myprosperity Takes on Xerocon 2023 in Sydney: Dive into the Future of Accounting and Innovation

In an ever-evolving digital landscape, there are a few events that truly encapsulate the spirit of innovation, community, and progress.

Among these, Xerocon holds a special place, serving as a vibrant confluence of tech gurus, accounting professionals, and visionaries. This year, myprosperity is thrilled to mark its presence at Xerocon 2023 in Sydney, and we can’t wait to immerse ourselves in the expansive spree of insights, discussions, and connections that this event promises.

Symphony of Community and Collaboration

Xerocon is not merely an event; it’s a movement.

At its heart, it revolves around the idea of building and strengthening the community. This ethos resonates deeply with us. We’ve always believed in the power of collaboration, in bringing together different minds and ideas to sculpt solutions that are not just functional but revolutionary.

myprosperity started as a platform to help put your client in the centre-focus of their life. Surrounding them with all the data and reference points they need to improve their wealth and well-being.

Along the way, we’ve built out and added more tools that help you collaborate with your client more efficiently, whilst also ensuring all their information is safe and secure online.

In today’s fragmented digital world, it’s easy to operate in silos.

However, real growth and real innovation stem from breaking these barriers, stepping out of our comfort zones, and embracing the collective genius of the community. Xerocon 2023 promises to be that platform where the cogs of tech, finance, and community mesh together, setting the wheels of progress into motion.

Diving into the Agenda: Where Tech Meets Tradition

While Xerocon’s entire agenda oozes with excitement, there are several items that have particularly caught our eye, especially those that orbit around areas of technology and innovation.

1. AI and Machine Learning Workshops: Artificial Intelligence is no longer the future; it’s the present. The workshops dedicated to AI and machine learning are not just about the theoretical framework but how they’re tangibly reshaping the accounting and financial sector.The beauty of AI lies in its capacity to enhance human capabilities, not replace them. It’s this relationship between humans and machines that we’re eager to explore and integrate into our strategies.
2. Blockchain’s Expanding Horizons: Initially introduced to the world as the backbone of cryptocurrencies, blockchain has spread its roots far and wide. Its potential in fostering transactional transparency and security is immense. The sessions focusing on blockchain hope to unveil how this technology can revolutionise accounting methodologies and ensure fraud prevention.
3. The Power of the Cloud: The cloud is not just a storage solution; it’s a dynamic space that holds the key to scalability, efficiency, and innovation for modern businesses. myprosperity, with its commitment to top-tier solutions, has always championed cloud-driven strategies.Through the lens of Xerocon’s experts, we aim to delve deeper into optimising these solutions, ensuring our clients get the very best of what technology has to offer.
4. Digital Payments – The New Normal: As we pivot to an increasingly cashless society, understanding the intricate tapestry of digital payments becomes crucial. Innovations in this sphere are relentless, ensuring transactions are not just swift but also secure.At Xerocon, we’re looking forward to a deep dive into these advancements, hoping to bring back insights that would elevate the user experience for our clientele.

Rising Tide Financial Services is located in the great state of Victoria. Providing financial plans and solutions surrounding tax, retirement, finance, and insurance. Matt Hale – Senior Financial Planner & Director takes some questions from us about his use of the myprosperity portal in his firm.

Interesting enough, Matt concedes to a less than fruitful initial launch of using myprosperity in 2017, as the missing element in his mind was not understanding the need for the business and his clients.

“We didn’t nail the WHY?”

Re-engaging with a fire for use in 2022 was important for the business, as Matt recalls, to collaborate with clients in a secure environment mostly using the Rooms feature.

Matt and his team had to make the decision to incorporate the portal in his processes after using it here and there. They committed to all new clients going forward to be onboarded through the portal and all existing clients would be added upon review or next service.

Digital fact finds through the system are now widely used with their traditional mortgage broking clients and their holistic financial planning clients.

“We’ve loved being able to transpose our licensee fact find in myprosperity”.

Along with digital forms, the Rising Tide team encourage clients to share documents through the portal as a secure way to ensure information is easily accessible. Rooms was the main feature to encompass the information where required. Stressing to his clients the WHY.

“A secure way to engage with Rising Tide and an efficient way for us to collect client info”.

Hoping to improve the client experience, as change management goes, everyday is a work in progress. Looking at the behind-the-scenes stats on their use of the portal, seems the Rising Tide team have started on the road to success with substantial increases in docs uploaded now from his start.

“This is a work in progress – it’s certainly helped us have one place to communicate (in a safe manner!)”

