November 2024 Product Update
This month we’re showcasing another brand-new instrument-type, offering you the capacity to log Legal documents within the Asset-Map Report, plus we also invite you to watch our CEO, Adam Holt’s spotlight session from our recent AdviceTechLIVE virtual conference, detailing some recent and soon-to-be-released features.
Full transcript:
Welcome back to Asset-Map Product Updates.
A monthly series highlighting the latest innovations we’re releasing on our platform.
I’m Lex Brooks, Product Marketing Manager here to guide you through.
____________
This month we’re showcasing another brand-new instrument-type, offering you the capacity to log Legal documents within the Asset-Map Report, plus we also invite you to watch our CEO, Adam Holt’s spotlight session from our recent AdviceTechLIVE virtual conference, detailing some recent and soon-to-be-released features.
Let’s dive in….
Discussing the presence of legal documents, their whereabouts and their impact is often not a primary discussion point for financial advisors. However, we think it’s important to have a complete list of directions to go with your treasure map.
Understanding what legal instruments a client may or may not have can surface insights, highlight problem areas and ultimately inform decisions around account registrations, titling, beneficiaries, planning for incapacity and wealth transfer. However, legal documents are distinct from other financials - so their representation on the Asset-Map reflects their importance as a risk mitigation tool that you can easily reference throughout the conversation.
Legal documents can be gathered in one of three ways. Starting with the Asset-Map Report, navigate to the new pill button located just below the members bar and click to open the new Legal Instruments modal where you can record Wills, Power of Attorney, Testamentary Trusts or other documents of interest such as prenup, custody or rental agreements.
Applicable member refers to the principal, grantor or testator who the document belongs to and can only include members or entities that are part of the household. Empowered members refer to authorized or responsible parties such as executors, attorneys or trustees who do not have to be part of the household. Important beneficiaries can be noted for wills and testamentary trusts, but please note that this does not connect to any financials within the Beneficiaries window.
Once new documents have been added, you can see that the number in the Legal pill area updates to reflect what has been gathered. An alternative way to view Legal is to open the Sidebar, clicking on the Gavel icon where you have the same access options to add and edit documents which is useful during planning conversations in person with your client as you are giving advice and clients are agreeing to courses of action.
The final way to gather legal information directly from your clients is via the Discovery Interview tool, which provides an opportunity to list topline information about legal documents that exist already. This is a great way to help onboard your client and get to know the full breadth of their financial and legal situation without requiring extensive forms and details to be provided.
Note that our new Legal modal does not allow for direct uploads to store the documents within the Asset-Map itself for privacy reasons, however we do recommend using one of our storage integrations such as Google Drive, Dropbox, or Box to help manage documents that you want to directly connect to each client.
Overall, this new addition can help your clients understand the intersection between financial and legal instruments, ensure everything will go as planned and can help get all of their professionals from advisors to agents to attorneys on the same page, literally.
We highly recommend starting to add these legal records for all of your clients and encourage you to add Legal notes to your new Relationship maps as well for extra clarity of conversation around how members, trusts and entities all interact.
That’s our big feature update for this month, but we invite you to also check out the replay of our CEO and Founder, Adam Holt’s Asset-Map Spotlight session from AdviceTech.LIVE (linked in the description below).
Adam shared lots more details about legal, demonstrated how to activate Relationship Maps in a variety of situations, how to make the most of beneficiaries regarding the great wealth transfer, and you’ll also get a quick visual teaser of some new updates we’ll be releasing in the new year —here’s a hint it’ll live on the side of your screen and will be a game-changer for how you deliver meaningful advice at speed and see just how quickly your client can understand the full picture of their financial life.
That’s all for this time, see you next month.