Whether you’re a wealth management advisor, accountant, insurance broker, or financial representative, a solid tech stack is essential for your financial services business. Software for financial services companies helps to determine investment opportunities, identify risks, forecast returns, and much more.
Organizations in this industry often provide several different services, requiring them to have access to various software solutions. With so many software options available, it’s sometimes difficult to determine which will best suit their needs.
This blog post covers everything you need to know about building your financial service tech stack, including the core software categories, top options per category, and how to get started.
What software is used in financial services?
Finding software for your financial services company shouldn’t be a challenge, especially when you know the different app categories you need to cover for business success. You want a solution that is easy to use, is compatible with your other essential tools, and delivers the functionality you need to provide the best possible service.
Here are the key software categories used by most financial services companies, as well as a few of our top recommendations within each category.
Customer relationship management (CRM)
At the heart of every financial services business is a great customer relationship management (CRM) system. Your CRM acts as a foundation and central hub for your tech stack, providing you with the data and tools needed to build better experiences and stronger relationships with customers and prospects.
Sourcing the best CRM for your financial services organization means finding one that manages customer information and interactions, allows for task and activity automation, lets you segment and market to customers via email, improves collaboration across departments, and simplifies your sales process.
These are the top CRMs to support your financial services tech stack:
- Nutshell: Nutshell provides a world-class all-in-one CRM solution for financial services companies, including powerful email marketing tools, advanced automation capabilities, thousands of integrations, robust reporting and analytics, and award-winning customer support. Nutshell plans start at just $16 per user per month.
- HubSpot CRM: HubSpot’s CRM tool offers several different features that are split across four pricing tiers. To gain access to all the automation, support, and customization options, you’ll need to sign up for its Professional plan, which starts at $90 per user per month.
- Zoho CRM: Zoho CRM is a well-known platform offering some marketing functionality, detailed reports, and pipeline automation features. For improved analytics, customization, and automation options, users should opt for the Enterprise plan, starting at $35 per user per month.
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Financial management
Financial management tools provide the backbone for managing, monitoring, and evaluating financial transactions, from invoicing to payroll, expense tracking, and more. They’re also integral for determining a business’s overall fiscal health and streamlining accounting processes for improved accuracy and efficiency.
Drawing real-time financial statements and performance reports is a breeze with the robust reporting capabilities of financial management software. This helps your financial services organization maintain transparency and compliance with regulatory requirements.
Financial management tools typically integrate well with most modern CRM platforms, as well as banking and payment platforms. These are just a few of the best financial management software options available:
- QuickBooks: QuickBooks is known for its desktop and online accounting and financial management software solutions, including features like expense tracking and reporting. Pricing starts at $30 per month for a single-user license, with four different plans to choose from.
- Xero: Xero is another popular accounting suite offering financial services businesses a robust cloud-based solution that lets you automate bookkeeping and manage transactions. Its entry-level plan with limited features is usually $15 per month, and there are two more plans suitable for growing or more established financial services businesses.
- FreshBooks: If you’re looking for easy-to-use financial management software to streamline bookkeeping, expense tracking, transactions, tax preparation, and more, FreshBooks offers the ideal solution. While custom plans are an option, FreshBooks offers three pre-defined tiers starting at $9.50 per month.
Risk management
Risk management tools are essential to any financial services tech stack because financial, operational, and compliance risks are a real threat in your industry. This software helps you identify, assess, and avoid potential risks that could negatively affect your clients and profitability.
With the right risk management software, you can keep track of risk and access sophisticated analytics and reporting features that give you in-depth insight into risk exposure and help you make better data-driven decisions.
You’ll have the benefit of setting up automated risk management workflows that send you alerts in real time and streamline your risk management process. These tools also typically integrate well with other tools, including CRM systems, offering a 360-degree risk management solution.
If you’re looking for the best risk management software for your financial services organization, we recommend the following options:
- ComplyAdvantage: ComplyAdvantage is an AI-driven risk management tool that delivers financial crime updates and insights to help financial services companies screen clients and prevent fraud. The free tools available offer plenty of risk management features, but custom paid solutions are also available.
- LogicGate: LogicGate is an excellent way to level up your data governance, risk, and compliance efforts through a centralized data risk platform with several risk management applications. Pricing depends on your business needs and is tailored according to the applications you choose to use.
- MetricStream: MetricStream gives financial services organizations an easy way to securely manage, organize, and share policies through a centralized platform. Because every business’s needs differ, pricing depends on the features you require.
Looking for an easy-to-use CRM with all the features you need to boost sales?
