Discover how Genovo can help you to implement a more joined up and secure report writing process within your financial planning practice

Nigel Ogram

Since we launched the new Genovo Report Editor back in April, we’ve had loads of very positive feedback from a wide variety of Genovo users who tell us it’s enhanced their report-writing process. However, we are very conscious that not all companies have had the opportunity to incorporate this new way of working into their processes yet, so we thought it worthy of a recap.

Some of my user tip blogs are a bit technical (often by necessity), but this month I’m doing something a bit different. I’m going to tell you a story (I suspect a few Genovo users like me fondly remember Jackanory – I was four when the first episode was aired…)

Elements of this story are factual and lifted from our experiences with some of our 4,500 user licences and 500+ firms. Other elements use a bit of poetic licence and of course, the names are entirely fictional to protect the innocent!

Are you sitting comfortably?

Once upon a time, in a quiet little town, far, far away, an entrepreneurial young chap called Andy Adviser set up Acme Wealth Management (AWM). That was thirty years ago, and AWM now operates out of a suite of offices in their local business centre, employing a team of eight advisers, four paraplanners, three support staff and just recently, he recruited Chris Compliance to head up the compliance and case-checking function.

AWM has a problem with the advice process. Several problems actually, including the time it takes to get information from a provider and data re-keying, but those are for another day and another blog…

AWM’s problem is suitability reports. Not the reports themselves of course – Andy was introduced to Genovo a few years ago by his Head of Paraplanning, Peter Paraplanner. Peter waxed lyrical about Genovo’s ability to write a continued suitability report in under five minutes, or a drawdown review in under 10 minutes and since then, the business has never looked back (apart from to chase those missing LoA responses, of course…)

Andy’s problem is one of lack of control of the suitability report once it had been built in Genovo’s Report Builder.

The Problem

It was Chris, working with Peter, that alerted Andy to the problem that he didn’t actually know he had:

• Paraplanners are saving downloaded Genovo reports to their own laptops to perform final editing.
• Paraplanners are emailing reports to the advisers for checking.
• The advisers are then saving the reports to their own laptops to work on.
• Advisers are emailing the reports back to their paraplanner with feedback.
• The paraplanner is then saving the amended report to his or her own laptop (again…)
• The paraplanners are then emailing finalised reports to Chris Compliance for checking and approval.
• Chris is then saving the report to his own laptop.
• When Chris has added any comments to the report, he is emailing it back to the paraplanner.
• The paraplanner is then saving the report to his or her own laptop (yet again…)
• The paraplanner then makes any amendments requested by Chris, saves the report once more to their own laptop and then emails the report to the adviser and also to Amelia Administrator. The adviser emails it to the client and Amelia saves the now complete report to her own laptop to convert it to a PDF and then uploads it to AWM’s CRM before sending it to the client.

Andy, Amelia, Peter and Chris had a meeting and worked out that this process:

• Creates as many as seven copies of a single client report, spread across at least four different laptops before it ever exists in the CRM.
• Transfers the report by email as many as six times.
• Uses no system of version control – different versions of the report exist in multiple locations. There’s no single location that holds all versions.

Chris is worried about having multiple versions of client reports on individual laptops. He’s seriously concerned about the security implications of sending highly sensitive client information between staff members using email which may not be secure.

Peter is worried about the proliferation of client reports being edited on his team’s individual laptops and the complete lack of version control.

Amelia is worried that she or one of her admin team will eventually send a report to the wrong client by mistake, as the process of uploading the report to their CRM is manual and the number of reports on their laptops is growing by the day.

Andy isn’t worried – he’s absolutely petrified that a simple mistake by someone in his practice could bring down 30 years of hard work overnight.

Genovo to the rescue in a dozen easy steps

I’m struggling to compare Genovo’s new Report Editor functionality with a knight in shining armour, but that’s what Andy, Amy, Chris and Peter called it after it was released in April.

