Financial advisors typically find themselves surrounded by massive amounts of paperwork. With large client rosters shuffling so much paper can make efficient client communications difficult. In the industry, anything that saves time and streamlines processes is worth its weight in gold. Fortunately for financial advisory firm NewMarket and its clients, the firm has Cabinet Document Management Solutions on its side.
Improving client service and compliance with SAFE.
In the summer of 2011, NewMarket was in the process of changing broker-dealers to offer securities through LPL Financial. The transition provided the firm’s principals with an opportunity to examine all practices in order to find ways to better serve clients.
Almost as soon as SAFE CLOUD was up and running, NewMarket’s team of advisors was enjoying the benefits of the paperless system: speedy access to documents, foolproof version control, granular security and peace of mind from knowing that all information was securely backed up.
A key area identified for improvement was storage of and access to client documentation. At the time, all of NewMarket’s documents were on paper or legacy computer systems. The result was wasted time filing and retrieving information, as well as inefficient document sharing practices.
NewMarket needed a system that would allow it to quickly and easily file, retrieve, route and share critical documents, all while maintaining tight security, compliance and audit trails. They found it in SAFE CLOUD, Cabinet’s affordable, cloud-based electronic document management and workflow management software for small and mid-sized businesses.
“The timing of our move to Cabinet made sense on a number of levels,” said Brandon M. Lancaster, whose father, Michael J. Lancaster, is president of NewMarket. “It’s clear that the industry is going paperless, and we wanted to stay ahead of the curve. Plus, by switching broker-dealers, we were already upsetting the apple cart, so we figured that we might as well upset it all the way.”
The transition quickly started paying dividends for NewMarket. Cabinet’s team of experts guided the firm through its SAFE CLOUD implementation, allowing it to digitally replicate existing workflows and filing practices while ensuring strict compliance with regulatory standards. Almost as soon as the software was up and running, NewMarket’s team of advisors was enjoying the benefits of the paperless system: speedy access to documents, foolproof version control, granular security and peace of mind from knowing that all information was securely backed up.
The true value of the SAFE CLOUD software was revealed in November 2012, when NewMarket was subject to an audit from its broker-dealer. Though the process was completely routine, the timing was tight – barely a week between notification and the audit itself.
With paper files, it could have been a stressful occasion. Not with SAFE.
“With SAFE, we did everything by the book, and the audit went extremely well,” Lancaster said. “They were in and out of our office within five hours. A lot of that was due to the fact that so many of our files are on the Cabinet system. It’s so organized. If you want notes on a particular client, you instantly have notes on a particular client. If you want documents, they’re instantly accessible in SAFE, rather than going through a filing cabinet. The broker-dealer auditors were extremely impressed. In fact, they told us that if we ever do get audited by FINRA or the SEC, having SAFE will make it easy.”
If you would like to learn more about how Document Management Solutions can help you and your organization, contact MCC today for a consult.