How to write a report recommending a structured product as part of the recommended investment strategy of a new plan recommendation

Nigel Ogram

It’s time for part two of our three-part mini-series of user tip blogs covering structured investment products. Part 1 covered how to recommend a structured product as a new standalone investment. This month’s blog gets a bit more technical – the recommendation of a structured product as part of the recommended investment strategy of a new plan recommendation. For this blog, I’ll be using a new SIPP, but it could just as easily be an ISA, offshore bond or any other permissible tax wrapper.

Next month, I’ll cover how to recommend a structured product as part of a revised investment strategy for an existing plan.

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 that 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 this scenario, I’d suggest something like:

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 be:

New Pension Recommendation, and
Recommended Investment Strategy

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:

‘Ensure you are on track and saving enough into your pension to provide you with an annual income of £*INSERT* at your desired retirement age.’

Alternatively, 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.

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 they may have. Given they’re investing in a structured product, this would be an ideal place to highlight their preference for capital protection.

5.3. New Pension Recommendation section

Simply follow the Wizard section steps in sequence:

5.3.1. Plan Summary

You now need to add the SIPP. If you’re working with an integrated client, click the Add plans from CRM button, otherwise add the plan manually by clicking Add plan.

5.3.2. Why Product Type

On this step where you can select from a number of Advice Reasons to explain why you’ve recommended a SIPP (or of course, you can add your own).

5.3.3. Why Contribution

Use this step to confirm the reasons for the amount and type of any contribution.

5.3.4. Why Provider / Plan

This step is where you’ll confirm why you’re recommending the provider and the specific plan (if the provider offers multiple solutions).

5.3.5. Plan Charges

Enter the plan’s charges, split into Product, Platform, Adviser and Investment Management categories.

You’ll find everything you need to know about the Plan Charges step in this article from the Genovo Knowledge Base.

If you often recommend the same plan from the same provider, you can save time entering charges by using Genovo’s Plan Charges Library feature.

5.3.6. Plan Benefits & Features

This step is where you can explain which benefits and features apply to the recommended plan. For any additional information, use the text box at the bottom of the page.

5.3.7. Key Disadvantages and Tax Implications

Use this step to disclose any disadvantages with the recommendation to take out the SIPP. Any disadvantages associated with using a structured product within the revised investment strategy can be covered off in the ‘why investment strategy’ step of the Recommended Investment Strategy section (see below).

5.3.8. Other solutions

This an optional step where you highlight any other products or solutions that you have considered and the reasons why you have discounted them. If you don’t enter any figures into this step, the Other Solutions subsection won’t be included in your report.

5.4. The Recommended Investment Strategy section

5.4.1. Recommended Investment Strategy

An investment strategy in Genovo can include cash, individual equities, funds, portfolios, bonds, ETFs, investment trusts etc. For SIPPs, it can extend to any permissible investment – commercial property, physical bullion, fine art, etc, plus of course, structured products.

So – rather than add the structured product as a recommendation in the New Investment Recommendation section as shown in Part 1 of this blog mini-series, it can be covered as part of the recommended investment strategy.

Firstly, click Add recommended investment strategy

Next, you’ll need to give the new investment strategy a name, for example:

You now need to add the underlying investments that make up the investment strategy. You can add an investment manually (by clicking Add new investment), but for Structured Products it’s far easier to add the investment from the Investment Library. To do this, click on the Add library investment button:

This is where you’ll add the structured investment product as part of the investment strategy.

The quickest and easiest way is to re-use the Genovo Example Structured Product from the Investment Library. This example structured product includes a table of the various features and benefits of a typical structured product, so all you have to do is edit the various fields (including the investment name, obviously). this is much easier than creating it from scratch.

If the investment strategy is not the only investment in the plan’s investment strategy, you should now add the other investments too. It might look something like this very simple example:

Finally, don’t forget the Why investment strategy step. It’s here that you should explain how the recommended investment strategy meets the client’s objectives.

5.4.2. Recommended Investment Strategy Supplementary Information

This optional step allows you to select one or more options to include additional content in your report about your firm’s advice proposition, ESG investing, discretionary fund management, etc.

5.5. The Important Information section

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

6. Create and edit 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.

7. 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.