How to write a report consolidating one or more existing investments into another existing investment

Nigel Ogram

This is part three of a four-part mini-series of our ever-popular User Tip Blogs covering how to write replacement business reports in Genovo. If you haven’t already seen them, you can check out parts 1 and 2 here:

How to write a report consolidating one or more existing pension plans into another existing pension plan
How to write a report consolidating one or more existing pension plans into a new pension plan

As with the two pension replacement blogs, this blog isn’t going to explore everything that needs to be considered when recommending investment plan consolidation, but it will focus on the task of documenting and explaining everything to the client in an understandable way (remember the third outcome of Consumer Duty?…)

The process:

1. Select or add the client

From the Genovo main dashboard, go to Write report and select or create client you wish to write the report to.

2. Select the Report Creation Method

This article walks you through the steps of building the report using Genovo’s ‘from scratch’ report creation method. There are other report creation methods available, designed to fast-track you through one or more of the steps below and make the report building process even easier.

3. Create the report

In Report Details, give the report a name and select the Report Type. Assuming you’re creating the report ‘from scratch‘, we’d suggest using the Suitability Report. However, it is also possible to use the Review Report 2.0.

4. Add the required sections

You’ll then be directed to the Report Builder where you should add the necessary sections from the ‘Available sections’ drop down, which in this instance will be Review of Your Existing Investments

If you are also recommending a change in underlying investment strategy of the plan receiving the switched funds, you’ll also need to add the Recommended Investment Strategy section.

5. Complete all section wizards

Next, you’ll need to step through the section wizards of all sections that require your input, as follows:

5.1. The Introduction section

Progress through the steps of the Introduction section in the usual way. When you reach the Client Objectives step you should select or add the advice option(s) that accurately reflect the client’s objective(s) and add comprehensive Know Your Client (KYC) information to ensure you fulfil the regulator’s expectations of you in terms of documenting a client’s objectives.

There’s a Genovo advice option specifically for replacement business:

‘Consolidate your existing *investments and / or pensions* where appropriate, so it is easier to manage your investment portfolio and see how it is performing.’

Once you’ve selected this option, you can click on the Edit Objective / Add KYC info link to tweak the objective wording to suit the client’s actual objectives and to add the KYC info – the ‘back story’ behind the client’s desire to consolidate plans.

Of course, you can add your own Advice Option if you prefer, or you can enter the client’s objectives by typing or pasting in external content by clicking the Add objectives as freetext button.

5.2. The Client Risk Profile section

It’s in this section that you will confirm the client’s attitude to risk and capacity for loss, as well as their knowledge and experience and any investment preferences.

5.3. The Review of Your Existing Investments section

The first stage of any review section is to provide an overview of the existing plans within the Plan Summary step.

Just click the Add Plan button and you’ll be shown a new window where you can enter all the required plan details. If your Genovo account is integrated with your back-office app (and you’re working with an integrated client), adding plans is even easier – just click the Add plans from CRM button and chose which plans you want to import.

Next, summarise the ongoing charges of the plans being reviewed in the Current Plan Charges step.

In the Recommended Action step, you will need to confirm what action you are recommending in respect to each plan. The Recommended Action depends on the plan type being replaced:

For Cash ISAs or Stocks & Shares ISAs being replaced:

‘transfer’

For any non-ISA plan type being replaced, its:

‘encash and reinvest the proceeds of’, or
‘partially encash and reinvest the proceeds of’

For the receiving plan(s), you should select :

‘consolidate the plans being transferred within’ for ISAs, or
‘consolidate the plans being encashed within’ for all other plan types

You should ensure that after you’ve selected the appropriate Recommended Action, you also add some associated Advice Reasons – this is the ‘why’ part of the advice. Just click the Add advice reason hyperlink and then select from any of the standard advice reasons, or of course, you can add your own custom advice reason.

If you’re recommending partial transfers / encashments, you’ll then be shown the first of several conditional steps (a step triggered by something you’ve done earlier in Genovo). In this case, it will be the Recommended Withdrawal step, where you can record how much you are advising the client to move from the plan(s) that you’re partially transferring / encashing.

Side note – partially encashing a GIA to feed an ISA has its own dedicated Top-up / Bed & ISA report type in Genovo and we’ve recently released a video showing how you can write a bed & ISA report in under 8 minutes.

Because you’re consolidating to existing plans (rather than to new plans – that’s covered in next month’s blog), the next conditional step will be the Recommended Contribution step, where you’ll record the value (combined from several plans if appropriate) that is being added to the receiving plan. You should use the ‘Transfer-in Amount’ field for ISAs and the ‘Top-up Amount’ for all other plan types.

After entering the withdrawals (if appropriate) and the new contributions, the next step is the Revised Plan Charges step, where you can record the impact the changes will have on the charges. This could be reduced charges for plans that have partial encashments, or increased charges for plans that have received funds. A really useful feature here is the ability to copy the charges from the Current Plan Charges step.

You can also confirm any disadvantages associated with the recommendation being made in the Key Disadvantages and Tax Implications step.

Finally for this section, because this is replacement business, you will also be prompted to compare the following aspects of the ceding and receiving plans in the Plan Comparison steps.

Plan Charges – Quantify the difference in the Total Annual Recurring Charge of the existing plan being switched and the other existing plan that will be receiving the funds.
Reduction in Yield (RIY) – Compare the RIY of the existing plan and the new plan that is being recommended to replace it.
Performance – if performance has been cited as a factor for replacing the current plan, we would expect to see supporting information here.

5.4. The Recommended Investment Strategy section

If you’re recommending a change to the underlying investments of the receiving plan, you’ll need to complete the Recommended Investment Strategy section to detail the revised investment strategy.

5.5. The Important Information section

This is the last wizard section you’ll need to complete and is self-explanatory.

6. Tailor the structure of the report

Having completed all of the section wizards you should then tailor the structure of your report by unchecking any sections you do not wish to include in your report; and then change the sort order of any sections to reflect your personal preferences.

You’ll find more information about how to remove sections from your report here.

You’ll find more information about how to reorder the sections in your report here.

7. Create the report

Having created the framework of the report of the report with 98%+ of the content already included as an initial draft in the Report Builder, both Writer and Reader users can then make any final tweaks to the content of the draft report in the Report Editor. To open and edit the report in the Report Editor click Create / Edit report.

Nigel’s knowledge

So, what else can you do to make pension switching reports easier to complete?

An integration with a back-office app makes adding clients and plans much easier. This area of the Genovo Knowledge Base covers our current integration partners.
If the advice scenario of the report you’ve just worked on is likely to be repeated, you may then wish to convert it into a template and save it to your Report Template Library to use as a starting point for creating future reports.
If you created any custom advice options or advice reasons, you can keep them for re-use in future reports. You can do this ‘on the fly’ as you’re working in the relevant step, or you can do it from the Advice Option & Reason Library.
If you want to personalise any of the report content to reflect your own preferences, you can do this via the Report Content Manager: