5 FREE apps every advisor should know about

Regardless of whether you choose Apple’s iPad, Microsoft’s Surface or another device, buying a tablet is a hefty investment. Before you sink more money into your new gadget, check out our selection of free apps, which run the gamut from a calendar manager that allows clients to schedule their own appointments to an analytics calculator that gives detailed data on your website traffic.

For more app advice, check out the rest of our series:

3 classic tech tools

3 apps that let you work from anywhere

5 apps for a paperless (or paper-light) office

5 social media apps that make networking easy

4 apps for portfolio analysis

1. inStream.

Developed by Alex Murguia, a principal at McLean Asset Management in Virginia, this new wealth management/financial planning software (instreamwealth.com) is nothing less than groundbreaking, according to Gluck, who calls it “the most innovative professional wealth management software of the past decade.” Instead of financial plans gathering dust on a shelf between annual updates, the dashboard-based inStream system constantly monitors a plan’s moving parts, from mortgage rates to insurance policies to equity portfolios and beyond, providing prompts to the advisor when one of those parts needs revisiting. A term life policy about to expire? inStream lets the advisor know. And, notes Gluck, it even connects advisors to specific products to fill such a need via a marketplace or “suggestion engine.”