When six portfolio managers left their former firm and formed Palladium Registered Investment Advisors in 2008, it gave them the opportunity to break away from their paper-based office.

As Jennifer L. Litchfield, IT Manager at Palladium, remembers it, onboarding more than 1,000 accounts all at once left almost no time to learn a new electronic document management system in their new Norfolk, VA, offices—even as the need to implement one to ensure the breakaway firm could hit the ground running was clear.

“We added $1 billion in assets under management within three months, so we needed to have everything come together very quickly,” Litchfield recalls. Experiences from a prior firm had proven how cumbersome and costly paper was, from the staff effort to file and find information to the yearly accumulation of paper that took up valuable—and expensive—space. “We used to have six or seven employees spend two full weeks every year just merging each client’s file with the historical files, purging information where appropriate, and making room for the next year’s paperwork,” she says.

As owners of their new firm, Palladium’s principals knew that the right technology would make a long-term difference. “We wanted to start off our new company with smart decisions when it came to technology and electronic document management,” Litchfield says. “We made decisions that required upfront commitments of time and money, but produced ongoing savings of both.”

“We needed it to be user-friendly, customizable to our needs, and manageable on-site.”

The search for a document management system began with three criteria in mind—and one given: value. “We needed it to be user-friendly, customizable to our needs, and manageable on-site,” Litchfield explains. “Cost is always a consideration, so we were looking for a balance between use and cost while considering long-term scalability.”

Litchfield was referred to Laserfiche through the Advent Users Group, a resource made up of companies that use the portfolio management products from Advent Software. John Caso, solutions consultant at Laserfiche reseller One Source Document Solutions, Inc., showed Palladium how Laserfiche:

• Enabled users to process and store documents according to customizable template fields.
• Offered multiple searching options using those templates as well as full-text keyword searches.

Litchfield invited users from each department to the demonstration for their feedback. Each, she says, agreed Laserfiche was the most user-friendly solution they’d looked at.

“Managers wanted to be able to answer client questions over the phone, so they liked how we could set up the Laserfiche system to feel like their paper files, with the same tabs as the old paper files. The client service administrators really appreciated the advanced search capabilities that helped them find documents quickly and easily,” Litchfield recalls. “Other solutions seemed like they had a pretty big learning curve; Laserfiche is a product that you can open up and it’s immediately apparent how you use it.”

The advanced searching, Litchfield adds, would play a significant role from a compliance perspective as well, allowing easier auditing and monitoring of documents. “Our compliance officer really needs to be able to slice and dice information, and it was clear Laserfiche was the right choice. Plus everyone would be using the same system, on the same server, so everything’s in one place. From a technology, disaster recovery, and business continuity standpoint, this was important.”

Long-term, Litchfield and fellow staff agreed Laserfiche was flexible and scalable enough to grow with the firm. “We liked how we could set up the folder structure like our paper files and then change it at a later date,” she says. “We have ever-changing needs and it was important to have a product that could grow and change with us.”

Palladium purchased Laserfiche in May 2008; implementation took place over a two-day period. “We opened in late January, so by then we already had the bulk of the accounts on our portfolio accounting system,” Litchfield explains. “We had onsite support for those first two days to get Laserfiche up and running and train users and administrators. We didn’t have a backlog of information, so that helped.

“We just set the system up, set up individual scanners and got the users trained so that they could start working in the system right away,” she adds.

Improving the Day-to Day, Keeping Pace with Compliance

Since then, Litchfield says, Laserfiche has been instrumental in streamlining the day-to-day operations of the firm. “I hear all the time from our client service administrators how much they love using Laserfiche as opposed to the old way of filing paperwork. Every day, they scan all account documents into the system so all the original paperwork and correspondence is in a single location. We don’t have to worry about the storage space and cost for paper documents, or the annual clean up and purging of those documents,” she explains.

“Besides our client folders, we also maintain other folders within Laserfiche with information that cannot be changed, including marketing and compliance folders. Because we store copies of custodial statements in Laserfiche, we don’t have to keep those hard copies onsite. The only hard copies we keep are our original signed agreements,” she adds. “Our onsite storage is minimal.”

In the future, Litchfield says the firm is looking forward to the advanced search functionality that will come with upgrading to Laserfiche 8. “Everything is changing in our industry, and compliance is such a huge part of that,” she says. “Our compliance officer is one of our biggest Laserfiche users. Because she needs to be able to search for multiple criteria, being able to search throughout the file structures , as well as the further capabilities that are available with upgrading to Laserfiche 8, will be a big step forward for compliance.

