Client Reporting Tools

Client reporting tools allow wealth management firms to serve retail clients efficiently by minimizing costs, increasing efficiency, and addressing compliance and scalability issues.

In a new report, Client Reporting Tools, Celent examines the market for client reporting solutions in North America and Europe and profiles and benchmarks the offerings of 16 vendors.

The providers covered in this report are: Advent, Assette, BI-SAM Technologies, Black Diamond Performance Reporting, CorrectNet, DST Global Solutions, Envestnet, Expersoft, Factbook, InvestEdge, Kurtosys, Private Client Resources, SS&C Technologies, Thomson Reuters, Vermilion, and WealthTouch. The profiles include differentiators and disadvantages of each solution. In order to compare solutions, the study utilizes the Celent ABCD Vendor View, which shows at a glance the relative position of vendors in four overarching categories: Advanced technology, Breadth of functionality, Customer base (number of clients), and Depth of client services.

"After the financial crisis, wealth management firms realized the necessity of providing superior customer service and communication,” says Isabella Fonseca, Research Director at Celent and coauthor of the report. “Firms have adopted client reporting tools to automate the reporting process and thereby reallocate advisor time from manual production of reports to retention of clients.”

In order to make apples-to-apples comparisons, Celent has grouped the vendors into three broad vendor categories based on coverage of the client reporting process and the characteristics of the product.

• Pure reporting vendors: focusing on the rendering, generation, and delivery of reports.
• Hybrid vendors: offering support across various dimensions of the client reporting and analytics process.
• Comprehensive vendors: offering client reporting tools as an addition to their product listing, often within a larger wealth management platform.

“The reporting process can be broken down, broadly speaking, into data retrieval and aggregation, performance calculations, and rendering and distribution. Some vendors cover all functions, whereas others focus on a specific function or ‘layer’ of the reporting process to differentiate themselves,” says Alexander Camargo, Analyst and coauthor of the report. “Firms that continue to expand their functionality and adapt to client demands will be future industry winners.”

Included in the study is a vendor comparison section, which provides a detailed breakdown of solutions’ features and functionalities, and a vendor ranking section. Celent graded each vendor within its assigned category but did not make comparisons across groupings. No one solution is considered best in all ABCD categories, but rather solutions differentiated themselves in and among the various functionalities analyzed.

The report concludes with a prospective look at the client reporting industry, likely client demands, and a discussion of what client reporting vendors can do to differentiate themselves in the market.