What’s in your tech stack? Wait, what even is a “stack”?

Hands of businessman catching wooden blocks of a toppling Jenga tower, falling on a table full of graphs, diagrams, and charts.

By AdviceBridge

With so many things on the ever-expanding to-do list, running an advice practice is harder than ever.

Along with all-important advice, advisers must be on top of regulation and compliance, employee management, company accounting, and technology.

Every modern business today is ultimately a tech driven business. And the tech that advice firms use can make a significant difference to business profitability.

Systems have developed to provide greater access and possibilities but with that comes greater and greater complexity. Back-office systems, client-facing platforms, cashflow planning tools, digital fact-finds, report writing, etc etc.

The list is long.

The good news is two-fold; the right technology can help advice firms run more efficiently and with less risk, and this can play a helpful role in securing more affordable professional indemnity insurance.

So, what is a “tech stack” and where do you begin to ensure that yours aligns with your specific business needs?

Take a deep breath we’re going in…

What is a “tech stack”?

A tech stack refers to the technology a firm uses to build and run their business. For advice firms, a tech stack would typically include software to help businesses automate:

  • Fact-finds
  • Risk profiling and portfolio mapping
  • Cashflow modelling tools
  • Investment research
  • Client facing portals
  • Back-office system

This is in addition to your typical business use of email and diary systems along with your website.

Why your tech stack matters

Inevitably, there are trade-offs involved in technology stack decisions, many of which involve cost. The budget available for technology systems may influence what you include in your stack.

According to research carried out by NextWealth late last year, most advisers believe platforms offer the best value for money while back-office systems offer little ROI.

The same survey also found, perhaps unsurprisingly, that client portals, better integrations, and common data standards all help to reduce re-keying.

Although some firms are returning to a single source tech approach because of poor integrations, many firms are using quasi integration to control costs, boost profits, and control the customer experience.

The problems with financial planning stacks

Typically, a small financial planning firm’s technology spend is approximately £10,000 a year per adviser.

So, a firm with three advisers will spend, on average, around £30,000. Although this doesn’t include the costs of a managed portfolio service (MPS) and associated technology to monitor this.

And costs aren’t the only issue.

To deliver advice, firms need between three and five different core technology tools. And these different technologies often aren’t integrated to share information between them. Poor integration can lead to advisers and support staff having to spend a considerable amount of time re-keying data.

Even with more attention to integration, the user experience of having to use separate software and logging in and out of tools is generally poor, not to mention frustrating and time-consuming.

On top of this, with separate tools you risk conflicting outputs. This makes it far harder for you to do your job and present recommendations to clients in a simple, logical, and coherent way.

If your technology is letting you down and making it difficult to deliver a clear, compelling story to your clients, consider implementing AdviceBridge as an integral part of your stack.

AdviceBridge automates the processes, research and analysis and auto-generates a recommendation report that you and your team can easily and quickly review before presenting it to the client.

Add AdviceBridge to your stack

The AdviceBridge platform enables you to effortlessly deliver financial plans to a far wider range of clients profitably. The digital solution automates many of the manual, time-consuming processes.

With seamless integration with other elements of your tech stack, AdviceBridge enables you to focus on the all-important client relationship.

The platform replaces the unengaging, complicated, and time-consuming tasks with engaging, insightful and meaningful information and recommendations.

The system helps gather information, analyse what is held and how it should be structured before producing a recommendation report for you to present to your client.

The simple and meaningful interface also helps to engage clients with their financial planning journey, retaining their interest and attention into the future.

Get in touch

Find out how adding AdviceBridge to your stack can benefit your business and help you service more clients profitably. Email hello@advicebridge.com or call us on 020 3925 3850.