I have used Xplan throughout my entire career as an adviser and, to be honest, I didn’t like it for a long time. It wasn’t until I took ownership of the software and invested the time it deserved that our business truly began to reap the benefits.
For a long time I held the mistaken belief that our licensee ran and controlled our site, and that we had little say in how it worked. Once I realised how much of the platform I could actually configure myself, everything changed.
As with most things in business, you need a champion — someone willing to take an interest and drive the development of your site into a tool that genuinely suits your practice, rather than defaulting to someone else’s setup.
Our starting point has always been the same: how can we make a process easier — not just for the advisers, but for the whole client services team? That question breaks down into two priorities:
- How can we do this better? — Efficiency
- How can we all do things the same way? — Consistency
Once you overlay those questions across the advice process, the opportunities start to surface. Here are 5 areas that have really moved the needle on the efficiency and consistency in our practice:
1. Saving links to frequently visited screens
One of the first practical steps I took was saving links to the areas of Xplan I accessed regularly. It sounds simple, but it saves real time searching for the same screens repeatedly. My favourites include Email Templates, Merge Templates, Xport and Scheduler.
2. Using Merge documents to eliminate manual data entry
Merge documents use basic coding to prepopulate client data into Word or PDF documents, eliminating the need for repetitive document production. Doing this has removed a significant volume of manual data entry and saves our practice considerable time.
Documents we have built using the Merge function and basic Xplan code include:
- Third party authority forms
- Life insurance cancellation letters
- Change of address letters
- Review documents
- Letterheads
- Reverse fact finds
- Modelling scenarios
- Client welcome presentations
- Statement of Advice cover letters
- Ongoing review documents
Think about the tasks your team completes regularly and consider whether the Merge function could automate part of that process.
3. Creating email templates for personalised client communicationsLike Merge, the Email Templates section allows you to build standardised emails for regular client communications, or for one-off sends to a large group of clients. The main benefits are automation, time saving and consistency.
When used together, Email Templates, Merge and Scheduler form a particularly powerful combination. We use all three in tandem to send a monthly email to clients, merging in their portfolio performance data and delivering it on a scheduled date.
4. Using Scheduler to automate key activitiesScheduler goes well beyond sending emails on a regular basis — it allows you to automate a wide range of functions across your practice. Here are some examples of how we use it:
- Automated birthday emails — Scheduler scans our Xplan site for client birthdays and, combined with a pre-built birthday email template, automates the entire process.
- Weekly team notifications — we use Scheduler to email all staff each week with a list of any clients who have outstanding tasks or overdue reviews.
- Revenue reporting — I now receive a regular, automated email with a detailed revenue spreadsheet drawn from our Commpay data.
- Outstanding and upcoming review alerts — we have set it up to email staff a list of all outstanding client reviews, and the reviews due in the next 30 days.
5. Setting up Workflows for a smoother advice processWorkflows have been the piece that ties all of Xplan’s functionality together for us. Every business has its own process, and the challenge in most practices is keeping that process consistent across all team members. We have used Xplan’s threads functionality to build workflows that are both consistent and repeatable, linking all parties in the advice process and passing tasks to the next person in the chain as each step is completed.
We have structured our workflows into the following categories, which reflect the natural flow of our business:
- Prospect
- Research
- Strategy
- Paraplanning
- Advice presentation
- Implementation
- Review
Each category contains a series of clearly defined steps from start to finish, ensuring the right person receives each task at the right time, with the detail they need to complete it.
A good starting point is to write down every step in each of your processes, and then build that out as a workflow in Xplan.
Example: Our Review Process
Our review workflow ties together several of the features covered above — Email Templates, Merge and Scheduler — working in combination to automate the full process end to end.
- We use the client search (Load) feature to build a list of clients with a review due in 30 days. This simultaneously triggers Task 1 in the review thread, notifying the adviser of the upcoming review and prompting them to contact the client.
- Xplan runs a daily check using Scheduler to identify any clients with a review due within 30 days.
- Clients automatically receive an email 30 days prior to their review date. The email is built using an Email Template combined with the Merge function, which pulls the client’s existing details into a reverse fact find document and attaches it to a pre-populated email. The template includes merge codes for the client’s name, their adviser’s name, the review date and a link to our online booking calendar.
- The review document itself is coded in Xplan Merge, allowing us to specify the review period and automatically pull in relevant client data.
Data fields pulled in via Xmerge code include:
- Client details
- Goals and objectives
- Portfolio reports
- Estate planning details
- Life insurance data
- Visualise or Xtools modelling scenarios
As each task is completed, the thread passes it to the next allocated team member. The task sequence in our review thread is as follows:
- Upcoming in 30 days — Book review meeting (Adviser)
- Prepare review report (Paraplanner)
- Is an RoA / SoA required prior to the meeting? (Adviser)
- Finalise and PDF the review document (Adviser)
- Print and prepare review documents for the appointment (Client Services)
- Present, review and complete file note (Adviser)
Each task directs the relevant team member to the correct area of Xplan to complete their part of the process — whether that’s the file notes section, or the review and services section to finalise the review and schedule tasks for the following year.