“We use Laserfiche a lot for in-house verification, so having what we call that ‘wildcard’ capability to search according to a manager’s code, that’s a great oversight tool for auditing,” Litchfield adds. “Also, if we have auditors in house, we need to be able to get information to them immediately—not in three days or four days. Having these features available shows us that Laserfiche is keeping an eye on the changing environment and is adapting to keep pace.”

Along with their upgrade to Laserfiche 8, the firm is investigating implementing Workflow business process management. “We’d love to automate a lot of our processes that cross departments. Where we currently use Outlook or walk paper around, each person could sign off on a section of a document in the workflow and automatically the next person would get an e-mail saying it’s ready for them. We could move paperwork through much more effectively and efficiently,” Litchfield says.

“The ability to integrate [Laserfiche] with our portfolio management software is a big step forward. This will make the opening of new accounts a single point of entry, where fields will be populated automatically directly to Laserfiche. Additionally, allowing us to monitor personal trading within the firm from a compliance standpoint is another improvement. Automating that process will save time and money,” she adds.

July 30th, 2010 by Hobey Echlin

Established in 1941, the Morehead Group is a financial services firm providing strategic insurance solutions for affluent individuals and families. Located in Charlotte, NC, the firm has a team of three principals and seven associates who provide everything from underwriting and policy evaluation to client services and administration. Kenneth Samuelson, one of the firm’s principals, brings over twenty years of experience in the financial services industry to his clients. With this experience, Samuelson places an emphasis on technology to get the maximum potential out of his operations. “I refer to it as tightening the bolts,” he says. “We need to get as much as we can out of our technology investments and make our operations faster and more efficient—and make our staff happier.”

It was this need to improve operational efficiency that led the Morehead Group to purchase a Laserfiche enterprise content management solution. Staff used college interns and a part-time staff member to scan all existing files into the system. “It did not take us nearly as long as we’d projected,” says Client Services Specialist Kris Balot. “We tailored our filing structure in Laserfiche to match how we’d kept our documents in paper format, which was in chronological order by policy.” Documents were further separated by document type, including policies, confirmations, legal, trust, statements, and pre-issue/underwriting.

Balot believes strongly that the success of the Morehead Group’s Laserfiche system is due to their strong partnership with their reseller, ADI-Laserfiche, who worked with the firm from the beginning to develop their filing system and integrate Laserfiche into daily operations. “Their support has been exceptional and unparalleled,” she says.

It’s this integration into daily operations that has resulted in the “tightening the bolts” that Samuelson emphasizes. These faster and more efficient operations have given way to an impressive ROI—and when it comes to the way things work at the Morehead Group, Balot outlines six distinct areas where Laserfiche increases the value of operations:

• Rent savings. “Previously, we had 12 filing cabinets stored in a room the size of our conference room,” Balot says. “Paying rent on space you can’t use is a waste of money. With Laserfiche, we were able to eliminate the filing room and turn it into two offices. The conversion of the space has paid for our entire investment in Laserfiche many times over.”
• Customer service improvements. “When a client calls, I pull up their Laserfiche documents on one screen and our contact information in Smart Office, our CRM, on another. Now I have all their information instantly available, so I don’t have to make them wait for a call back while I look for the answer to their question,” Balot says.
• Improved referrals. The Morehead Group’s client base is built on referrals from attorneys, accountants and other local professionals. Improved customer service doesn’t just build rapport with clients, but also with these outside professionals. “It’s amazing how many times we have more information on a client than their attorney or accountant,” Balot says. “In one case, the trustee did not even have a copy of the trust document, but because we had it in Laserfiche, I could e-mail it to him while we were still on the phone.”
• Operational cost savings. Balot outlines other areas where the firm has saved money thanks to Laserfiche, including paper, printing, postage and office supplies. “In a paper world, if someone requested that we send them information, we would have to pull their file, make a copy of the documents and then either mail or fax them,” Balot remembers. “Today, we simply e-mail the document directly to the client, right from Laserfiche, in a matter of seconds.”
• Easier audits. “I was getting ready to go on vacation. The day before my plane left, we had an NFPSI audit,” Balot explains. “When the compliance officer arrived, I sat them down with Laserfiche and let them search for what they needed. They had their notebook with their checklist, and for each item that was on their checklist, they found the corresponding document in Laserfiche. They were really pleased with our organization, because the entire examination only took about two hours!”
• Simplified—yet stronger—security. Through Laserfiche security, documents have built-in protection that meets requirements for HIPAA, Regulation S-P and both SEC 17a-4 and FINRA requirements. Document access is easily controlled, allowing compliance to just get the documents they need, and also prevents unauthorized access to client information.

According to Balot, Laserfiche has become an integral part of daily operations. “It’s more than just a central filing cabinet,” she says. “It’s the central repository for all our current work activities, including underwriting and client service. We use Laserfiche for all stages of the document’s life cycle, and it allows for several people to work on the same file at the same time—something you can’t do with paper.

