In an earlier blog I emphasized the importance of mainstream client reporting. As investment professionals once again turn to the dreaded task of busily cranking out their quarterly reports, it is relevant to share the process we have established to help many of them transition from tired, stale reports to a new generation of client reports.
In this article, I’ll take you through our process for overhauling client reporting drawing upon specific references to a recent project. Whether you opt to utilize a third-party service provider like us, request Report Writing services from Advent, or produce your next generation client reports internally, you should find the following information useful. Those that want to implement new reports for Q3 or Q4 of 2011 need to start the process now.
- Our Process for Improving Client Reporting
Our fundamental approach addresses the most difficult reporting issues first, identifying any show-stopping problems as early in the process as possible. We are able to create reports using a number of techniques. If one way doesn’t work, we can always fall back on another, but our goal is to select the right method from the get-go.
1. Review
In the review stage, advisors need to appraise their current client reporting packages with a critical eye in order to identify what is good and bad about them. In a nutshell, investors must preserve what is highly valued by clients and remove what is superfluous. The ultimate goal should be to create concise, comprehensive reports that are easily understood, allowing clients to view as little or as much detail as they desire. Many advisors want to create visually crisp and professional reporting packages. We understand the importance of this; however, in the area of client reporting, meaningful content should trump form.
Though we are available and qualified to review client reports and make recommendations for new ones, most firms prefer to do this internally.
2. Mock-up
A new report always starts with an idea. Oftentimes, this is shown with a mock-up expressing the look of the desired end product. In some cases, our customers produce mockups in Excel, but others cut and paste pictures together, or simply sketch them freehand. Any of these options are fine. As they say, a picture says a thousand words: the more detailed the pictures, the less you will have to explain to those writing the reports.
Most clients have a strong preference as to whether reports appear in landscape or portrait. This aspect of your reports will be more expensive to change as you progress further into the project. We understand that this decision may have more to do with aesthetic presentation issues, but some report layouts simply require more vertical space or horizontal space than others. If you are dead-set on a certain orientation, you may need to be more flexible about report content.
Over the years, we have created a wide variety of quarterly reporting packages for clients. Some samples of our work that may help you with your mockup appear on our website under the menu titled “Custom Reports for Axys/APX.” They fall into three categories:
1 – samples of reports produced by extracting data from Axys/APX and generating reports through traditional report writers like Crystal Reports and SSRS
2 – samples generated directly from Axys/APX through the use of compound report macros
3 – older samples of reports that were generated through a variety of methods
While browsing these above samples, click on any report to view it in larger size.
After viewing all of our online samples and PDF documents, our client produced the following mock-ups for us:
3. Draft
The draft process, as we define it, is one where the reports’ framework is established in the chosen environment. Roughing out the reports helps determine their feasibility. In the attached example, we started by spending a day onsite, drafting the four account summary-type reports that were requested. We used a combination of REPLANG, Report Writer Pro, and compound report macros. During this phase of the process, we are not overly concerned about individual details. Instead, we focus on the big picture. Is it possible to create the reports requested? What type of challenges will we face? What tools will be required? What resources, including time, will be required?
There are two possible outcomes to this stage:
- Validation that the reports can be produced in the selected environment, as well as a better understanding of what they will look like and how much time they will take
- A recommendation for another methodology, such as SSRS or Crystal Reports, based on the difficulties encountered in attempts to draft the basic report framework
After drafting the four requested summary reports, we were in a better position to estimate the amount of time necessary for development, knew what features would be difficult to implement, and were confident that we could deliver the reports on time. Our client was also included in the process. As we drafted each report, we sought their feedback to determine whether things were taking shape as intended.
4. Design
A significant amount of time needs to be spent in the design phase, selecting fonts, styles, colors, chart details, and other elements of presentation related to the reports. Our client preferred to use the traditional Times New Roman font, but this font choice is one of the reasons most Axys and APX reports look so similar. We selected title bars rather than title boxes to give added flexibility regarding the placement and size of report elements. Colors are very important. In the past, I have seen clients struggle to pick a palette of colors for charts and graphs. Our client picked vibrant colors that complemented their logo. If you are not already familiar with it, Adobe has a very useful and free resource that you can use to select a color scheme for your reports:
http://kuler.adobe.com
As a general rule, one should complete design of the master page or default style for all reports before moving on to the next phase. Report writers and developers are not necessarily graphic designers. You can save your staff or vendor a lot of grief by having your color schemes selected and logos produced by professional designers. In particular, your designer should produce images of the proper size, format and quality required.
5. Build & Test
We minimize formatting and style changes by beginning work in this phase only when a client has committed to a design specification. Ideally, we wouldn’t make any changes to design once we have begun the build phase, but some customers change their minds between the design and build phases. We also occasionally run into difficulties with pieces of the implementation process or come up with a better way to design something in the process of its implementation.
No matter how a report is created, the formatting of the first in a series of client reports to match the design layout is the most difficult. However, once the initial report is completed, the rest of the reports come together much faster. The bulk of the time on your project will likely be spent on implementation. This time depends on the number and complexity of reports you plan to produce, and the resources available. It will likely take days, if not weeks.
In initial testing, we run reports for a small control group that represents the client’s various types of accounts. We also do a number of report runs for the full group of reports that will be run at quarter end. We find that doing full-scale tests is the best way to identify exceptions and deal with them proactively. As we find issues with individual reports, we apply fixes to address them, and must test again to validate the fixes.
In the example below, our client did a great job illustrating exactly what they wanted and let us focus on producing the report.
Account Summary Mock-up
The final report that we created based on our client’s mock-up shown above follows:
To see other samples of the final reports click here.
It took roughly 30 days to produce the final versions of our customer’s four account summary reports. The customer was very engaged in the process and highly motivated, facilitating progress by providing quick responses to our questions. Similar projects take 4-6 weeks, but could take significantly less time if you are working from established reports that just need modification. You may remember that our initial draft took a day; we spent the rest of the time working on the more difficult aspects of the project. Our summary reports brought data that needed verification into focus. Based on exception testing and other issues, we made our final modifications to the reports’ appearance.
The project referenced in this article included new custom reports, quarterly packaging automation, integration of new custom reports, and conversion of legacy packaging to our new report packaging environment. The project’s total cost was about 20k, nearly double what it would have been with our preexisting custom reports, but the only recurring cost is maintenance. Many of today’s alternatives feature a sizable implementation cost and significant monthly fees.
Improving your client reporting is one of the most important things you can do to communicate more effectively. Your next generation of quarterly statements should make it clear to your clients that you are investing in a process that directly benefits them. If you do it right, you are bound to receive positive feedback from your clients once they have your new reports in hand.
There is no time like the present to start working on your next generation of client reports.
About the Author:
Kevin Shea is President of InfoSystems Integrated, Inc. (ISI); ISI provides a wide variety of outsourced IT solutions to investment advisors nationwide. For details, please visit isitc.com or contact Kevin Shea via phone at 617-720-3400 x202 or e-mail at kshea@isitc.com.
Yesterday, I fielded a call from one of our clients that generates reports for several thousand accounts using our reporting engine. As part of their reporting process, they extract data from Axys and import it into a database that facilitates data quality reviews and enhanced PDF reporting via Crystal Reports.
Our system is normally connected to the file server that hosts Axys via gigabit network connections. A quick check of the system revealed that it was connected to a gigabit switch. We reviewed a few other things to make sure that there wasn’t a performance issue specific to our system. Everything we looked at pointed to a problem with their environment. I was fairly certain that, somewhere between our system and the file server hosting Axys, we were not connected at gigabit speed. We still needed to identify where the breakdown was occurring.
