HD Vest Investment Services, the broker-dealer provider of wealth management-based financial advice, announced a new round of functionality enhancements to its proprietary 1040 Analyst tool.
Based on advisor feedback since the 1040 Analyst launched in June, the enhancements were made to client experience and advisor efficiencies, including the ability to outline potential “blind spots” in a client’s financial picture.
The 1040 Analyst, currently adopted by more than 1,000 advisors to be used for more than 130,000 client tax returns, uses clients’ directly uploaded or manually inputted tax data to incorporate relevant information about their financial situation, goals and needs, and deliver an automatically generated, customized report. With the report, advisors can offer a detailed discussion on immediately actionable tax-related and wealth management opportunities.
The tool’s latest enhancements are focused in three areas:
- A sorting and filtering function that allows advisors to take any data point across their clients’ tax returns and create a data set that can be used for targeted communications to specific client groups
- Enhanced quick input via the “SNAP” data entry option, enabling advisors to complete an individual 1040 Analyst report in as fast as 2.5 minutes
- Embedded educational components and compliance-approved advisor talking points
Those HD Vest-approved educational components cover a wide range of client-relevant financial management issues, including Roth IRAs and trusts and annuities, and can be digitally inserted by the advisors.
“These are common topics that clients don’t think of every day, that are put in advisors’ hands,” explained Scott Rawlins, managing director of sales at HD Vest.
These updates are the latest after the first round announced in November, and come in time for tax season, though Rawlins explained the tool is continually enhanced.
The tool was “built to be able to be changed on the fly as tax law changes and planning opportunities arise,” Rawlins said. The actionable opportunities the 1040 Analyst currently identifies number more than 60, ranging from basic considerations such as ways to optimize retirement assets to more complex situations like adopting buy-sell life insurance agreements for business owners.
Since the 1040 Analyst’s launch, more than $147 million in new assets under management can be traced back to the tool, which on average welcomes 2,000 to 3,000 new clients per week.