“Laserfiche’s capabilities extend far beyond meeting the needs of our back office staff. Our principals and sales reps also have immediate access to client documents,” she adds.

But when it comes down to it, for Balot, the real value of Laserfiche is simple. “Laserfiche is the number one best improvement we have made in technology. It has had the biggest and most successful impact on our operations over the past six years, especially when it comes to ROI.”

February 24th, 2010 by Melissa Henley

If you’ve ever enrolled in an employer-sponsored voluntary insurance program, you know all about the stacks of paper that come with. It’s easy then to imagine the massive volume of paperwork that companies such as Seattle, WA-based Administrative Systems, Inc. (ASI) process behind the scenes. As a voluntary benefits administration firm, ASI handles thousands of documents every day for employers, carriers and other employee benefit providers. And now, thanks to their Laserfiche system, ASI staff are enjoying a few benefits of their own—reduced processing times, simplified compliance and faster access to information.

ASI has long recognized the business benefits of technology, having installed a competing document management system in 2001 to manage insurance applications. According to Vice President J.T. Perry, the old system performed admirably, but lacked the functionality to support future business growth. “At first,” he says, “we just wanted to image insurance applications and index them by the applicants’ account numbers. Our previous system worked fine for that, but it didn’t promote extra efficiency.”

Indeed, just inputting information into the system required two full-time staff members, devoted to scanning documents one at a time. Furthermore, ASI anticipated the need to assign additional metadata to documents, in case a staff member didn’t have an applicant’s account number handy. “We couldn’t tag documents with information like the applicant’s name or which agent signed them up,” Perry explains. “This restricted search capabilities and hindered development of any kind of workflow automation.”

The problems weren’t limited to inefficiency, either. “Our old system didn’t have very many built-in compliance features, because it was developed before Sarbanes-Oxley, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and other regulations were enacted,” Perry adds.

Ultimately, compliance was the impetus for switching to Laserfiche. After three months of due diligence failed to yield any results, ASI found their answer close to home. ”Our sister corporation, NFP Securities, Inc., has a large Laserfiche installation, and they face many of the same compliance issues as us,” Perry says. “They suggested we take a closer look at Laserfiche, because it works so well for them. We measured Laserfiche against many of the same compliance metrics that NFP uses, and it stood up better than anything we’d seen.”

While some first-time Laserfiche users need time to warm up to their new systems, Perry did so without hesitation—and so did ASI staff. Laserfiche brought them many new features, such as redaction tools, e-mailing directly from Laserfiche and drag-and-drop e-mail archival. “Previously,” Perry says, “we had to print e-mails, then scan them back in—which is really pretty silly, when you think about it.”

In addition to eliminating unnecessary scanning, ASI have made the remaining scanning much more efficient by using Quick Fields to automatically index imaged insurance applications. Staff simply sort documents by type, then insert separator sheets between the document stacks before loading them into the scanner. Using Zone OCR, Quick Fields reads the contents of the separator sheet to determine where to index the scanned documents.

Since the company’s founding in 1990, ASI’s proprietary software systems have become the backbone of their administrative services—and integration with Laserfiche has only made them more powerful. Because most insurance applications are handwritten, staff must read their contents and apply metadata manually. But now, when they enter information into their primary insurance software, the integration automatically applies that information to newly-scanned documents as Laserfiche template fields. This eliminates the need to enter the same information twice and gives staff more ways to search for the documents they need.

It’s a fairly simple integration—and such simplicity is part of what makes Laserfiche so attractive to ASI’s IT department. “Laserfiche is very powerful,” Perry says, “but it’s also very simple, from both a user and a technical perspective. We only needed six or seven hours to complete the integration. A colleague and I sat down and knocked it out—it was amazing.” Perry looks forward to further integrating the two systems so that staff can search the Laserfiche repository from their primary-use applications.

They’ll also use Workflow to automate their business processes—which would have been next to impossible with their old software. “Currently,“ says Perry, “after data entry’s complete, documents go right to their final destination. We’ll configure Workflow to route the new documents into our quality assurance process first.” ASI’s Laserfiche reseller has helped them set up the workflow, which they’ll enter into production within the next six months.

Because Quick Fields captures documents to the Laserfiche repository right away, staff can provide more responsive client service. As Perry explains: “If an insurance agent comes in and asks, ‘Where is my application in the process?’, we can tell them right away. Before Laserfiche, staff literally ran around looking through stacks of newly received documents.”

“Laserfiche has given us everything we need. It’s simple, it’s powerful and it’s secure.”

