Software helps divvy up client investments

Accounting Today, December, 2004 by Ted Needleman

Two of the hardest tasks in financial advising and planning are getting clients - and then keeping them. Software can help with the first, but success in getting new clients is largely a matter of marketing expertise.

Keeping your clients also is difficult. As their advisor, your clients expect you to be able to help them not only establish their financial goals, but also to achieve them. These goals are not necessarily static - they can be a mix of maximizing capital, maximizing income, offsetting income realization, or any other application of wealth and assets that the client's imagination can come up with. The strategies for accomplishing these goals are what the client is paying you to come up with.

In many cases, the client will also expect you to come...