When the pandemic forced much of its advisors and staff to work from home, LPL Financial found itself ready because of some of the technological enhancements it had made in recent years.

Now, taking stock of the  ongoing Covid-19 crisis and it response at its annual Focus conference, which was held virtually last week, two LPL leaders see technology evolving to meet the needs of advisors who will continue to work virtually and the demands of a public whose preferences are shifting towards more digital channels of communication.

“To me, it’ss about adopting new technology that helps  you to do things digitally that you once did in person and ultimately will give you back hours in your day,” said Kirby Horan-Adams, LPL’s executive vice president, investor and investment solutions. “I think the Covid era has caused us to shift how we think about technology. We used to say ‘what new tool do I have to learn today?’ but now we say ‘what technology can help me with what I need to differently in this era of social distancing?’”

Many of the enhancements making it easier for advisors to work digitally are subtle, she noted, like making sure data pre-populates across all of an advisor’s technology and tools and including checks to reduce the chances that documents and applications are sent back due to missing or incorrect information.

One of the most important technologies advisors relied on during periods of working from home was instant messaging services, said Horan-Adams.

“A key component of day-to-day interactions in the office is definitely interoffice instant messaging or IM,” she said. “It makes it easier for you to stay connected with your team whether you’re working at home, on the road or even 10 feet away from each other in the office.”

LPL recently struck a deal with Slack to offer its advisors compliant interoffice messaging, piloting the new service with 10 firms.

Another key component for advisors, according to Horan-Adams, is e-signatures, another area where LPL is announcing new enhancements.

“All of the most-used LPL forms are available for e-sig  so you don’t have to bother with printing, mailing, FedExing, stapling, all of that good stuff,” she said. “E-signature documents can be completed faster with less chance of NIGOs (documents ‘not in good order’), and it’s easier to track the status of them and store them. Especially in times where we’re not meeting face-to-face as much, and who knows what germs are on those envelopes in our mailboxes, e-sig is an important tool.”

But one problem with e-signature is that there are often multiple documents that clients need to sign, which as of right now necessitates that separate emails for each are sent by the advisor to their clients, said Horan-Adams.

That’s why LPL is introducing what it calls a digital “envelope” that advisors can send to their clients with all the forms that need signing.

“We have a ton of opportunities for process improvements and helping investors go paperless in general,” said Rob Pettman, also with the title of LPL’s executive vice president, investor and investment solutions. “As you look at how we do it today, we ask you or your investors to do it in a number of different places, for different things, and it’s not consolidated. The good news is that we’re actually improving that.”

Another example of improvement, according to Pettman, is a plan to roll out a feature in September that will allow the end client to agree to a fully paperless relationship with their advisor with a single opt-in for their accounts.

But Pettman also discussed interoffice improvements for advisors, significantly around meetings, where LPL is rolling out a new meeting manager.

“We realized that advisors were spending hours just to prepare for one meeting, and we saw tremendous opportunities not just for the annual advisory meetings, but meetings in general,” he said.

The meeting manager offers advisors a dashboard of all their upcoming meetings  -- when scheduling a new meeting, advisors can automatically create a report for their specific cient or clients, using pre-saved templates, agendas and cover pages.

“All of that will be run for you the day of the meeting or the day before, whatever you choose,” said Pettman. After a meeting is finished, an advisor can return to their dashboard to enter notes about the meeting. The dashboard then connects to a Form F450, completing the compliance workflow associated with client meetings. “That’s the workflow we have right now because that’s what advisors told us they want to do first, we have a ton of different meetings we’re going to add in as well.”

Moving forward into the fall, LPL will also be adding new order entry forms integrated with  its e-signature and e-delivery capabilities, said Horan-Adams.

As far as technology trends of note, Pettman brought up advisors’ expanding use of model portfolios in their practice.

“It’s very popular because of the time that we’re in and the market volatility,” he said. “Running a models-based practice means having a discreet set of models that you can apply across your entire asset base, and there’s numerous benefits. You have a narrower due diligence set so you can stay on top of what’s actually in your portfolios all of the time. Second, you’re going to have more efficient,, more consistent communications with investors because when someone picks up the phone and says hey, what’s going on in my models, you’ll know what’s going on because you’re close to them, they’re part of your day-to-day.”

Adopting models for investing will also allow advisors to be “more dynamic,” said Pettman, because it will be easier to act quickly and effectively during market volatility via block trading across all of an advisor’s models.

With LPL, advisors can take the model portfolios concept a step farther with an “Advisor Sleeve” capability, said Pettman.

“Not only is it easier to build models and run a models-based practice… but you’re also outsourcing all your trading to LPL,” he said. “Trading is one of those operational nuances that really doesn’t differentiate you in the market, we’ve seen advisors take those time savings and allocate to things that add more value and differentiation.”

LPL has expanded  its model portfolio offering by increasing the number of models an advisor can run from 10 to 15 and launching “Firm Sleeve,” a capability that accommodates all advisors within an office or firm in signing up for one set of model portfolios. In the future, the company plans on adding separately managed accounts to its model offering and simplifying its platform fee schedule.