Members of the insurance industry are subject to rigorous audits from a variety of governing organizations, and ASI is no exception. That’s why Audit Trail plays such a big role in their compliance strategy. “We audit just about everything,” Perry says, “so that we can prove to auditors that we’re doing things right.” In addition to establishing granular security measures to prevent document deletion, ASI also meets recordkeeping requirements by publishing archived documents to read-only media using Laserfiche Plus.

Laserfiche administrative reporting tools also prove useful for tracking staff activity, through each stage of application processing. Moreover, ASI have started monitoring efficiency gains by tracking how many checks they process daily. While these metrics have only been in place for a short while, early returns indicate that Laserfiche has provided an excellent ROI. A part-time staff member now handles the scanning that formerly required two full-time employees. In labor costs alone, ASI have nearly recouped their Laserfiche investment, and Perry says they’ll do so completely within the year.

Perry projects further system expansion in the near future. The premiums accounting department is starting to process checks and payment stubs using Laserfiche, and Perry is interested in Checkmation, the electronic check processing add-on to Laserfiche that’s available from the Professional Developer Partnership program. Eventually, they’d like to submit checks to the bank electronically. And the policy issuing and fulfillment department is eager to automate the processes of creating and distributing those familiar policy information packets.

In the meantime, though, Perry and company are content with the new efficiency that Laserfiche has brought. “Laserfiche has given us everything we need,” he says. “It’s simple, it’s powerful and it’s secure.”

January 26th, 2010

When we last heard from Joseph Salpietro, President and CEO of Xpyria Investment Advisors, he was looking forward to implementing Workflow to streamline his Firm’s repetitive work processes. As one of the first Avante customers in the financial services industry, one of the reasons Salpietro chose Avante was because of its built-in business process management (BPM) functionality.

“A lot of people think if you have an office in a metropolitan city that the highest cost to a business is rent, it’s not. It’s the people we employ. So I’d rather have them doing mission-critical, profitable work.”

For Pittsburgh, PA-based Xpyria Investment Advisors, Inc., Laserfiche has already helped the Firm minimize labor costs by helping existing staff use their time more effectively. The Firm has grown to ten full-time employees since being incorporated in 1990, and now manages approximately $400 million in assets with clients in 14 states and three countries.

But before Xpyria could begin using Workflow functionality to automate paper- and labor-intensive business processes, they had to start by eliminating inefficiency from their daily tasks. So Salpietro and his Firm began implementation by working with their Laserfiche reseller, One Source/ADI, to integrate Laserfiche with Advent Axys, the Firm’s asset management platform, and Junxure, the Firm’s customer relationship management (CRM) solution.

A trading applet pulls information directly from Axys to automatically populate the trading sheet, which saves time and prevents errors. And by integrating Laserfiche with Junxure, when a client calls, staff are able to access all related client documents stored in Laserfiche from the client’s record in Junxure—so they can answer customer inquiries instantly. “I’m not sure you can put a price tag on the efficiency gains,” Salpietro says. “We can access information in one or two keystrokes, which creates more time for mission-critical investment research—which ultimately benefits the client and our performance.”

Since the beginning of the year, Xpyria has focused on implementing Avante’s BPM functionality. Laserfiche Workflow, included in the Avante system, promotes constant productivity with rules-based document routing, e-mail notification and activity monitoring.

“Our trading process used to be paper and time intensive,” Salpietro says. “Each trade involved multiple pages that needed to be circulated to six people in the office for processing and approvals, but you never knew exactly who had it or where it was In the process.

“It was organized chaos,” he adds. “With Workflow, we can push this document in a very systematic fashion to the people who are required to sign off at various stages of the process.” In fact, if anyone in the workflow process is out on vacation or otherwise unavailable, Workflow automatically redirects the document to the appropriate on-duty personnel. Anyone can check the status of a trade by finding it in Laserfiche, and, if there’s a bottleneck, it’s easy to identify. Trades are automatically uploaded as a .csv file for final processing with the custodian and completed trades are stored in Laserfiche.

“Automating the trading process has given us better control, because we know exactly where the trade is in the approval process. Also, there are fewer data entry errors, because the trade sheet only needs to be keyed once during the process,” Salpietro says.

And now, the trading process isn’t just automated—it’s also more secure, because it relies on electronic signatures. “Electronic signatures are more secure than handwritten ones, because they are password protected, ” Salpietro adds.

Once staff at Xpyria completed the Workflow automation for its trading process, they moved on to the Firm’s “Chron (chronological) folders,” folders the firm uses to keep a record of all activity on a client’s accounts. “These folders need to be reviewed each week, and we used to physically print out or copy every piece of paper coming or going,” Salpietro remembers. “We’d put it in the Chron folder and that would get passed from associate to associate, and they’d check off that they’d reviewed it.”

