CRM: Salesforce
During most of my 19 years here, we were using Junxure. About three years ago, we began transitioning to Salesforce. Three years in technology time mixed with COVID does not feel that long. Salesforce still feels very new and fresh to us. It’s a work in progress.
What has helped us be successful with Salesforce is our team understands the importance of CRM. All our tasks—anything related to automated or pre-established processes—happen there. Salesforce has allowed us to collaborate across departments on prospects and existing clients. We used to say if it wasn’t in Junxure it didn’t happen. We now say if it’s not in Salesforce it didn’t happen.
There’s no perfect CRM. Salesforce is certainly not perfect. It is a monster and can quickly become overcomplicated. We’re constantly trying to simplify it. You can go down these rabbit holes. You can customize yourself right into a corner. I am a firm believer in things working better if you keep them as simple as possible.
I would like to put some more time and energy into our user interface so it’s easier to search within the system. We’ve got a lot of great data in there, but sometimes our teams struggle with exactly where to find or document it. I would love to have more automatic guidance, including wizards. I find that to be particularly helpful for advisors who tend to be out in front of clients and not necessarily sitting, entering data.
Document Management/Workflow: Laserfiche
I love Laserfiche. It’s phenomenal. It’s a quiet tool but it’s a powerhouse behind the scenes.
For years, we’ve been saying one of our goals is to reduce keystrokes and avoid duplicate data entry. We have an integration built between Laserfiche and Salesforce. If you’re in a client record in Salesforce, you can open and review applications or agreements. Our automated document system is also pulling data from Salesforce into Laserfiche Forms.
It’s a great place for reporting. This is not fancy but it’s so important. It allows our compliance team to audit on an ongoing basis rather than once a year. They can monitor everything behind the scenes and catch reoccurring issues. They’re also not interrupting to ask questions.
Portfolio Management: Envestnet (With LibertyFi)
We’ve been through a few. We were Black Diamond users. Then, we went over to Orion for a long time. Now, we’re with Envestnet. That leaves permanent scars. That’s a tough move. Once we got through the initial bumpy period, our teams embraced Envestnet. We do our rebalancing, trading, compliance, client reporting and billing through Envestnet. We have an internal capital management group that builds models that our advisors can use.
LibertyFi provides all our Envestnet support and expertise. They are the reason we love that tool as much as we do. Their support has been unbelievable. We could not use Envestnet without them.
Any wish list items would be around the user interface, which is a bit antiquated. They’re working on rolling out some updates. We’re excited to see that.
Financial Planning: eMoney
eMoney has been a good tool. We use it as a client vault where we can return documents so they can do their budgeting. We also use it for advanced planning. We have regular reporting that we’re offering through there. They’re linking in personal accounts through the system.
We did have some struggles with support from eMoney, but I have seen improvements recently. I’m hopeful there.
Nothing is truly out of the box anymore. It can’t be. We wouldn’t want it to be. I want to be able to set it up in a way that works for our firm. You’re going to need some type of resource to help navigate that. I’ve had experiences where you can tell companies built something, pushed it out and walked away. That just doesn’t work. Providers need to have the support to back it up. Otherwise, it’s worthless to us. Other options are doing it right, so I don’t think most firms are going to suffer through poor support for very long.
Want to tell us what's in your wealthstack? Contact Rob Burgess at [email protected].