Introducing the New House Account Dashboard
We are excited to announce the launch of our new House Account Dashboard. It’s a more direct and comprehensive view of your House Account activity (sometimes known as a Sundry or Billing Account).
Your new Altruist House Account Dashboard includes:
- Centralized access: View your House Account balance, fee billing revenue, and monthly statements anytime.
- Enhanced transaction monitoring: Easily filter transaction activity by type and time period for better oversight.
- Effortless management tools: Seamlessly link or edit banking information, initiate swift withdrawals, and export transaction data to a CSV file.
Forget the end-of-month rush for statements or the hassle of piecing together account activities for a complete view. Now, all this information is available at your fingertips. Simply access the House Account link from your advisor profile drawer whenever you log in to Altruist.
Easy fee billing CSV import
Whether you're new to Altruist or have been with us for some time, we hope you've had a chance to explore our integrated fee billing solution. Recognizing that transitioning to new billing software can disrupt your operational flow, we've introduced a feature to help make testing out Altruist’s fee billing software a bit easier. Our CSV ingestion workflow for fee billing enables you to export a CSV from your current billing system (like Black Diamond, Advyzon, Orion, and others) and directly import it to Altruist for processing. The format required for Altruist's fee billing ingestion is straightforward – a simple CSV file with columns for each account number and fee amount is all we need. Next time you process an invoice, try it and experience the simplicity. Remember, our fee billing software is free for accounts you custody with Altruist and only $1 per account per month above 100 accounts from third-party custodians like Schwab or Fidelity.
Simplify your invoice management with bulk downloads
We’re thrilled to share another key enhancement to our built-in billing software: the ability to download executed PDF invoices in bulk for any billing period. We’ve heard feedback from advisors that retrieving these invoices for a household or time period was a point of pain in the past–time-consuming and requiring individual downloads.
With our latest update, we’re responding directly to that feedback. You can now instantly download executed invoices in bulk for all or specific billing periods, including those prior to December 2023. You’ll notice a new Download icon on your fee billing pages, enabling the convenient download of a .zip file for the selected invoices.
Enhancements include:
- Household billing: Download all historical billing period executed invoices for a specific household.
- Fee Billing page: Obtain executed invoices for every household across all billing periods.
- Billing period selection: Access all executed invoices for every household for a selected billing period.
This upgrade streamlines the invoice retrieval process, saving time and enhancing user experience.
Suspended reporting alerts for better visibility into account rebalancing
Instant suspension reporting is a proactive in-app tool that notifies you immediately if there's a suspension in rebalancing any of your Altruist accounts. This feature addresses the critical question: "Why didn't my account rebalance?" You'll be alerted of issues stemming from various causes, including corporate actions, negative cash balances, pending positions, withdrawals, and more–along with an approximate time to resolve and whether any action is required from you.
Key features include:
- Instant notification: Designed for efficiency, an alert banner will be prominently displayed on your home page as soon as you log into Altruist and on the Accounts page within the platform.
- Detailed reporting: A CSV report of affected accounts will be available for download, allowing you to take necessary actions swiftly.
Feedback from one of our beta testing advisors: “They're very helpful! When I was doing massive account rebalances last month for almost all clients, the alerts helped me understand why some were taking longer.”
This new alerting system will improve your ability to manage accounts effectively and efficiently in scenarios when our automated rebalancing suspends trading. In addition to in-app alerts, we will be rolling out advisor email notifications shortly as an additional channel. To learn more about how to utilize this new tool, please visit our Help Center Article.
Expanded account types for non-profit entities and minors
Altruist continues broadening its account types, catering to diverse client needs. We're excited to introduce Minor IRA and Minor Roth IRA accounts–tax-efficient retirement savings options for minors with earned income. These accounts necessitate the appointment of a custodian to act on behalf of the minor. Minors are eligible to open these accounts up to the age of 18 in most states, with the age limit extending to 19 in Nebraska and 21 in Mississippi.
Additionally, we've launched a new category specifically for Non-profit organization accounts. This distinct classification of business accounts on Altruist enables you to effortlessly set up and manage investment accounts for Non-Profit entities, further enhancing our service offerings.
Additions to our Model Marketplace
We are thrilled to announce the latest additions to our Model Marketplace, further expanding our range of high-quality turnkey investment solutions for your clients. These latest offerings underscore our strengthened partnerships with esteemed model providers: Advisor 123, Alpha Architect, and Zacks.
Advisor123: Buffer Series, available at 24bps/yr
Embrace an actively managed ETF model uniquely crafted to hedge against the volatility of the US stock market. The Buffer Series utilizes equity buffered ETFs, each offering a distinct annual outcome. Its strategic composition is designed to provide returns that match the price return of the SPDR S&P 500 ETF up to a predetermined upside cap.
Alpha Architect: Equity Diversifier Series, available at 12bps/yr
Dive into a well-rounded diversification strategy at a reasonable cost. The Equity Diversifier Series integrates Alpha Architect's trio of core alternative strategies. Aimed at supplementing your equity portfolio beyond traditional bond allocations, this model streamlines portfolio management, freeing up your time to cultivate new client relationships.
Zacks+ ETF/SMA Series, available at 12bps/yr
Explore holistic portfolio solutions that pairs Zacks' proprietary ETFs with a suite of Separately Managed Accounts, without incurring additional fees. The Zacks+ allocation portfolios are meticulously formulated, drawing from the Zacks Investment Committee's asset allocation insights, and are actively managed year-round.
We invite you to explore these new models in our marketplace and see how they can enhance your clients' portfolios.
Other UX improvements you might have missed this month…
Balance Summary emails enhanced for clarity. Have you noticed the latest improvements in our Balance Summary emails? We've revamped the emails for better readability and utility in response to valuable feedback from advisors and clients. The most notable update is the removal of the percentage change calculation, coupled with a strategic reorganization of the report's layout for effortless scanning. This refinement ensures a more direct and digestible presentation of account fluctuations. Future plans include advancing the emails' customization options, allowing you to offer a more tailored experience to your clients.
Simplified functionality to fee billing settings. You can effortlessly manage fee billing options directly within the fee billing table for quick editing. This streamlined approach allows for easier exclusion of accounts from fee billing, swift adjustments to fee allocations, and seamless selection of payment accounts. The process is more intuitive, requiring fewer steps and a smoother experience in the Settings table for fee billing.
Updated secure file upload experience. We're pleased to announce the launch of an updated and secure file upload experience. As part of the change, we have a new form and URL that will allow us to efficiently direct your file submissions to the appropriate Altruist teams, leading to faster processing of your requests. We request all our customers to begin using this new form, which is linked here: www.altruist.com/file-upload.