Now, thanks to Avante’s BPM functionality, that process happens automatically. All relevant documents are automatically extracted from the Laserfiche repository and are put into an electronic Chron folder. The folders are then pushed out to all the associates simultaneously, so they all can review it when they have time. Salpietro estimates that Xpyria has saved over $4,000 annually in hard costs and 72 hours of labor by automating the Chron-folder process.

And he believes Laserfiche has helped Xpyria save tens of thousands of printed pages per year. “We walk around less and we push around less paper,” Salpietro says. “We find information more quickly.

“We used to print over 30,000 pages a year just for this one [Chron] process,” he adds. “We’re saving on paper, printing supplies, and service related to wear and tear on our office equipment.”

Xpyria doesn’t plan to stop there. It plans to implement Laserfiche Quick Fields to automatically index and file quarterly reports, correspondence and other client mailings, saving the administrative time spent filing electronic documents after they’re scanned. “While the cost savings will be nominal—we estimate them to be less than $400 a year—the automation will eliminate the possibility of filing errors and future service delays,” Salpietro says. “Our plan is to get Quick Fields up and running before the end of 2009.”

Salpietro encourages more firms to investigate BPM solutions like Avante. “If a firm has a process that involves multiple touches, multiple points of entry, and time sensitivity, then Avante’s workflow capability is a viable solution to streamline the process and gain better control,” he says.

“I would recommend that anyone considering Avante assign an internal project manager to improve the probability of benefiting by better matching your firm needs to the software’s capabilities. And having a committed reseller that understands the financial services industry, like One Source/ADI, is also recommended,” Salpietro concludes.

August 17th, 2009 by Melissa Henley

“If financial advisors aren’t talking to people, they’re not making money,” says Paul Murphy, National Sales Director at Spire Investment Partners, LLC. Murphy’s problem was that his top earners were spending too much time staying on top of the paperwork that comes with handling over $1 billion in client assets, which he expects to at least double this year. “It’s the regulators. It’s the auditors. The paper starts to pile up from the first client meeting and all the way through the process,” he says. 

For Murphy, his previous experience integrating two large broker-dealers had shown how the right technology ultimately leads to success. “If you want to succeed in this business, you’ve got to get great technology,” he says. “Using technology not only defensively, but offensively, is very near and dear to my heart.”

Murphy and Phillip Fournier, Spire’s Chief Operating Officer, went on the offensive and decided to invest in a document management system. They chose Laserfiche not just to manage paper, but also as a tool to cut costs and increase services—which would eventually help recruit both clients and advisors. 

Murphy says that, at first, just the idea of a new system and way of doing things intimidated the firm’s advisors. “How many people have said ‘paperless’ in front of advisors and had them say, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me’? That’s where we started,” he admits. 

But, once apprehensive advisors, and more importantly, their sales and service assistants, began using Laserfiche and saw how easy and efficient it was, implementation and initial roll-out went smoothly. 

National Sales Director Paul Murphy 

Murphy credits the training his staff received from the firm’s Laserfiche reseller, One Source/ADI, for easing the implementation process. “I can’t say enough good things about the training. The results are great.” In the 18 months since the firm implemented Laserfiche, Spire has scanned documents from approximately 80% of their offices – with nearly all of their advisors and staff using the system regularly. 

“The goal,” says Murphy, “is to apply technology to make work easier. Efficient process flow obviously increases efficiency. If everyone is more efficient, they’re happier. If they’re happier, they’re more productive. If they’re more productive, you’re more profitable.” 

With Laserfiche, Murphy immediately noticed that Service Assistants and back office personnel were able to respond to client inquiries much more efficiently. Laserfiche is the way to make them more productive,” says Murphy. “We’re very happy that our staff is better able to process workflow and therefore better able to support our Consultants.” 

And the benefits extend to firm staff preparing for audits. Instead of digging through storage boxes and file cabinets for a few days, Spire staff are able to find information in seconds. Laserfiche also helps the firm comply with SEC requirements, as they use Audit Trail to record any and all transactions and communications that take place in the Laserfiche repository. 

“We’ve already been through an SEC audit with Laserfiche in place,” says Murphy. “And it was a dream.” 

The Power of Recruiting with Technology 

In addition to saving filing time and storage space, Spire Investment Partners found a unique way to use Laserfiche: to recruit new advisors. When sitting down with a broker who is considering going independent, Murphy demonstrates Spire’s efficiency with Laserfiche, to everyone’s amazement. “The power of having this technology is just overwhelming. It’s been an absolutely terrific resource for us,” he says. 

Murphy adds that having a virtual office capability is a huge recruiting advantage. “It increases the value of your company and makes it that much more attractive.” According to Murphy, the advisors he’s demonstrated Laserfiche for are astounded at how easily it streamlines account opening, compliance review, archiving and regulatory processes. “It means we have a tremendous advantage,” he says. “Laserfiche is yet another way that we differentiate ourselves from our competitors.” 

