EISI will release its Retirement Consumer Facing Application (CFA) for Profiles Professional to individual financial advisors and smaller financial organizations on January 18.

The application, which was previously available only to EISI's large institutional clients, allows advisors who license the web version of Profiles Professional to make a customized, consumer friendly retirement calculator available to prospects. Once the prospect completes the calculator and receives an overview of their situation, the CFA allows consumers to request further planning help and information from a live advisor.

Dr. Linda Strachan, EISI's vice president for product marketing, said CFA gives prospects the opportunity to explore their retirement situation on their own, before they meet with an advisor. "CFA is non-threatening and informative, so it prompts prospects to ask for an advisor's help," she said.

When a prospect requests help, the advisor receives an email alert with a summary of prospect information. This includes the value of the prospect's assets and their preferred method of contact. The advisor can then log into their Profiles Professional web account, where they can access all of the information the client provided.

If a prospect becomes a client, or if the advisor chooses to supply the prospect with additional information, the data is automatically loaded into Profiles Professional, so there is no need for double data entry. Advisors can then run projections using the much more powerful Profiles engine, or they can use the optional Profiles presentation module to close the deal.

Each individual CFA license receives its own URL identifier and is linked to a particular Profiles Professional license. This means that advisors can use their unique URL to invite prospects to visit their CFA on websites, blogs, by email, and through social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Prospects that use the CFA are automatically tied to the advisor's version of Profiles Professional. Firms with multiple Profiles Professional accounts can choose to use a lead management tool available from EISI to assign the leads as they come in.

While other calculators are available, none offer the continuity of results and the seamless integration with Profiles Professional that CFA does. EISI offers advisors the ability to customize the CFA so it looks unique to their firm. Advisors can choose from multiple color schemes, can customize the text and the look of the contact information section. In addition, advisors can brand the CFA with their picture and their logo.

EISI is offering special introductory pricing thorough March 31. For Retirement CFA only, the price is $295 ($395 thereafter). Advisors can purchase both Retirement CFA and the Presentation module as a bundle (highly recommended) for $390 ($450 thereafter).

--Joel Bruckenstein