The Choice: More Client Service or Keeping the Books on Non-Cash Compensation
While the mandatory six feet of social separation may be putting many in-person training seminars on hold, the demand for face-to-face online meetings has skyrocketed. Across the industry, thoughtful advisors, cool-headed portfolio managers and nervous investors are conducting substantive conferences on any number of pressing economic and investment topics.
In addition to sharing portfolio insights and ideas with clients, advisors are participating in a wide range of costly on-line due diligence events sponsored by asset management product vendors. Asset managers fill an important resource gap by covering many expenses associated with the education, training, seminar participation and relationship building of a firm’s advisors. The purpose of these activities is to ensure that client-facing teams have the knowledge and tools they need to keep current on three dominant themes:
- Accommodating client objectives and portfolio strategies to the topsy-turvy market climate
- Expanding knowledge about portfolio construction strategies
- Uncovering timely investment vehicles that may offer a beta counterweight
Do It Yourself or Delegate?
Reconciling non-cash compensation often becomes difficult at the source; the point where financial advisors – not professional accountants – are required to input what may be non-cash “guesstimates” into non-standardized spreadsheets. The firm then finds itself in the unenviable position of master reconciler between an asset manager’s dollar allocations to each event and the dollar value each advisor assigns to that event.
Fortunately, for beleaguered firms and their advisors, web-based portal solutions are being developed that can subtract a lot of the manual spreadsheet effort from this equation. All stakeholders will eventually be able to apportion the tracking and reconciliation of non-cash compensation data through one single, online portal. Regardless of the number of stakeholders across a firm’s eco-system, each constituency should be able to gain access to the same event histories and values as everyone else. That way, stakeholders can employ the same utility for the same standardized purpose:
- Accurate reconciliation of fully captured non-cash compensation events that are recorded in reports that updated in real-time
- Internal identification of compliance issues that relate to potential conflicts of interest before they can occur
- A valuable chapter to add to a firm’s SEC-required Reg BI Rules and Procedures document to underscore a firm’s commitment to timely implementation
A New Future for Advice
Designed for efficiency and standardization, such web portals perform the non-cash compensation reconciliation needed so advisors can focus on their own mission: Advising clients as they confront the challenging days still ahead.
Those entrepreneurial advisors who can distinguish their practices and streamline product delivery to their clients will be the winners in the new future ahead. By delegating non-cash compensation account reconciliation to a portal, advisors can tap into another empowering digital solution that frees them to coach clients to stand firm or adjust their portfolios as their circumstances change and the markets evolve.
Want More?
To learn more about Broadridge’s Non-Cash Compensation solution, contact Broadridge today.
Dan Mezaros, Product Manager, Broadridge.