Reading outside statements into a planning file
A new relationship arrives as a stack. A brokerage statement in PDF, a retirement plan statement carrying fund names and no tickers, an annuity contract with the surrender schedule printed as an image, and a payroll summary. Somebody retypes positions and contribution rates into eMoney Advisor or RightCapital. Layouts differ by recordkeeper and change without notice, so a parser tuned to one provider fails quietly on the next. Provenance is the constraint. Every figure has to carry the document it came from and the date printed on it.
The account application comes back not in good order because of a missing initial, and the whole signature cycle runs again.
The custodian holds the assets and is the record. The advisory firm runs a relationship system alongside it, plus a portfolio and reporting system, plus a planning tool, and the same client identity is entered into each because there is no shared key between them.
- eMoney Advisor
- RightCapital
- Wealthbox
When this is the wrong thing to build
Pick something else if new relationships arrive rarely, or if nearly everything already sits at the custodian and the outside picture is one retirement plan. Reading a few documents a year by hand beats maintaining a parser against layouts that keep moving.
The constraint that shapes it
Books and records rules require preservation of communications relating to advice and recommendations, and to the movement of funds, in an accessible place, for a defined period with the earliest portion held locally. More on how this sector works.
A file arrives. The fields come back typed and checkable. Read what this shape is, or start from one of these.
- Reading dates out of a ratified contract
- Abstracting a commercial lease into dated fields
- Filling an MLS input sheet from the listing agreement
- Turning a docket entry into a calendar
- Turning a delivered transcript into a usable set of cites
- Coding a filing fee to the matter that will repay it
- Can a 401k statement be read into RightCapital without retyping it?
- How do I get fund tickers when a plan statement lists none?
- Where do I find the surrender schedule in an annuity contract?
- How do I record which statement date a held away value came from?
- Can eMoney import positions from a prior custodian statement PDF?
Back to wealth management, or see how this is priced and scoped.