Some of the choices on their fund menu are SMAs instead of mutual funds with tickers. Hard to know what is going on without bugging clients all the time for data.
I would echo Jon Castle's comments. Data aggregation solves the problem if the account is OFX-compliant (meaning that it provides data in a format that can be consumed by one of the myriad of aggregation tools), but it can be a bit expensive depending on the nature of your practice. George's recommendation works if the 401k invests in CITs that report to service providers like Morningstar. For large plans we have generally found that the information is not available. If you can get historical return, benchmark and holdings information, you can probably do a reasonable job by setting up a proxy for the account. Choose an index, fund, or ETF with risk factors that are similar to the 401k SMA. We do this for a number of clients, then true up the balances once a quarter or even once a year. If you do a good job setting up the proxies at the start, the tracking error will be very low. Good luck.
Hi Daryl,
This is something that we see from time to time as well. The best solution for us has been to implement a data-aggregation system within our practice. The one that we use is E-Money, but there are others that I have heard good things about - such as Money Guide Pro.
E-Money provides a total "dashboard" for the client through their own private website and for us through our advisor portal, that shows ALL of their accounts, wherever they are. We - or the client - can then "log in" to their outside accounts through the dashboard. Once the link is made - then the system automatically updates the value of each position in the account daily.
For E-Money, the data aggregation system also links up directly to the financial planning engine - so their financial plan is also updated daily.
Here is a our marketing video on the system: http://financialpicture.com/ParagonWealthStrategies/Number.html
As I said, there are other systems that do this as well. I believe that if you adopt a system like this - it need to be a major infrastructure change within your practice, not just an "add on" tool - but for us, it has generally solved the problem that you mentioned.
Jon Castle http://www.WealthGuards.com
Daryl, Separately managed account information is available on several of Morningstar's advisor products. I believe they are also available on platforms like Wilshire's.
