What’s in My Wealthstack: WayCrest Wealth

We’re two father-son teams. Lowell (Weiss) and I have our knowledge of the current technology ecosystem. We also know where our dads thrive and where they sometimes have trouble—similar to how some of our clients might have trouble. We want to help our clients use technology to their benefit. Not as something big and scary out there that pushes them away.  

We came from Raymond James [before launching with Elevation Point backing], which was a great platform. But I’m just excited about all these other platforms that we have access to now—it’s just this huge buffet.

I would say that the throughline for all of this for us is client convenience. What ends up being great for the client ends up being great for us.

CRM: Practifi

We’re just in the incipient stages of using it during the transition. One thing that was really nice compared to what we used to use—which was Microsoft [Dynamics]—is the ability to take notes in multiple places. That has helped in the transition.

The surgical nature of Practifi has been more beneficial to us. Microsoft [Dynamics] was great, but we found it a little too broad, and with Practifi you can get specific. Maybe that’s also being just six months out, when we’re recording things like our client’s favorite ice cream flavor. But I do think that’s going to be really helpful going forward as well.

Related:Vardhan Wealth Management: The Advantages of Being an Early Adopter

Reporting & Portfolio Management / Trading & Rebalancing:  Addepar

I was using Addepar today, and I will say it is so cool. We have a pretty sophisticated clientele; they own LLCs, family businesses, real estate and all sorts of holdings that aren’t just a typical brokerage or IRA—though of course, they have those, too.

What’s nice about Addepar is that you can create all of these waterfalls so that people can see their LLCs, and their family entities, and how their children’s items are doing. From that point of view, I’m pretty excited to roll it out to families.

I would say, if there’s a downside, it takes effort to configure. But we want everyone customized. To do that for 500 households is going to take a minute before everyone is configured. But it’s ultimately only a good thing.

Financial Planning: eMoney Advisor

We came from MoneyGuide Pro (Envestnet) and are now using eMoney. What I hope to get out of eMoney is true cash flow planning. Goals-based planning is great, but I think that’s where the advisor comes in to set the goal. Then the cash flow is really the operational piece of it.

I jokingly say that life is an exercise in cash flow. It doesn’t matter how big your asset is, if you don’t have cash flow and you’re not able to use it what does it matter? So, I really think the ability to give people visibility into that and make choices around their cash flow is the No. 1 reason we chose eMoney.

Related:Wealthspire Advisors: Reimagining the Wealthstack After Nine RIA Acquisitions

The second reason is that everything pushes through to it. That makes our system really coordinated, which is important to us.

Document Management: Egnyte

What’s the key for document management? It’s a little boring and in the background, but the reality is that we use it every day. We need to pull up a client’s trust. We need to pull their investment management agreement, etc. So it’s got to be crisply organized.

I think that is Egnyte’s screaming feature—it’s just so organized. I can click on a client or a prospective client, click on their trust, and then three clicks later I’ve found what I wanted, instead of searching around a little more for it.

Primary/Secondary Custodians: Schwab/Raymond James

We are very confident in using and staying with Schwab. If we were going to be independent, we wanted the custodian to have a big share of the marketplace.

This is maybe back of the envelope, but it seems to me that for all things money movement—from wires to journals—[Schwab] requires like half as many clicks as I’m used to. That’s a huge time saver.

Related:Montis Financial: Creating a Raving Fan Experience

But one of the reasons we partnered with Elevation Point is so we could also be multi-custodial. I do still have relationships at Raymond James that are important to me, so the multi-custodial feature is important, even though we’re significantly weighted towards Schwab.

AI Services: Zocks

We use Zocks to help transcribe and then push [client information]  through to eMoney, which pushes it through to Salesforce [Practifi uses Salesforce as its underlying technology base], and we have this sort of cascading effect so we don’t have to go back to the client and ask them for more information and inconvenience them.

Direct Indexing and/or Tax-loss harvesting services: Vestmark

This has been really important in the transition, because a lot of our clients have capital gains built up. The ability to assign a capital gains budget so that we don’t violate anyone’s tax comfort level has been important. I think no matter who the manager is, there will eventually be some level of direct indexing on almost everything. If it’s taxable, it just makes sense. Why wouldn’t you? The market gives enough surprises. Taxes shouldn’t be a surprise.

As told to senior reporter Alex Ortolani and edited for length and clarity. The views and opinions are not representative of the views of WealthManagement.com.

Want to tell us what’s in your wealthstack? Contact Alex Ortolani at [email protected].