Suite of financial planning tools now available on Cofunds

Cofunds, the leading independent platform for financial planning, has launched a new suite of financial planning tools that support advisers through the key stages of the financial planning process: identifying attitude to risk, defining goals, analysing current arrangements, forecasting and reporting.
Firstly, the full planning tool will enable advisers to undertake a thorough planning session covering both investment and retirement assets to give a full picture of a client’s savings pot. With this tool, advisers can also add assets held off the platform including state and second state pensions.
The Lite investment and Lite retirement tools powered by financial planning and sales software from Distribution Technology enable advisers to produce professional recommendations quickly and easily. This is especially useful for new business opportunities where a full planning session may not be appropriate, and allows advisers to focus on either retirement or investment assets.
The fourth addition is a rebalancing calculator – Cofunds’ first step towards delivering a full straight-through rebalancing tool later this year. If a client hasn’t changed their goals or their attitude to risk, and does not wish to invest new money, this calculator makes it easy to prepare a recommendation showing which switches need to take place to simply rebalance the client’s portfolio. Initially the recommended switches will not be automatically executed, but this tool will help advisers to cut down on the manual work to calculate the required switch instructions.
Verona Smith, Head of Proposition at Cofunds said: “This package can support the whole financial planning process that advisers undertake when working on a client’s portfolio. Advisers will have the option of using these tools to enhance the service they offer their clients, including the process of making and demonstrating recommendations as well as working out asset allocation.
“While supporting advisers with their compliance processes and helping them to treat customers fairly, our new suite of services will enable advisers to plan more easily.
“We are at an exciting stage in the development of the platform and are looking to launch further tools in the near future.”
Ben Goss, CEO of Distribution Technology added “In a post-RDR world, it’s vital for advisers to have a robust, compliant financial planning process, as well as being able to segment their client base effectively. We have worked closely with Cofunds to deliver this framework – first by deploying our Investment Planner tool and now with the addition of our Retirement Planner technology. We look forward to supporting Cofunds as they further strengthen their proposition for all advisers using the platform.”