News
Impossible to be all things to all people? EISI comes close.
“EISI is one of the strongest developers in the software market for financial planning, including the front-end processes of basic analysis,” writes Dave McClure in his software review “One Size Doesn’t Fit All” for WebCPA.
In his article, he explains that no two clients approach an advisor with the same investment portfolio, retirement plans, life goals, and ability or desire to tolerate risk. In order to address this client-to-client variability, McClure suggests that advisors require several tools to do the job. His review of the 8 leading packages that enable advisors to perform at least a basic analysis of the client’s goals and financial condition includes EISI’s complete NaviPlan and Profiles product lines.
“One of the strengths of [EISI] is its commitment to further development of its products— last year, the Profiles product line, and this year NaviPlan Standard and NaviPlan Extended,” he says.
“NaviPlan remains the most flexible of the basic analysis packages, incorporating the simplicity of the financial assessment in NaviPlan Standard with the more extensive stock option modeling and goal-setting. This flexibility and a commitment to better usability make it a standout among basic analysis products in an economical but very effective package.”
NaviPlan Standard continues to thrive as a quick system for assessing progress towards retirement, education, and major purchase goals. Advisors can perform a financial assessment of the client’s goals and current financial condition in about 5 minutes, and then promote the analysis to more detailed levels of planning. Screen-to-screen transitions in the current version (11.0) are up to 10 times faster than previous versions; updates and changes to a plan are instantly illustrated onscreen. Navigation tools and the user interface (which includes a client file-creation wizard) reduce and expedite data entry.
NaviPlan Extended builds on the capabilities of NaviPlan Standard so that advisors can escalate their preliminary analysis and provide a more comprehensive treatment of incomes, expenses, assets and liabilities, stock options, and taxes.
Profiles Professional and little brother Profiles Forecaster, “a top-rated financial planning and analysis package” McClure says, underwent a significant overhaul early last year that resulted in improvements to its already comprehensive suite of planning tools.
Profiles Professional covers the gamut from retirement and goal planning to asset allocation and modeling and risk tolerance in a very usable format with streamlined input & report selection, tight integration of asset classes & types, and simplified screen navigation.
Profiles Forecaster, a tool intended for advisors to use with the mass market. It is a fast, attractive package for addressing simple to moderate analysis needs, including retirement planning, asset allocation planning, and asset distribution.
“The Profiles lines were pioneers in basic analysis and financial planning, and were made stronger by EISI’s commitment to usability and economy. With both desktop and Web-based offerings, Profiles Professional and Profiles Forecaster address different need levels in clients and practitioners without sacrificing speed, power or analytical capabilities.”
Read the full software review at WebCPA.com. Details about NaviPlan and Profiles can be found on pages 2 & 3.
