Reporting updates

When you select the Reports option from your navigation menu in Redtail, you’ll now see one page, broken down by Report type, with links to all of your Standard Reports:

Note as well at the top of your main Reports page the first section is headed “Favorites”. We’ve added the ability to mark Reports as favorites (as we did with Contacts several months ago) and any Reports you designate as a favorite moving forward will now display in that section on your Reports page to provide quicker access. Additionally, you’ll see that the star next to a Favorite report is filled in, rather than just outlined, so that you’ll know you’ve marked it as a favorite, regardless of whether you are viewing it in the top Favorites section, or in its original home:

For Custom Exports, sticking with the theme of “favorites”, we’ve added “Favorite” as a field you can include for your Custom Export Templates (in the Basic Information section at the top of the Custom Export Builder). If you include that field, whenever you export contacts from one of your contact lists using that Custom Export, only those contacts that are marked as “Favorites” for your username will be included in the export.

We’ve also added “CRS Sent Date” and “CRS Signed Date” to your Custom Export Builder, an another tool for Reg BI compliance. You’ll find those in the Account General Information section of the Builder.

Contact Record Update

If a contact has a Physical Address marked as Primary, you’ll now also see a “Local Time” field at the top of their Contact Card. This was added to assist database users with scheduling calendar items for those contacts in time zones other than the user:

Preferences

Last but not least, under your General Options in Preferences, you can now select which Contacts screen displays by default when you click “Contacts” from your navigation menu. Your options are Favorites, Contacts A-Z, Advanced Search, Quicklists, Tag Groups, Recently Added, Recently Viewed, Top, and Recycle Bin:

New bulk actions

The first of these is another updated aimed at assisting with Reg BI requirements: you can now update the Reg BI/Form CRS Date fields in bulk from the Accounts by Contact report under the Account Options menu.:

 

We’ve also added “Remove Role Assignment” as a Bulk Contact Option in order to simplify/clarify the role removal process.

The ability to assign the Role of Advisor, Associate Advisor or CSA (Customer Service Associate or Certified Senior Advisor) to your database users for individual contacts (and to assign Workflow Tasks to Roles, rather than database users or teams) is available within Redtail CRM.  If you are an admin database user, you can apply Roles either to individual contacts or you can apply in bulk to a group of contacts. The process for removing Roles in bulk is now more straightforward. You can read more about Roles here.

Nicole Casperson published a piece yesterday at InvestmentNews looking at some of the ways technology providers are deploying tools to help advisors brace for the new regulatory requirements as a result of Reg BI.

Along with representatives from Broadridge, InvestorCom, Morningstar, RIA in a Box, and Riskalyze, Redtail’s Director of Sales David Mehlhorn shared information about what Redtail has put in place to assist advisors with Reg BI compliance. You can read the full InvestmentNews piece here.

Per FINRA’s Reg BI overview:

On June 5, 2019, the SEC adopted Regulation Best Interest (Reg BI) under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Reg BI establishes a “best interest” standard of conduct for broker-dealers and associated persons when they make a recommendation to a retail customer of any securities transaction or investment strategy involving securities, including recommendations of types of accounts.

As part of the rulemaking package, the SEC also adopted new rules and forms to require broker-dealers and investment advisers to provide a brief relationship summary, Form CRS, to retail investors ….

Firms must comply with Reg BI and Form CRS by June 30, 2020.

We’ll provide links to further reading on Reg BI and Form CRS throughout this article. Our purpose here, however, is primarily to 1) announce two new fields at the account level within Redtail CRM that will allow you to document and track Form CRS and 2) explore some of the ways you can use previously existing tools within your CRM to help you document your efforts geared toward Reg BI compliance.

Form CRS Tracking in Redtail

Form CRS (Client/Customer Relationship Summary) requirements apply to RIAs, BDs, and dual registrants that do business with retail investors and are intended to help retail investors better understand the nature of the relationship and the services they can expect from a financial firm and its individual professionals. The SEC’s FAQ provides detailed information on Form CRS.

Redtail CRM now includes two new fields at the individual account level to help you track both the date you sent a Form CRS in relation to a specific recommendation and the date you received that form back signed from your client. You’ll find those fields on the Account Details page for an account:

Additionally, one of the standard Fiduciary Reports in Redtail, the Client Summary Report, now includes columns displaying these two new Best Interest date fields. This means you’ll have a report including Form CRS data that is filterable in a number of ways, can be exported into Excel, saved as a pdf, and/or sent to Search, where you can then take bulk actions with those clients. That might mean sending your Form CRS as an attachment via a Broadcast Email to selected clients, or it might mean creating a Bulk Note or Bulk Activity in relation to Reg BI compliance.

Other Redtail CRM Tools to Assist with Reg BI

In addition to these new fields that we’ve added into the CRM, Redtail can assist as well with documenting your other efforts aimed at Reg BI compliance. The SEC provides a Reg BI FAQ here that may prompt you to think further about what some of those efforts may entail.

Notes and Activities

We’ve always stressed the value of adding Notes and Activities for your clients in order to track your interactions with and tasks performed for them. Notes and Activities can also be used to assist with your documentation efforts around Reg BI.

Because you can create your own Activity and Note Categories in Redtail (e.g., Form CRS Sent, Form CRS Signed), you could use the Notes by Contact Report or the Activities by Contact Report as secondary methods for tracking this data. And, with “Note Text” or “Activity Description” available as means for filtering those respective reports, including your Form CRS verbiage in either of those would give you an alternative route for Form CRS reporting, should you not want to use “Form CRS Sent” or “Form CRS Signed” as Note or Activity Categories.

It’s also good to bear in mind that Redtail allows you to create both Note Templates and Activity Templates, further streamlining these types of entries once you’ve decided on your processes and format.

Workflows

Like Notes and Activities, Workflows in Redtail offer you an organized way both to stay on top of and to document your processes in regard to Reg BI and Form CRS. While some of your current Workflows will likely need updating to reflect Reg BI requirements, you may find new Workflows (or new Steps within existing Workflows) useful for such processes as documenting the lifecycle of your security recommendations or, when necessary, updating the Form CRS itself.

Upcoming Releases and Training

Be on the lookout for additional CRM updates in the near future aimed at providing you with more ways to document your compliance efforts within Redtail. Also, we’re hosting a webinar, “Reg BI: Tools and Strategies to Meet the New Standards”, on Monday, June 15, at 11am PT/2pm ET, if you’d like to join us for that. You can register here now.

Finally, our Training Team has put together a “How to Handle: Reg BI” piece that covers some of the ways you can use Redtail to assist. You can view that here.