For advisors who are looking to move to the independent space, Murphy points out the advantages smaller firms with Laserfiche have over larger firms, including increased customer service and satisfaction. “Moving assets to the smaller, more nimble, more agile independent space can deliver every investment solution needed,” says Murphy. “ In our case, the client will have access to better, faster, and more updated technology that allows you to run your business better and faster with increased efficiency.” 

For advisors who are considering going independent, or for broker-dealers who are investigating the possibilities of technology to enhance services and ultimately recruiting, Murphy suggests taking a look at the white papers and case studies available on the Laserfiche Website. For recruiting, he also suggests highlighting the increased efficiency, increased profitability, and the ease of complying with regulations that Laserfiche brings—and that makes the whole process easier. “Ultimately, it’s a profitable transaction. It’s a modest capital investment over a long-term boost, which also keeps you on the straight and narrow when it comes to regulatory issues.” 

Murphy offers a simple conclusion. “You can’t recruit in this day and age without technology.” 

April 21st, 2009

Many financial advisors consider technology an expense, no matter how necessary. Joseph Salpietro of Xpyria Investment Advisors felt the same way, until he came to a crucial realization.

“We always figured we’d have to hire more people to create the efficiency we needed,” he says. “We’d talked about needing two or three administrators over the next five or so years at a cost of, say, $30,000-40,000 each. And when we found out that we didn’t have to hire those people to help us with the paper chase—well, that’s a smart business decision.”

Pittsburgh, PA-based Xpyria had grown to ten full-time employees and two adjunct professionals since being incorporated in 1990. After joining the firm in 1996, Salpietro now serves as Xpyria’s president and CEO. The firm now manages approximately $400 million in assets for 140 clients in 14 states and three countries, providing investment and supervisory services to primarily institutional clients and high-net worth individuals.

Salpietro had been aware of the need for Xpyria to implement a document management solution since becoming an owner eight years ago. “It was always on our radar, but was never within reach,” he remembers. “But as our business evolved, it became more and more reasonable to pursue.”

Once faced with hiring more staff members to keep up with the paper chase, he realized Xpyria could simply use Laserfiche. “The technology was there, the expertise was there and it was applicable to our industry and the way we did business,” he says.

Xpyria needed Laserfiche to do two things. First, integrate with Advent Axys, the firm’s asset management platform, and Junxure, the firm’s customer relationship management (CRM) solution. Secondly, Laserfiche had to help Salpietro’s team minimize labor costs and maximize leverage, because while managing client records and documenting phone calls and e-mails were important, he didn’t want to pay his top earners to do it. “I always want to have talented people doing mission-critical, profitable work. What I don’t want to do is pay someone top dollar to file documents.”

Or spend all their time implementing new software.

When Salpietro and the Xpyria team investigated a competing document management system, they were disconcerted with the amount of effort staff would have to expend on developing the system. But once they met their Laserfiche reseller, One Source/ADI, they realized that they could turn most of their system’s development over to the experts.

President and CEO of Xpyria Investment Advisors, Joe Salpietro 

“We were trying to figure out how to streamline our file trees, and they said, ‘Let us take a crack at it based on what we know about your industry and then you look at it.’ That’s what we needed,” Salpietro says. “Thanks to them, we only have one person functioning as a project manager instead of 10. I don’t want 10 people implementing Laserfiche—I want 10 people educated on Laserfiche and using Laserfiche, but I want them focused on our business, not on the technology behind it.

“Having a partner to ease the pain of implementation, especially one who understood our industry, was key, because the reality is that without a good service partner, things can fall apart very quickly,” he adds.

Salpietro worked with One Source/ADI, the firm’s reseller, to integrate Laserfiche, Junxure and Axys so staff could immediately improve client service. The results, he says, were instantaneous. “When we’re servicing our clients, I can access information in one or two keystrokes. I can retrieve correspondence from two years ago without moving from my desk,” he says. “And that just creates more time for me to handle additional client research, which ultimately helps the client and our performance.”

Salpietro also realized the firm’s paper storage would still be an issue, especially with respect to meeting SEC requirements. With One Source/ADI’s experience and Laserfiche’s reputation in the financial services industry, he felt confident that the firm’s Laserfiche solution would meet, if not exceed, SEC requirements. “I really didn’t want to spend too much grey matter figuring out what the SEC wanted and didn’t want in a technology solution.

“What Laserfiche has afforded us is the confidence that I’d have an advantage in audit time, when it next comes around,” he continues. “Compliance has always been a major challenge, but it’s become far more intense in the last five years. When the SEC used to come in 10 years ago, we’d pull the boxes they were looking for, and they had to spend the time going through the boxes. Now, they call you a week or two before they show up and ask for the specific information they want to see in electronic form. Everything else was swept to the sidelines for a week or two until we found everything. We didn’t want to go through that anymore.”

