Thomson Financial’s Book Smarts

In the ever-competitive landscape of financial advisory, even the smallest advantage can mean the difference between success and failure.

In the ever-competitive landscape of financial advisory, even the smallest advantage can mean the difference between success and failure. As the purveyor of the financial-planning suite Thomson One, Thomson Financial (booth 3127) is intimately familiar with that concept, and the vendor is adding another tool to the Thomson One arsenal with the launch of Book Management.

"The broker today is challenged by a number of things, like a larger customer base and increasingly savvy customers," says Chris Feeney, global managing director, head of institutional equities, fixed income and wealth management, for Thomson Financial. "Everyone who manages a large book of business struggles with ways to make it more efficient and to stay ahead of clients." With that impetus in mind, Book Management aims to provide financial advisers with access to information "that we all know is there but doesn't always surface," continues Feeney.

Book Management is a desktop tool that offers 30 predetermined queries to stay abreast of information such as top clients by asset size, new money lists and top holdings. A book query feature, with more than 600 different data points, offers insight into commissions, investor demographics, account balances and position information, according to Feeney. Alerts can be set to inform users of changes, and custom queries can be created, he adds. In addition, Book Management can create actionable call lists with room for notes and contact information. "This gives you ... the ability to mine underlying data, set a series of alerts and drive more action to your desktop," Feeney says.

Personalization is one advantage of Book Management. In an industry in which each financial adviser's habits and styles differ, Thomson's new product enables customized organization, stresses Feeney. "You're going to build your book around your business style," he says. "Some wealth managers are active traders, some [maintain] balanced investment. Some are fee-based, some are transaction-based. This tool allows you to configure and sort your style in a prominent way."

Part of the Thomson One suite, tailored versions of the Book Management tool will be available to all of Thomson Financial's markets, including retail financial, high-net-worth and independent advisers, according to Feeney. While the tool operates most easily with the firm's own front-to-back platform, Feeney acknowledges that firms can integrate the Thomson desktop into a variety of back offices.