Watching for a required distribution that never happened
The figure keys off the fair market value at the close of the prior year, which reaches the practice through tax reporting from the custodian rather than through the portfolio system. Then the year runs. A distribution gets scheduled and cancelled when cash runs short. An inherited account follows different rules from the account of the original owner. A held away plan sits outside whatever the client assumes can be aggregated. Nothing raises an alarm late in the year, because a distribution that did not occur leaves no record.
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.
- Wealthbox
- Orion
- Google Sheets
When this is the wrong thing to build
Pick something else if the custodian already runs automatic distributions on every retirement account in the book and no household holds inherited or outside retirement money. Watching earns its place when the pieces sit at different providers.
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.
No alarm goes off when a thing simply stops arriving. Read what this shape is, or start from one of these.
- Noticing that an agent licence has quietly lapsed
- Watching an MLS feed for the day it goes quiet
- Catching a lapse date nobody put on a calendar
- Closing the registration window before it closes you
- Scheduling the visits a membership already promised
- Closing the permit that never got its final inspection
- How do I find clients who have not taken a distribution this year?
- Where does the prior year end value for a distribution come from?
- Do inherited retirement accounts follow different distribution rules?
- Can I track required distributions across accounts at two custodians?
- What happens if a client misses a required retirement distribution?
Back to wealth management, or see how this is priced and scoped.