After embracing the new functionality, a suitability report’s journey through AWM’s report writing process now looks like this:

1. 1. Peter Paraplanner builds the report for a client of Amy Adviser in Genovo (incidentally, using the amazing new ‘Gena’ AI-powered report creation method).
2. 2. When the report is complete in Report Builder, Peter opens it in Report Editor, spell-checks it and saves it with a report status of ‘Initial draft’. This creates Version 1.0 of the report.
3. 3. Having made any final tweaks or edits to the report, Peter then:
1. a. Sets ‘Track Changes’ on the report and adds some comments where Amy’s feedback is required.
2. b. Saves the report (this updates the report to Version 1.1) and changes the report status to ‘Requires feedback from adviser’.
3. c. Sends an email notification to Amy with a message to review the report and check the comments he’s added.
4. 4. Amy Adviser receives the email notification and clicks on the hyperlink, which opens Genovo. When Amy logs in, she’s taken straight to the report (or she could have navigated there manually).
5. 5. Amy makes a couple of small tweaks to the report content and responds to the comments left in the report by Peter.
6. 6. Amy then saves the report, which updates it to Version 1.2. She sets the report status to ‘Approved by adviser’ and sends an email notification back to Peter to let him know.
7. 7. Peter now clones the Report Editor report, which creates Version 2.0 and also preserves the previous versions. He makes the small changes requested by Amy, sets the report status to ‘Requires compliance approval’ and saves the report once more, which updates it to Version 2.1.
8. 8. Peter sends an email notification to Colin Compliance that a report is ready for checking because it’s a pension switching case that requires compliance pre-approval
9. 9. Colin receives the email notification and clicks on the hyperlink to open the report. The report is excellent and requires no changes, so he approves it by changing the report status to ‘Approved by compliance’ and saving it, which updates it to Version 2.2.
10. 10. Colin sends an email notification to Peter (copying in Amy) that the report is now approved.
11. 11. Peter goes to the Client & Report Library and clones the report once more, which creates Version 3.0 and preserves all the previous versions of the report. He then sets the report status to ‘Published’ which locks down the report for any further editing and uploads it to the client record in AWM’s CRM with just a single click.
12. 12. Now that the report is complete, Amy logs into Genovo and goes to the Client & Report Library. She then applies an Adviser Report Rating of “Excellent” to the report, as she’s really pleased how good it was, but she’s always a bit reluctant to apply the top rating of ‘Outstanding’.

The Outcome

All of AWM’s problems around their suitability report process are now in the past:

• No AWM staff member has suitability reports saved on their own laptops.
• Everyone at AWM has access to all versions of a suitability report in a single location.
• At any point in the advice journey of any client, Andy Adviser can have a look at a report created for any of AWM’s advisers.
• No suitability report containing highly sensitive personal information ever gets sent anywhere by email.
• The correct finalised report is always uploaded directly to the client record in the CRM.AWM now has a report rating process to identify and promote good report writing practices.
• Everyone in AWM saves time

And they all lived happily ever after…

Amy, Peter and Chris are just happy that their suitability report process is now much tighter and secure, and mistakes are far less likely. They now have a simple, straightforward process which tracks and monitors all the interactions key stakeholders have with a report as it progresses through the company’s report writing process. 

Andy is breathing a huge sigh of relief, as several significant risks have been removed from his business and his processes are more efficient too!

Time for bed…

And there you have it – Genovo’s Report Builder helps to transform the report-building process and now Genovo’s Report Editor functionality can transform how the report is reviewed, approved and delivered.

Nigel’s knowledge

If the happy ending above makes you realise your own suitability report writing processes could be improved, then here’s some additional resources to show you how:

• Explore all of the Report Editor Knowledge Base articles, or watch our 7-minute video tutorial
• An integration with a back-office app makes adding clients and plans much easier, as well as facilitating one-click uploads of the finished report back into the CRM. Additionally, this section of the Genovo Knowledge Base covers our current integration partners.
• How you can customise the Adviser Report ratings to use your own scale and rating names.

Further reading

You’ll find loads more really useful information in:

• Genovo’s series of User Tip blogs;
• the extensive Genovo Knowledge Base;
• the collection of really useful Genovo matrices;
• the ever popular Genovo video tutorials; or

Of course, if you’re still stuck, or just need a helping hand, you can always submit a support ticket and we’ll get straight back to you.

Finally – make sure you don’t miss any of our hints & tips – subscribe and get email alerts when we update our blog.

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