How to write a report in Genovo recommending a new standalone structured investment product

Nigel Ogram

It’s the first of a three-part mini-series for user tip blogs this month. I originally wrote it as a single blog, but it was a bit of an epic, so I decided to split it.

The series looks at three ways that Genovo handles the recommendation of a structured product:

1) This month – recommending a structured investment product as a new standalone investment.
2) June – recommending a structured investment product as part of a revised investment strategy for an existing tax wrapper (e.g SIPP, ISA, offshore bond etc).
3) July – recommending a structured investment product as part of the recommended investment strategy of a new tax wrapper.

The process

1. Select or add the client

From the Genovo main dashboard, go to Write report and select or create the private client(s) you wish to write the report to. If your Genovo account is integrated with your back office system, remember you can import the client, rather than adding them manually, by clicking the add from CRM button.

2. Select the Report Creation Method

The preferred report creation method is to use the Genovo AI Assistant(‘Gena’). All you need to do is type, paste or speak a simple advice prompt stating the advice scenario, for example:

Gena will then:

Determine the most appropriate report type.
Apply a report name.
Create the framework of the report.
Add the required report sections.
Import the plans from your back office system, or if you don’t have a CRM integration, create ‘skeleton’ plans ready for you to flesh out as required.
Create a ‘skeleton’ plan ready for you to flesh out as required (if you don’t have a CRM integration, or you do have an integration, but the new plan hasn’t been added to the CRM).

However, in the interests of completeness, this blog walks you through the steps of building the report using Genovo’s ‘from scratch’ report creation method. There are four 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 – we’d suggest using the Suitability Report.

4. Add the required sections

You’ll now need to add the necessary sections from the ‘Available sections’ drop down, which in this instance will only be the New Investment Recommendation section.

The Recommended Investment Strategy section is not required, as the investment element for a structured product is implicit within the product itself.

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.

You can use and adapt one of the Genovo advice options, such as:

‘Invest £*INSERT* of the monies you currently hold on deposit for long term capital growth.’

Alternatively, as structured products are clearly a specialist plan with unique features and risks, you can add your own advice option if you prefer, or you can manually enter the client’s objectives by typing, pasting in external content, or even just speaking the objectives, by clicking the Add objectives as freetext button.

If you are integrated with intelliflo office, you can also import client objectives from IO by clicking the add data from CRM button:

Once you’ve selected or created your client objectives, 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 ‘Know your client’ info – the ‘back story’ behind the clients’ investment needs.

5.2. The Client Risk Profile section

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

5.3. The New Investment Recommendation section

Simply follow the Wizard section steps in sequence:

5.3.1. Plan Summary

You now need to add the new structured investment product. If the new plan is already in your back office system, click the Add plans from CRM button, otherwise add the plan manually by clicking Add plan.

Structured products usually have names to reflect the type / version / series. There’s a dedicated field where you can enter the plan name:

The Genovo provider library doesn’t currently have any structured product providers, so you’ll probably need to add your own. This Knowledge Base article explains how to do this.

5.3.2. Why Product Type

There are some structured product specific advice options in the Product features category that you can select from (or of course, you can add your own):

5.3.3. Why Provider / Plan

Select from the standard advice options, or you can add your own

5.3.4. Plan Charges

Add initial and/or recurring charges as appropriate. Clearly, there won’t be any explicit investment management charges, so you won’t enter anything in this column.

Plan charges tables in the report shows blank columns by default, but if you don’t want this, there’s a setting where you can elect to have blank columns suppressed. This Knowledge Base article explains how to do this.

5.3.5. Trusts

If you’re writing the new plan into trust, you can select the trust on this step and then use the text box at the bottom of the page to explain why.

5.3.6. Structured Products

On this step, you can add further information regarding the terms and conditions of the structured product:

5.3.7. Key Disadvantages and Tax Implications

There’s a structured product specific advice option in the ‘Other’ category, but if there’s a specific disadvantage that needs covering, you can add your own.

Remember that in Genovo, disadvantages (will happen) are different to risks (could happen). Risk warnings suitable for structured products will be automatically included in your report, so you only need to focus on any disadvantages.

5.3.8. Other Solutions

This an optional step to record any other solutions that were considered, but discounted. If you don’t select any options, the ‘Alternative Solutions’ subsection won’t be included in your report.

5.4. The Important Information section

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

6. Tailor the structure of the report

Having completed all 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 and edit the report

Having created the framework 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.

8. Upload the completed report into your back office system

If your Genovo account is integrated with your back office system and you’ve been working with an integrated client, and you’ve been using the Genovo Report Editor to make the final tweaks to your report, don’t forget that you can upload the report back to the client record in the back office app with just a couple of clicks.

Nigel’s knowledge

So, what else can you do to make your structured product reports easier to complete?

The Gena report creation method is a great way to get all of the major elements of the report selected for you, all extracted from the prompt you enter at the start of the process. Give it a try!
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 could 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 customise any of the boilerplate report content to reflect your own preferences, you can do this via the Report Content Manager:
What is the Report Content Manager?
Video tutorial – How to customise the boilerplate content of your reports and templates using the Report Content Manager
Genovo’s Report Editor includes all the common text-editing capabilities you’ll need, but adds adviser / paraplanner collaboration tools, version control, report ratings and back office document upload features too. Want to know more? Simply watch the video tutorial.