Selecting a cost
effective, compliant Document & File management solution for financial
advisors, agents and brokers ?
As I meet with financial specialist clients, whether a one
person operation or a large professional practice, a common theme has emerged
about the time wasted handling, processing & searching for documents. Both
the professionals and the back office team lose productive time with these non-productive
activities. We have quantified and costed these activities as an additional 15%-20%
on your operational costs.
Searching to find the correct documents one of the team
needs, which may be related to a client query or a need to reference during a client meeting out of the office, or
perhaps to confirm compliance or provide a supplier with some important policy
or client information, is a well understood example the industry can relate to.
Documentation is very important for your business, for your client and for 3rd parties such as regulators and therefore is central to your business success. So what is needed is a software solution that ensures for both professionals and back office staff that Information and documents are correctly available when required, and the time spent on the actual content of the document as it relates to the stakeholder is where your focus is, and that any handling or storage is automated in a secure manner.
The challenge is often the same in a practice which uses software as well as those who are still largely paper based. Analysis suggests the problems are fundamentally the same.
·
One back office person handles all processing
and filing, and is the focal point for requests for information and documentation,
that person can be a bottleneck in the process, always has to do the storage
and retrieval and may have a system not understood by the rest of the
professionals in the practice.
·
Two or more back office staff handle the
processing and both though competent do things slightly differently.
·
It’s a “free
for all” and everyone in the practice has access for storage and retrieval
and things go missing, get misfiled and sometimes lost.
We all understand the challenge when a business is paper
intensive and regulated. What is surprising for some is that having moved part
or all of their process to the digital world that the expected benefits for
doing this are not realised. There are three digital scenarios that are most common within the financial specialist community, and only one of these scenarios can be considered effective in delivering real business benefits and bottom line results. Let us consider each scenario:-
1.
Electronic
Filing on our Server/PC’s: This is probably the most common scenario where
some or all of the team create, update, scan and store documents using the
operating systems file management tools, such as Microsoft Windows or MAC OS. Though
there can be some benefit in flexibility to change and update documents, all of
the above issues that were experienced in the paper world, just transfer to the
digital world. Even if we just focus on back office person managing the
records, they have to create the files and folders, come up with naming
conventions, take decisions daily what folder and file to store a document in
and the Filing system may not be readily accessible to everyone, or worse still
everyone does their own thing.
2.
Document
& File/Record Management Systems: There are many systems available from
the sophisticated, expensive enterprise systems to low cost or even free open
source document management systems. These are not inherently bad systems and
when set up and operated correctly they provide great quality and productivity
gains. However because they are generic in that they have application in many
types of businesses they have to be configured, have work flows set up, choices
have to be made on types and handling of different document types. Search
features will tend to be mainly key word so there is still a fair amount of
wading through search results to find the right document.
3.
Document
& File Management for Specialists:- We believe based on our experience
that the best results and biggest payback, for financial specialists who want
to move to, or derive the full benefits of the digital world and go totally
paperless, is to use a system such as Brokerprove which is designed
specifically for advisors, agents & brokers. It has a completely pre-configured
file structure and document types that are unique to your business. It handles
the structure and naming of files electronically and as a result, it’s harder
to make mistakes, because the filing process and system is very well defined,
there is only one process and one filing system that everyone uses. Searching
for documents is more refined and faster and can be completed by any of the
team once they have an internet connection. Nothing can get lost even if there
is an unplanned system outage as a copy of every file and folder is securely stored
in the cloud.
In conclusion:- If
we had a totally paper based business with all the legacy issues and costs that
exist and we were to fix this system, what would we have to do.
·
Define in great detail the process for
receiving, handling and storing any type of document we need in the business.
·
Document the process and system and then train
and retrain every staff member.
·
Have strict , enforced rules for checking in and
out documents
·
Always anticipate the specific documents needed
during the day so that you have them with you when you need them and have a
process to let everyone know what documents you have.
·
Monitor and audit the process very regularly to
ensure compliance, keep a record of non-compliances and corrective actions.
However what we are suggesting that when you move to the
Digital world that all the above items are addressed automatically,
pragmatically and in a way that is user friendly, this is why we recommend
using a document and file management system that was designed specifically for
your financial advisory business. The system provides the guides, standards,
process and rules for how digital documents are managed, so it’s just becomes
the way everyone does things giving more consistence, higher productivity,
better stakeholder services and enhanced compliance.
Procurement check-list
for a Document & Record Management System:
·
A file
structure specific to a financial specialists business
·
An
automatic file naming system that is easy to understand and manually or
automatically search.
·
A utility
to quickly determine your record compliance status
·
An
un-disputable set of (e) evidence that can be independently verified by any stakeholder
on or off line as to the provenance, security and integrity of any document.
·
A level of
digital security that ensures only authorised personnel can access and review
specific documents.
·
Simple
secure access for any authorised individual via the internet anywhere, any time
·
Confidence
that there is always a secure, up-to-date back up copy of all files available.
Only Brokerprove meets all these criteria by design.
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