“Financial planning” is a broad umbrella term and can be somewhat ambiguous, covering everything from saving for retirement, Social Security optimization, paying for college, buying a house and much more. And most holistic focused advisors are able to address these issues.

But when it comes to more sophisticated areas, such as estate and tax planning, clients in many cases often seek out an advisor that offers advanced planning in-house.

Advanced planning remains one of the most under planned realms of finance, and it makes sense why. Areas like estate and tax planning require careful attention and can be difficult to scale as a result.

For that reason, smaller firms often find that their bigger clients will eventually “outgrow” them as their wealth increases and their situation becomes more complex (a sad phenomenon, considering that the firm left behind played a major role in building that wealth).

Yet even the bigger firms that can afford to employ advanced planning teams struggle to do it efficiently. The services are largely reserved for UHNW clients and even then, it’s still not ideal, often taking weeks or more to turn anything around.

But a solution may not be too far off.

The Problem With Advanced Planning
Let’s say I’m an advisor at a national firm who is well-versed in investments, and I even offer retirement analysis, too. I do great with the average client, but when it comes to more complex areas like tax and estate planning, I turn to my advanced planning team.

Here’s where things get tricky. Advanced planning can be time-consuming work, which means a long turnaround time. Increasingly, we’re seeing lawyers with six-figure salaries overwhelmed with this system, spending too many of their days making PowerPoints when their skills could be put to better use.

And because it can be such an intensive process, these advanced planning teams are usually reserved for only the wealthiest of clients, despite the fact that even the smallest client needs help in those areas.

Think of how many accounts people have with large investment companies where they’re getting investment advice and maybe a little cash flow planning, but no one is touching their critical advanced planning areas.

For smaller firms, offering advanced planning services seems like an out-of-reach fantasy. They simply don’t have the resources to employ an in-house advanced planning team.

So how can we level the playing field for all advisors and clients?

The answer is in your tech.

Turning To Tech
With the right tech, you can offer advanced planning in-house without investing more time and energy. Depending on your needs, you can find whole or partial solutions to fit with your comfort level and availability.

Tools like Trucendent and Trust and Will help streamline the creation of estate planning documents. At the same time, financial planning suites like MoneyGuide Pro have created integrated estate planning solutions such as Wealth Studios to help bring legacy planning into the larger conversation.

At my firm, we use FP Alpha’s new Estate Planning Lab that automatically incorporates the latest legislation changes into its recommendations ensuring our advice is optimized. We simply upload client documents, such as wills, trusts and estate plans, and the tool identifies personalized planning points in minutes.

With a comprehensive advanced planning profile for each of your clients, you’ll be able to expand your services, highlight more planning opportunities and generate more revenue – without adding additional staff or requiring your team to learn anything new.

Software In Action
Just last year, my firm nearly lost a client, “Erica,” due to a few urgent issues that she thought we would be unable to address. She already had one foot out the door, but I asked Erica if I could create a proposal to show her how we could help her using FP Alpha.

I knew that Erica was looking into a competitor who is light on planning services, so I pulled out all the stops to show her why a holistic, advanced approach is critical in establishing long term financial health. I showed capital gain tax planning, a cash out refinance opportunity, the impact proposed legislation could have on her, as well as state estate tax exposure based on several properties she owned. These were just a few of the many things I was able to easily outline and explain for Erica utilizing the tools in our software.

Rather than “outgrowing” us, I’m proud to say Erica is still our client and the relationship has grown in size!

With the right tech supporting our team, we are able to make good on the promise put forth by the phrase “holistic planning” for every client—turning current clients into bigger clients while also increasing engagement with potential clients.

It’s 2022, and there’s no reason every advisor shouldn’t be able to provide customized advanced planning solutions, setting you up to retain all of your clients, no matter how complex their needs become.

It’s time to start carrying a bigger umbrella.

Andrew Altfest, CFP, is president of Altfest Personal Wealth Management and founder of FP Alpha.