 When asked if he has any tips for other practices wanting to adopt myprosperity portal and App into their business, Matt says:

“Work out your ‘why’ – What issue are you trying to solve before committing. Software isn’t an answer when you don’t know the question.”

 We hope to help Matt and his team at Rising Tide continue their journey in providing their clients a secure portal to make collaboration seamless.

From the beautiful coastal state of WA, Michael Harwood from Partnership Wealth shares his journey of implementation and use of myprosperity in his firm.

Partnership Wealth began with myprosperity in 2021. The journey began by focusing on document signing, as it was an effective way to get clients engaged with the portal and then introduce more features over time. Once they experienced the convenience and efficiency it brought, they expanded the use of the portal to encompass other areas such as document storage and sharing.

“Given how easy it is to sign, this comes back quicker with less follow up. Most clients find it much easier to sign this way (than print, sign, scan, email). That’s the initial big win from a client perspective”.

 Security was another key factor in introducing myprosperity to his clients. The security benefits of encryption, AWS storage onshore, read only data and ISO regulation while using the portal were essential.

“Portal for security and digital signatures are essentials these days. If you don’t have a portal, you have fallen behind.”

During implementation, Staff uptake is also a key in the success of change in processes. Michael felt that the immediately evident efficiencies gained made it a quick process to get staff to use it.

“Staff buy-in was easy, given it’s much easier than to chase paperwork from clients”.

 Further to the digital document signing success, Michael pointed out the ease of use on the client side made client buy in more successful too. The firm had a 92% client take-up.

Partnership Wealth have now evolved and have excelled in use, consolidating with clients now on a regular basis also using document storage and document sharing.

With even more drive to increase efficiencies, the firm is now adding focus of use to include client whole of wealth tracking. This will be a steady push with clients but will be effective.

His portal integration with Xplan has allowed asset and liabilities and other information to easily be adjusted in myprosperity and easily exported to Xplan without double handling the data.

” All updates are entered in MP then sent across to Xplan with a push of a button”

Michael feels it’s great to have clients securely logging into one app, rather than clicking on links in an email.

Next on the agenda is to incorporate the Rooms feature to better eliminate sensitive information being shared by email.

Partnership Wealth has had a steady and successful use of the portal and we are proud to have them in our myprosperity family!

Amanda Kiely, like many financial advisers, wasn’t too excited about adding another program to their tech stack.

The company made a decision to get all staff excited and educated on the new platform. This really helped get all their clients onboard. The motto was “we don’t give clients a choice using the portal and app, we are the trusted advisor and this is the tool we are going to use”.

Step 1 – Sign on

Initially, Collins Financial Group (CFG) started onboarding only new clients through the portal. In the confirmation meeting for the first appointment, prospects are advised that they will receive an email inviting them into the CFG portal and to create a login and fill out the introductory fact find. Amanda mentions “you can also add videos into the fact find to help prospects understand what is required and put a name to the face”.

Step 2 -Setup Room

Once the client signs on to be a client of CFG, the team create a room in the portal called “Welcome to Collins Financial Group” with the following tasks to do; Comprehensive fact find, ID’s, pay the SOA fee etc. The team communicates with the client in the room, share docs and mark off the tasks. Once all the tasks are complete the team close off the room and export rooms to Xplan. Furthermore, the newly enhanced two-way Xplan integration means there will be no more double entry. Amanda says “Importing and Exporting data from Xplan to myprosperity has never been easier or quicker saving our business at least one hour per client by not having to double enter fact find data”.

Step 3 – Esignature

In terms of Fee Disclosures, Amanda mentions the team will send the document to the client via the signature tool in the portal then email them a templated email in Xplan to let them know it’s there for them and to also show compliance that the team have sent it. CFG’s clients find signing documents through the app easy and efficient. Furthermore, the team save all the tax documents for higher paying clients in the tax folders in the portal.  The Investment Tax Statement, the Income Protection Tax Statement and they give the accountant access to the documents section of the portal. Besides Accountants, the team have given Solicitors access to the ‘will fact find’ as the Solicitors have their own fact find they need completed. All the info they need is in the Portal.

“We run all our reviews from the portal” Amanda explains.  “All the reports we usually would save, we save in the doc section under the asset.  The Financial planner goes through all of this with the client in the meeting. If a client can’t make a review, we will save all the reports in the portal and email the client a template saying that their review is ready.” Having multiple folders for different documents in the portal is convenient for both the client and adviser.

Solution: A complete end to end digital experience

It’s clear that CFG have streamlined the flow of data to provide the ability to have a complete end to end digital experience for clients. Amanda has expressed that their client experience has significantly enhanced from the fact find to seamless collaboration and implementation which has amplified their value and increased efficiencies.