After more than a year of pilot testing, Advyzon is deploying a new rebalancing tool, called Quantum, according to an announcement from the firm. Originally slated for general availability last year, the rebalancing tech is now available for the more than 1,100 firms using Advyzon.
Advyzon’s tool is highly customizable, according to its developers. Besides standard trading and rebalancing capabilities, the tool supports tax-loss harvesting and cash management. With cash management, for example, advisors have the option of defining cash targets in models or setting global defaults, customizing client-specific cash needs and managing one-time or ongoing cash distributions.
Data from the tool is entered into Advyzon’s system of tasks, alerts, compliance oversight and other workflows. The tool can be used for rebalancing full portfolios, individual holdings and model sleeves and can be used across households.
The tool has Financial Information eXchange (FIX) trading connections with TD Ameritrade, Schwab and Fidelity and Trade Files with the same group of three, plus Pershing, Raymond James and Interactive Brokers.
Advisors using the tool will save the time and effort they put into managing third-party tools, predicted Alyssa Phillips, COO of HCR Wealth Advisors, a Los Angeles–based firm managing $1.5 billion in assets.
"Being able to manage our models at scale and take advantage of automated monitoring tools all within the same system not only provides a more streamlined approach to portfolio management, but it saves us the effort—and heartache—of managing third-party applications and maneuvering system integration issues,” she said in a statement. Clients will subsequently receive a higher level of service, she added.
While the tool was initially scheduled for launch in 2021, beta testing pushed back general availability, according to Advyzon executives. Changes to the tool based on advisor feedback took longer than expected, said John Mackowiak, chief business officer at the firm.
"You never get a second chance to make a first impression," he said. "We reviewed the upcoming roadmap and decided that we would be better served by adding a number of product enhancements."
Those changes included the beefed-up cash management settings, as well as general usability enhancements, trade reconciliation improvements and more streamlined trading workflows. Direct indexing capabilities are also under consideration for future product development.
"We have a very advisor-centric focus when we build our technology," added Dirk Pearson, chief product officer, in a statement. "We've spent a great deal of time getting things to work, but we've maintained our focus on making our products actually fun to use as well. That comes with a very intentional design in order to maximize the fully integrated data experience in Advyzon.”
In March Advyzon announced the launch of its turnkey asset management program called AIM, the acronym for Advyzon Investment Management. The TAMP offering will initially be focused on offering risk-based models, including active/passive mutual funds and ETFs, a tax-sensitive ETF-only solution, an ESG active/passive model, an alternative model, and direct indexing, as well as tools and methodologies around tax optimization and tax-loss harvesting. Advyzon announced a partnership with custodian Shareholders Service Group in February, which provides advisors using SSG access to their clients’ holdings, balances, documents and more within Advyzon’s cloud-based platform.
Senior technology editor Davis Janowski contributed to this story.