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August 01, 2004 at 04:00 AM
Asking which financial planning software is best may be the wrong question. What you should ask is, “Which is best for me?” Fortunately, you can download the demo versions from planning software vendors to see which ones make the most sense for your practice.
Naomi Scrivener runs BackOffice Solutions in Georgetown, Texas, a service bureau for Money Tree, NaviPlan, and MoneyGuide Pro (a Web-based planning application). A planner who did not like the sales side of the industry, she started a business serving fee-only planners by doing the dirty work in planning software: inputting data, running reports, and finding the best planning strategies for planners to deliver to their clients. To run the outsourcing service successfully, Scrivener has had to learn about a range of products, and she says that “you need to match the software with your type of planning.”
For instance, the most widely used comprehensive planning software is NaviPlan Extended. However, some planners give up on it because it demands so much data entry. “If you’re only doing three or four comprehensive plans a year,” Scrivener says, “you may actually forget how to use the more complex parts of Extended between plans.” NaviPlan CEO Mark Evans says the new, browser-based version of Extended attempts to smooth out the data demand on users by allowing the planner to turn off some components for a client. But if you are a detail maven who wants every bell and whistle and tax twist covered in a 20–year, cash-flow-based plan, Extended is probably right for you.
Financial Profiles Professional lags in developing a Web-based version. But it sounds like it is adding the functionality to compete with NaviPlan Extended at the detailed cash-flow level. Still, its marketing director echoes the need for using the right tool for a job. “You can start a plan in Forecaster, our goals-based program, with less data output, and then do more work on it in Professional as the client grows,” says VP Charlie Davidson. “As we made our Professional program able to handle more complexity, high-end planners liked it but some of our customers complained that it was too complex, which is why we developed Forecaster.”
