Welcome to the Back/Middle Office
Overview
We’re not just a back/middle office – we’re your most important relationship.
Our strongest belief is that an advisor’s time is best spent in front of clients, maintaining and cultivating relationships.
Explore our back/middle office solutions and maximize your time. Many advisors could significantly benefit from outsourcing the tedious tasks that are taking up a good deal of their time and energy. How much of your time would be freed up by delegating your non-revenue-producing activities to an experienced staff? How could this extra time benefit your clients and your professional and personal life?
Let FocusPoint’s experienced back/middle office team handle all of these activities—and more—for you:
Back/Middle Office: Daily administrative and account-related activities
- Provide Advisor with relationship manager dedicated to Advisor’s firm
- Establish new accounts in system
- Handle uploads/downloads, data maintenance, and account reconciliation
- Review accounts at agreed upon intervals to ensure they’re invested according to investment model
- Aid Advisor with proper documentation for establishing an account
- Set up and maintain RMDs and other distributions
- Communicate with custodian about requests received (transfer outs, restriction notices, etc.)
- Follow up on activities that require attention
- Serve as liaison between custodian and Advisor, creating one central point of contact to handle all quality control and assigned tasks
- Facilitate with custodian to deliver funds requested to end client via chosen method
- Provide updates as needed so Advisor can be aware of status
- Ensure new paperwork and assets are received and executed by custodian
- Follow up and follow through with transfer requests to ensure assets are received/delivered
- Coordinate with custodian to resolve any outstanding issues, trying to limit Advisor having to go back to end client as much as possible
- Use provided technology to work with Advisor to automate certain internal workflows where applicable
- Inform Advisor of any requests received by custodian
Complete reporting and billing services
- Utilizing Advisor’s billing structure, provide quarterly billing calculation, billing statement generation, deduction from client accounts, and payment to Advisor’s account
- Deliver preliminary billing report to Advisor for review and accuracy prior to fees being pulled
- Provide final billing statement to Advisor for delivery to clients if Advisor so chooses
- Provide householded client billing statements on set scheduled basis
- Provide basic reporting (realized gain/loss reports, estimated 1099 dividend information) for taxable accounts
- Offer custom reporting for individual client needs (1099, unrealized gain/loss, etc.)
- Maintain cost basis tracking for incoming securities in taxable accounts
- Work with Advisor to develop customized client deliverable reports as requested
Trading activities
- As assets arrive into new and existing accounts, confirm with Advisor that it is alright to trade to the appropriate investment model
- As cash arrives into new and existing accounts, wait until cash is over the model weighting, then invest into chosen investment models
- As investment model changes are made, ensure those trades are executed
- Liquidate assets proportionately according to investment model to free up cash for redemptions, fees, or systematic withdrawal requests
- Execute stock/bond/annuity trades as necessary or as requested by Advisor
- Review/rebalance at agreed upon timeframes, using Advisor’s criteria to ensure accounts are invested according to investment model
- If assisting Advisor with creation of new investment models, help Advisor to move accounts into those models
- Work with Advisor to create a strategy to handle tax sensitive accounts
- When possible, trade around investments with potential short-term redemption fees
Your Most Important Relationship
Most of the advisors we support call us their most important relationship.
We take service very seriously. Because of our advisor background, we recognize that if your clients are happy, chances are, you’re happy too.
Here’s what makes our back/middle office solution different:
First, the FocusPoint team is extremely experienced. Not only is our entire back/middle office highly knowledgeable and capable, we truly care about each and every one of your client accounts.
When you work with FocusPoint, your back/middle office associate speaks your language and understands your business. This is largely because as advisors, we always found it incredibly frustrating when it felt like we actually had to train each service person at every provider (custodians, investment, annuity, insurance companies, etc.) about what we and our clients needed.
Next, on the same note, advisors who work with FocusPoint have one central point of contact. This back/middle office associate basically functions as your own dedicated staff person, yet you don’t have to worry about hiring, training, or managing him or her. Our team knows you and your clients by name. Because of the amount of administrative work we take off your plate, you will find that you immediately have more time and capacity. (link here for a list of back/middle office responsibilities we take off your plate)
Finally, we’ve designed all of our systems and processes so that you’re able to delegate a task and then truly not have to worry about it. Because you and your back/middle office associate are both plugged into the same virtual office, you can check in on the status of anything at any time. You’ll find detailed notes attached to each step of each process. 95% of the questions you may get from your clients can be answered simply by logging into your virtual office – all the real-time details are right there for you. Once you delegate a task, you can rest assured it will be completed with accuracy and timeliness.
Meet the Back/Middle Office Team
“What is a Middle Office?” We like to refer to our back office team as your “middle office”. This is because we really look at our back/middle office team as an extension of each advisor’s own team.
We strive to match up each advisor we support with the ideal dedicated Relationship Manager so that advisors we support have a very personalized relationship with their FocusPoint staff.
While each Relationship Manager is part of a larger team who is available when you need them, 95% of the time you’re able to work with one central point of contact. This is something that advisors we support truly appreciate and find valuable.
Meet the Trading Team
With the right partners and your commitment to a good plan, you can make changes to your business today that will allow you to create a work/life balance that is more satisfying to you. Let our experienced team free up your time by handling your trading needs at your instruction.
