AMA: I'm Jess Lamb, Xplan expert and Director at Practice Dynamix, Ask Me Anything!

I love discussing XPLAN’s "hidden gems." Typically, these are areas of the system that you might not have explored yet, or features you didn’t realise you needed. There are too many to list in one sitting, but I’ll focus on your specific example of industry funds.

Industry funds offer clients lower-cost products and unique investment options, and they are widely advertised, so clients are often familiar with them. However, they can create some administrative challenges for advice businesses, particularly when it comes to manually updating portfolios and running review reports, especially around performance analysis.

While there’s no simple way around the manual data entry for these funds, there are several ways to improve efficiency and automate parts of your review process:

1. Automate Review Invitations: Set up automated emails triggered by the client's review date in XPLAN, encouraging them to book their review.
2. Streamline the Review Process: Once the review is booked, it should trigger the Review Process Thread, ensuring all steps are completed, including client paperwork.
3. Automate SOA/ROA Production: Ensure your workflow is linked to automatic production of Statements of Advice (SOA) and Record of Advice (ROA) documents.
4. Post-Review XPLAN Cleanup: After the review, include a task in the workflow to update XPLAN, including rolling over the client's next review date.

Key areas of XPLAN to consider when refining your review process include:

• Workflow Cases
• Case Benchmarks
• Email Templates
• Scheduler
• Diary Templates
• Wizards
• Review Merge Reports
• File Note Templates

By setting up these automations and workflows, you can significantly reduce manual effort and ensure a smoother, more efficient review process - freeing up time to update your industry super fund balances.