Schwab’s updated PortfolioCenter promises better reporting

Financial advisers who attended the annual Schwab IMPACT conference last week in Las Vegas had a chance to preview an updated version of PortfolioCenter.

The remainder of the 3,000 or so advisers who use the platform will get to see the latest version this month when the Raleigh, N.C.-based Schwab Performance Technologies subsidiary of The Charles Schwab Corp. rolls it out.

The updated software is being piloted by more than 100 firms, said Dan Skiles, vice president of technology at San Francisco-based Schwab Institutional, who said that the new offering incorporates adviser feedback and requests.

Coinciding with any purchases of new PCs, advisers will find that the new PortfolioCenter will run on Microsoft’s Vista operating system. Also of note are several reporting improvements, especially for advisers who use separately managed accounts.

Among these improvements is a unified-summary-report capability for advisers who oversee several types of accounts — such as 401(k) accounts and Section 529 college savings plans — in addition to traditional brokerage accounts.

Advisers will be able to generate a comprehensive report on a single page that will include balances and performance reporting for a single client or a household.

Advisers who use SMAs or who design custom portfolios will find several helpful reporting features. One is what Schwab representatives refer to as a “position roll-up” feature, which gives advisers and clients a one-view look at both the total managed-account balance and each position.

“The new SMA reports enable advisers to more clearly represent the role each managed account is playing in their client’s overall investment strategy,” Mr. Skiles said. “This capability will also benefit advisers who keep their own model portfolios.”

Another addition is the Account Transfer Wizard, which is meant to improve the speed and efficiency of closing out positions in one account and reopening them in a new account with the original cost basis and trade date information intact.

Schwab representatives said that many advisers have asked for that feature in response to dealing with clients’ marriage status and issues of inheritance.

Separately, Schwab Institutional issued a report at the conference intended to maximize the impact of advisers’ technology spending.

Based on more than 1,000 adviser discussions, the report, “Technology Best Practices: Making the Most of Your Technology Investment,” found that many financial advisers don’t get the most value possible from their purchases.

“Advisers tend to be focused on where that next dollar is going,” Mr. Skiles said, rather than on how to gain the most efficiency from their purchases.

“Top firms have three- to five-year plans for their businesses, which include how investments in technology contribute to meeting their objectives,” he added.

The report found that advisory firms, on average, spent 2% of revenue annually on technology. Before making their expenditures, the most successful firms spent time thinking about how their purchases would integrate with existing technology, and business practices and processes.

Schwab found 10 areas where targeted technology spending could lead to improved efficiency for the advisory firm: quarterly client reports, customer relationship management, electronic document management, trading and re-balancing, the firm’s web presence, continuity planning, computer security, technology training, selective outsourcing and data aggregation.

Davis Janowski can be reached at [email protected].