Transforming Financial Advising with ByAllAccounts: A Seamless Data Experience

Morningstar's Maeve Doonan, SVP of Business Development, knows the value of streamlined data integration in an advisor-client relationship. 

The financial services sector is dynamic and very strictly regulated. Wealth technology solutions such as Direct Advisory Suite (DAS) have become essential for financial advisors and their financial services home offices. These tools not only enable advisors to provide top-notch investment proposals and portfolio reports but also assist home offices in adhering to crucial regulations, thereby protecting against legal actions or penalties.  

The success of these solutions, however, depends on their capability to integrate and analyze financial account data from various sources efficiently.  

Data overload: 

Advisors get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information available. When advisors have client data and market data firing at them from all cylinders, it can be hard to absorb and use it effectively. The challenge from this becomes normalizing the data so that advisors can present the data and build trust for long-term relationships.  

Time: 

Time is a precious commodity in the investment landscape. Advisors often find themselves bogged down by operational tasks, leaving less time for what truly matters—building relationships with clients and providing tailored investment advice. 

Loss of assets under management and providing holistic advice: 

Plus, when advisors lack a holistic view of their client’s landscape, they miss out on managing additional assets and providing more holistic advice for their clients.

The Direct Advisory Suite (DAS) is a powerhouse portfolio analytics and research tool on its own. ByAllAccounts consolidates all of the data that allows enterprises to provide more holistic advice, portfolio analytics, and research to clients. 

Maeve helped explain how ByAllAccounts, a top data aggregation service, transforms data integration for financial enterprises, thus improving the performance of wealth technology solutions like Direct Advisory Suite. 

As the saying goes, “two heads are better than one.” 

In this case, it's the strength of two powerful financial platforms working together to create a consolidated, efficient, and high-quality experience to win the hearts of financial advisors and, subsequently, their clients. This is where ByAllAccounts steps in, revolutionizing the way advisors manage data and interact with their clients through the Direct Advisory Suite. 

“Imagine managing 100 clients, each with a brokerage, a 401(k), and a taxable account. The manual entry of such vast amounts of data into is not only time-consuming but also prone to errors,” said Maeve. “I'm using the power of our aggregation to pull that data in seamlessly so I can actually spend more time being a relationship manager, being an advisor, focusing on a client's goals and making better investment recommendations, which can be both brokerage and advisory accounts." 

The goal for an advisor is to balance time getting to know their client's life goals, risk tolerances, and time horizon while still putting together a strong investment strategy and maintaining a trustworthy brand presence. The ideal divide is approximately 51 percent client-focused energy, 29 percent focus on an investment strategy, and 20 percent focus on operational and brand strategic needs.  

51 + 29 +20 = a 100 percent efficient financial advisor. 

According to Morningstar's Voice of the Advisor survey, advisors spend 51 percent of their time on operations tasks. Using aggregation gives advisors back time to focus on prospecting and relationship building. 

Financial services home offices are constantly navigating through a sea of complex activities – all while ensuring compliance and maintaining excellent client service. One emerging solution to streamline these operations is data consolidation. By centralizing data, home offices can achieve a 360-degree view of advisor activities, ranging from proposal generation to report building. Such a comprehensive perspective is facilitated through a centralized compliance dashboard, which offers significant advantages. 

A consolidated data approach empowers home offices to proactively identify and address compliance issues before they escalate. By having all information at their fingertips, they can ensure accuracy in fee impact representations in client proposals, which is crucial for maintaining transparency and trust. Moreover, it enables them to verify that investment proposals accurately align with clients' risk tolerance, thereby enhancing client satisfaction and trust in the firm’s services. 

Data consolidation not only streamlines operations within financial services home offices but also enhances compliance and client relationship management. 

ByAllAccounts seamlessly integrates data across wealth ecosystems, thus eliminating the fragmented user experience that many advisors face. This integration not only saves time but also enhances the accuracy of data, allowing advisors to make quicker and more informed recommendations.  

The benefits of ByAllAccounts extend beyond just the advisors. The entire FinTech world, including Direct Advisory Suite, reaps the rewards of this seamless data integration. "How it benefited the FinTech world, in this case, was through the enhanced power of Direct Advisory Suite. It benefited by making a better user experience for the individual, being able to access that data so easily integrated within the system. We can't do it without a tool like ByAllAccounts," said Maeve. 

"If we didn't have this integration with ByAllAccounts, data wouldn’t be normalized from a data transaction into a comprehensive resource. Data is just words on a piece of paper, but the combined power of Morningstar Ratings and analytics makes it much more meaningful across the wealth ecosystems, including home offices and financial advisors to use with clients.”   

“We've automated that entire workflow. ByAllAccounts is a key piece of the data in and supports the data outflow because it can seamlessly pull those fragmented experiences into a single connection," said Maeve. “ByAllAccounts is the data source that feeds aggregated data into Direct Advisory Suite, which then runs portfolio analytics and research to generate reports.”

The world of collaborative tech tools continuously evolves, allowing businesses to expand their horizons and enhance their offerings. With the help of ByAllAcccounts financial data aggregation, Direct Advisory Suite stands out in this arena with its unique capability to integrate and migrate data from various applications into its platform. Workflows are simplified, and users are empowered with a holistic view of their operations. By seamlessly aggregating data from different sources, ByAllAccounts and Direct Advisory Suite facilitate a comprehensive analysis of client portfolios, enabling users to make more informed decisions and recommendations. 

By integrating the power of ByAllAccounts. Direct Advisory Suite has created an ecosystem that leverages each product's strengths. This collaboration allows users to access and analyze all necessary data, for hypothetical performance to client account details, without leaving the Direct Advisory Suite environment. The result is a unified platform that enhances efficiency and provides a strategic advantage to users, enabling them to cater to a broader clientele with personalized financial solutions. 

ByAllAccounts is not just a tool; it's a transformative force in the financial advisory landscape. By consolidating data and enhancing efficiency, it empowers advisors to focus on what truly matters—delivering a stellar client experience. As the wealth ecosystem continues to evolve, ByAllAccounts stands at the forefront alongside Direct Advisory Suite, ensuring that advisors and their clients are always a step ahead. 

ByAllAccounts connects over 15,000 financial data sources including ~200 direct custodial feeds with two-way integrations with leading portfolio management platform, more than 60 wealth tech platforms, and over 16,000 advisors with ease. Talk with a Morningstar specialist today about integrating ByAllAccounts. 

Maeve Doonan and Steve Novak have not received any cash or non-cash compensation from Morningstar, directly or indirectly, in exchange for this client success story.