At a recent session of the Financial Advisor Webinar Series, Mike Williams of Schwab Performance Technologies (SPT) talked about what developments in PortfolioCenter and PortfolioServices.

While we usually don’t invite vendors to talk about their products at our webinars, we made an exception because Schwab is so influential; SPT is used by 3,300 advisory firms and its parent provides custodial services to 6,000 RIAs.

Despite allotting 25 minutes for questions, attendees at the session had more questions than Williams could answer. So we passed along to Williams the unanswered questions chatted in by attendees. In this post, Williams answers those questions.

Do you use ByAll Accounts to connect to custodians that you do not have direct interfaces with?
Yes. Both our PortfolioCenter and PortfolioServices products can leverage ByAllAccounts to acquire account information from financial institutions with which there is no available direct data feed.

When will the custom report enhancements you talked about at the webinar be available?
The first general release of the new report presentations will be in mid-2010. Subsequent releases will occur later this year and throughout 2011.

For the new graphical reporting: will a PortfolioCenter user need the Enhanced Reporting Module (ERM), and what is the cost of the ERM for a current PC user?
Yes, the new report presentations require a PortfolioCenter Enhanced license. The Enhanced Reporting Module is $1,500 year one and carries an annual maintenance fee of $500. Please contact SPT Sales at (800) 528-9595, option 2 for further information.

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