There are five of us here who work at Rigby Financial. Our current assets under management are approximately £30m and the service we provide our clients is general, holistic financial planning. Our bread and butter business comes from pensions, investments and life cover.
I went straight into the industry from school, first working for a high street bank and going into the insurance arm. They obviously went bye-bye, so I took voluntary redundancy and joined Rigby Financial in 2013.
The thing I like most about being a financial adviser is the interaction with clients, finding them the right solutions and helping them along the way to achieving their big goals and objectives in life.
We first started using Dynamic Planner when we went directly authorised in 2014. It was something which was on offer to us through Bankhall, which pointed us in its direction. Pam Brunt, now our Account Manager at Dynamic Planner, came out to visit us and that’s where our relationship started.
We initially started using Dynamic Planner as a Level 1 Bankhall user, but quickly, within six months, were Level 2 users – which grants us access to much more of Dynamic Planner’s functionality and also access to more information. In this industry, as we all know, the more access to information you have the better. From that point of view, becoming a Level 2 user just made sense.
We use Dynamic Planner classically for risk profiling. Off the back of that, we then use Dynamic Planner to research and recommend funds for the agreed risk profile. We use Dynamic Planner also to get valuations for the client’s existing portfolio, to make sure that’s all up to date – and moving on from that Dynamic Planner Enterprise, the current service, now talks to ‘Elements’ and the new Client Review. That of course really helps when it comes to that part of the process.
We are loving Elements and the new Client Review. For us, it provides everything in one place. I have an example of a report in front of me right now – and what I really like about it is the first part where it displays for the client, ‘Your progress at a glance’. It’s very clear – very precise: are we on track; are we not on track? Does that then require attention, or does it not require attention? The whole report is just very simple and breaks everything down for the client, so they can understand it really easily.
Moving forward, into the rest of the report, it breaks down the current value of the portfolio. The client can easily see where they were 12 months ago; what money has gone in; what money’s gone out; and the growth in the portfolio. It just makes everything so much simpler, as a snapshot for the client.
On top of all that, it is a document we as a firm can use very easily. We can print it off; it looks nice; and we can personalise it. For example, where our offices are, near St Helens, they back onto green, rolling fields – so we just took a photograph of them and used that as our front cover image. Elements just works for us.
The new Client Review saves you time and time is key, at the end of the day, because it represents your costs as well. Providing everything in one easy place gives you time efficiencies, it reduces your costs and allows you to go out and see more people, which is why we like it. I would approximate Elements is saving us at least an hour and a half on every Client Review we do – at least.
It’s good also to know that any feedback we give as a client and user is acted upon – and pretty quickly. From that point of view, it makes you feel valued as a client and absolutely I would recommend Dynamic Planner to a fellow financial adviser.
