortunate oversights at all costs. You can automate notifications (to clients and yourself) based on pre-determined triggers, such as RMD deadlines, account activities, trade notifications, and even birthdays. Click here to watch our video and see how Event Based Notifications can help you stay in front of those important reminders and special events.

Valentine’s Day is all about celebrating relationships. At Orion, we provide innovative and useful technology to streamline your business so you can focus on those important client relationships.

If you have additional questions about what was featured in this list, please log into Orion Support and start up a chat with our Reporting SME Team.

Not an Orion client yet? Get in touch with us here to schedule a demo. Much love.

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