The SEC also requires the firm to store documents for three years on-site and then an additional four-to-ten years (depending on document type) off-site. “We’d ship stuff off to cold storage, but because you’re charged by the square foot, as you accumulate more and more documents, it gets pretty pricey,” Salpietro says. How pricey? “We were indirectly involved in litigation, where our records were subpoenaed by court order for another firm who was being sued, and it cost us over $1,500 to retrieve those documents—and we weren’t even a party to the case.”

Once Laserfiche was up and running, the firm started with day-forward scanning, and then moved on to capturing the three years’ worth of documents stored on-site. “I don’t have to send another box off-site for storage,” he says. “And it’s not just one box a year, it’s dozens of boxes. And that’s a big cost that’s going to go away.”

For 2009, Salpietro’s looking forward to implementing Workflow and Quick Fields to further streamline the firm’s repetitive work processes. “Eliminating the highest cost to my firm has never been my rent,” he says. “A lot of people think if you have an office in a metropolitan city, the highest cost to a business is infrastructure, and in that regard, it’s not. It’s the people I employ. So I’d rather have them doing mission-critical, profitable work.”

For firms considering implementing document management technology, Salpietro stresses the importance of choosing a quality local service provider to the success of his firm’s implementation.

“The lesson I’ve learned is that it’s all about the integrity of the organization you’re working with. And we’ve gotten the support we need from both our reseller and from Laserfiche,” he says. “The long term outcome will be just what we want.”

February 24th, 2009 by Melissa Henley

When it comes to their firm’s infrastructure, many financial advisors rely on the same paper files they’ve been using since they joined the industry. For some advisors, letting go of their paper is an unfathomable hurdle.

But other advisors—and their firms—recognize the benefits of document management. From immediately eliminating clutter to long-term benefits such as saving time, space and money, the return on investment with document management is quite impressive.

Stage 2 Planning Partners is one of those innovative firms achieving their goals thanks to document management. Founded by Principal Josh Patrick in 1997, the firm offers wealth management services for owners of closely held businesses, individuals and groups, focusing on a variety of strategic and financial issues.

“As a business owner myself, I understand the issues that are important to owners of private firms,” Patrick says. “So when I founded my own firm, I used my thirty years of experience as a business owner to build a successful wealth management and business consulting firm.”

And when it came to growing that success, Patrick knew that by utilizing technology, he’d be able to help his staff do more, more efficiently. “We chose Laserfiche because it’s really the acknowledged leader in document management for financial planners. Also, our broker-dealer, National Financial Partners, uses Laserfiche, and they highly recommend it.”

Prinicipal Josh Patrick 

Yet while Patrick knew eliminating paperwork would bring benefits to his staff’s daily work processes, there was an even more simple reason for choosing Laserfiche: managing the firm’s growth, both current and planned.

“When we installed Laserfiche, we were in the middle of moving offices and adding additional reps to our staff,” Client Service Specialist Melissa Provost remembers. “With this growth came additional clients’ records to manage. As any financial planner can tell you, misfiling is always an issue, no matter how many clients you have. But of course the more clients you have, the more documents you have the chance to misfile.”

Provost, who joined the firm in 2001, has never known a workday without Laserfiche. “We installed Laserfiche two weeks after I started, so Laserfiche and I started at the same time,” she says. “I’m not sure that I’d want to know what things would be like without it.”

Provost remembers that when the firm installed their Laserfiche system, staff were immediately able to get up and running because installation and training were done much more quickly than she expected. “Within a day and a half, our system was ready to go. The first day was installation, and half of the second was training,” Provost says. “It really has to do with the fact that Laserfiche is so easy to learn.

“Recently, we hired a new part-time employee, and she caught right on,” she adds. “That really says something about how easy to use Laserfiche is, that even a part-time employee can quickly get up to speed with the system.”

Client Service Specialist Melissa Provost 

Not only does Laserfiche require minimal resources to set up and learn, it also requires minimal resources to maintain. “If we have any problems with Laserfiche, I can usually take care of it myself,” Provost says. “I set up and manage accounts for our reps, so we don’t have to have onsite IT personnel to manage the system. If any major problem arises —which is a true rarity—then our reseller, One Source/ADI, takes care of it for us.”

For Provost, who provides support for the advisors at Stage 2 Planning, Laserfiche made everyday work processes much easier. “We scan everything into Laserfiche, from all client and compliance files to accounts receivable and accounts payable documents. Not only are documents easier to find in Laserfiche, they’re never misfiled,” she says.

