MFDA Dealer - Local Branch With 9 Advisors Switching Investment Dealers
Paperwork Automation Case Study Of MFDA Branch With 9 Advisors Switching Investment Dealers
BACKGROUND
- 9 MFDA advisors in a single branch all simultaneously switching to another MFDA dealer.
- 10,000+ client name accounts.
- Client and account data contained in 3 separate Excel spreadsheets.
- A mix of French and English speaking clients.
PROJECT DETAILS
- Prepare a mailing for all clients, by registration, that includes a cover letter in their language of choice signed by their advisor, and a letter of direction/dealer change form containing a list of all fund companies, account types, and corresponding account numbers in the same language as cover letter.
- Gather, sort and organize all spreadsheet data.
- Develop a program to automate the process of populating the paperwork with the spreadsheet data, in the correct language, and inserting correct advisor signatures into the cover letters.
- Output is one PDF with a common identifier on each page so that printing, folding, and envelope stuffing can be automated by the printing company.
- The dealer change form will contain 2 carbon copies -- one for the client to keep and one to be mailed back with the original.
- The accounts can be transferred immediately upon receipt of signed dealer change forms. The accounts will be restricted until the KYC information can be updated and appropriate documents signed by the clients.
CHALLENGES
- One week time limit.
- If the number of fund company accounts for a client exceeded the number of spaces on the dealer change form, another dealer change page needed to be added automatically.
- Each page would have to be flattened after the data was imported from the spreadsheet to avoid changing field values as new client data was imported.
- The language of the letter and the documents was dependent on data from the spreadsheet.
- Different data needed to be imported from different spreadsheets for each client.
- The correct advisor name and signature needed to be added to each letter.
SOLUTION
- PDFAutomationStation was approached to provide a solution.
- We were provided with English and French electronic copies of the dealer change form, English and French electronic copies of the cover letter, electronic image files of each advisor's signature, and three different Excel spreadsheets containing client account numbers and other data.
- We quickly wrote and tested a custom script to automate bringing the spreadsheet data together into one continuous PDF that would select the correct language and financial advisor for each client and insert the advisor's signature into the cover letter.
- We sent some small samples to the customer for verification.
- We then ran the entire batch, creating one continuous PDF document for all advisors, clients, and languages.
- Once completed we ran a thorough field-by-field check of a random sampling of clients.
- When we were satisfied that completed project did not contain any errors we forwarded the document to the customer to send their printing company.
- The printing company printed the documents on carbon copy paper, inserted them into envelopes, and mailed them out to the clients.
- Client retention was extremely high and the accounts were transferred to the new dealer in a timely manner as the signed documents were returned by the clients.
If you are an investment dealer that needs help with the paperwork for advisor transitions please fill out the contact form and start the conversation. We have also been building custom paperwork automation software for investment dealers, investment companies, and independent financial advisors since 2004. We can design a custom solution for you.