And when home office staff or clients call looking for a document, Laserfiche provides a quick and easy solution to getting it to them. “One of the best things about Laserfiche is the e-mail feature,” Provost adds. “Instead of printing and then faxing or mailing a document, we just e-mail it right from Laserfiche—which saves both time and money.”

“What’s really surprising is how much time Laserfiche saves me. I expected Laserfiche to make things more efficient—but not nearly to the degree it has.”

When it comes to saving time and money, Laserfiche has definitely lived up to expectations. Before installing Laserfiche, the firm had six large file cabinets to store client and compliance files. But now, there aren’t any file cabinets anywhere in the office, which was a huge money saver when it came to the company’s move to a new office. And the benefits don’t stop there.

“We recently had a part-time employee leave the company,” Provost says, “but thanks to Laserfiche, there wasn’t a critical need to go out and hire a replacement right away. Because we’re able to work so much more efficiently, we can do more in a day, so we were able to cover the extra workload while we took our time hiring the right person.”

Also, Laserfiche has paid off in faster, easier audits for the firm’s staff. Provost estimates that their last broker-dealer compliance audit went significantly faster than usual, all thanks to Laserfiche.

“During our last audit, instead of the auditor requesting documents and sitting and waiting while we found them, we gave them a desktop computer logged into Laserfiche,” she says. “We can easily search for any document they’d like to see, and bring it up almost instantaneously for them to look at right there on the computer.

“Normally, our audits last from about 8:30 A.M. until 12:00 P.M.,” Provost adds. “But with Laserfiche, we were done and the auditor was out the door by 10:30 A.M.”

Stage 2 Planning staff have realized what many Laserfiche users ultimately discover: that getting rid of paper is only the start of the benefits Laserfiche can bring. From faster audits to savings on office supplies and staffing, once Laserfiche becomes a part of daily business processes, the possibilities for saving time and money are nearly endless.

“While I love that Laserfiche got rid of the stacks of files I had to search through to find things, what really surprised me is how much time Laserfiche saves me,” Provost says. “I expected Laserfiche to make things more efficient—but not nearly to the degree it has.”

November 18th, 2008 by Melissa Henley

Bingham and Hensley, Inc., a certified financial planning organization in Kingsport, TN, had serious problems with its existing document management system and needed a solution.

“We are in our files on a daily basis, and there was no way to easily see the individual files for any given client, and no way to easily separate non-qualified and qualified life insurance files, as dictated by regulations,” says Jeff Bingham. “We were and are solely dedicated to going paperless, but our system was not living up to expectations and was not giving us the solution that we needed.”

Decision makers at Bingham and Hensley became fans of Laserfiche® the minute they saw that its flexible file folder structure could emulate their existing filing system yet still help them solve the problems they faced. They could also store both archival and current client records in the Laserfiche repository, and electronic annotation tools would enable them to make comments on documents and files, just as they would add handwritten notes to paper-bound client files.

In addition to scanning paper documents into the Laserfiche repository, Bingham and Hensley stores proposal records there as well. Now, when they need a specific proposal that was created using one of their other financial planning applications, they can easily access the proposal from a central location—the client’s file in Laserfiche.

Bingham and Hensley’s short term goal was to eliminate their numerous file cabinets and storage boxes. Their long-term goal is to provide more efficient service to their clients, to spend less time looking for files and to more easily comply with government and industry regulations.

“Our Laserfiche reseller took the time to learn our filing system, to understand our specific needs and to assist us in developing an implementation plan that will enable us to realize our goals,” Bingham explains. “Without a doubt, that is one of the keys to successfully ‘going paperless’ in the financial services industry.”

September 19th, 2008

“He was amazed,” reports John Caso of Alternative Data Imaging of Johnson City, TN, the Laserfiche Value Added Reseller who implemented Laserfiche for Bingham and Hensley early this year. “He was truly impressed with how Laserfiche was improving productivity at Bingham and Hensley.”

Working closely with NFP, Caso and Alternative Data Imaging are now immersed in a phased implementation of Laserfiche United that will eventually touch every level of operations, including member firms. “We are completing the initial phase, which has focused on establishing the basic document imaging and scanning program,” Caso reports. “We are building NFP’s implementation of the Workflow Suite and will proceed methodically to put it into effect.”

In another phase of its Laserfiche implementation, NFP plans to add a Laserfiche WebLink-based repository to its password-protected website to provide member firms with searchable access to support documentation.

For the long term, NFP hopes to be dealing as paperlessly as possible with its member firms down the line, and with the brokerage houses and insurance companies that they work with up the line.

A subsidiary of New York City-based National Financial Partners, NFP and its member firms offer financial services, including financial advice and investment and insurance products, to individuals and corporations.

September 19th, 2008