Nutshell has what you’re looking for.
Cybersecurity
Investing in cybersecurity software is a must to protect your business assets and those of your clients. It’s the ideal way to safeguard sensitive financial information, ensure the integrity of your digital infrastructure, and remain compliant with data privacy and security regulations.
Cybersecurity tools help to quickly detect and eliminate threats and provide comprehensive protection against malware, ransomware, phishing attacks, and more. Choosing state-of-the-art cybersecurity software as part of your tech stack is the best way to keep your client’s financial information confidential, safe, and uncompromised while maintaining trust.
Consider the following cybersecurity software to protect your company’s data and technology:
- Broadcom: Broadcom is a global leader in enterprise-level infrastructure software, with top-tier cybersecurity solutions for larger financial services companies. With a host of software options available for businesses in different industries, the cost of Broadcom’s cybersecurity will depend on your company’s needs.
- Trend Micro: Trend Micro boasts faster threat detection through its cloud-based AI-powered, global threat intelligence platform. It offers unique solutions for each business in alignment with their goals, helping them remain risk-resilient and compliant.
- Bitdefender: Financial services organizations can opt for Bitdefender for advanced cybersecurity protection against malware and cyberattacks. It provides world-class threat prevention starting at $20.99 per device per year.
Trading and portfolio management
Financial services businesses involved in investment trading and comprehensive portfolio management have plenty of balls to keep in the air. There’s little room for error when dealing with an individual or company’s savings and investments, which is why having reputable trading and portfolio management software on hand is essential.
Bringing the best portfolio and trading tools into the fold helps you efficiently manage client investments and trading activities. These tools provide up-to-the-minute market data that helps financial managers monitor market trends, analyze portfolio performance, and execute trades effortlessly.
You can use this software to optimize savings and investment strategies and make better trading decisions. Finding a solution with process automation features will enhance efficiency even more, helping you minimize errors and drive more profits for your clients.
Take a look at the following first-class trading and portfolio management tools for your financial services business:
- Bloomberg Terminal: Bloomberg Terminal provides many tools for financial professionals to access the Bloomberg platform for current global trade and investment data and analytics. Registering for these invaluable insights will cost you $2,000 per user per month.
- Eikon: With Eikon, traders and portfolio managers can easily monitor and analyze trades and investments using several cutting-edge tools developed by Refinitiv. Users can access industry-leading Eikon tools for as little as $3,600 per year.
- Advent Portfolio Exchange (APX): APX software is part of the Advent Investment Suite and offers instant portfolio performance data for quicker market change responses. Pricing is quotation-based and according to your business needs.
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Financial planning and analysis (FP&A)
Analyzing market behavior, identifying potential investment peaks and dips, and planning for future investment opportunities are often essential parts of a financial services company’s offerings. But, great financial planning and analysis (FP&A) software can make the job far easier.
FP&A software can help with strategic financial planning and forecasting through detailed financial models, financial performance analysis, and future market predictions. When utilized effectively, this can ensure alignment with individual and organizational goals and optimize the allocation of investments for greater returns.
Top-notch FP&A tools provide live data insights, allowing you to adapt client investments quickly when the market changes. These tools are also great for improved collaborative planning with financial services teams and enhanced accuracy for better results.
Give these leading financial planning and analysis tools a try:
- Workday Adaptive Planning: With Adaptive Planning by Workday, financial planning and performance management, including analysis, budgeting, and forecasting, for clients is a breeze. Pricing varies from business to business.
- Anaplan: Anaplan takes financial planning and analysis beyond the financial service team, ensuring an integrated platform or better financial planning, forecasting, and management collaboration.
- Planful: Planful is a cloud-based financial performance, prediction, and analytics tool that streamlines planning, closing, and reporting for FP&A practitioners and teams. With Planful, there are no standardized plans, so you can build the solution that makes sense for your financial services business
Data analytics and business intelligence
Several financial tools provide some form of analytical functionality, and data analytics and business intelligence tools are no exception. However, this time, the analytics are geared toward monitoring the financial services market and staying ahead of the competition.
The powerful visualization and analytical capabilities of these tools offer you the data needed to take action and maintain a competitive edge. With your data analytics and business intelligence software, you can spot trends, predict market movements, size up your competition, measure your performance, and more.
Using the information gained through this software will help optimize your company’s operational efficiencies, assist with strategic planning, and encourage better customer experiences.
Looking for the best data analytics and business intelligence tools? These are some of the top options available:
- Tableau: Financial services companies use Tableau to visualize and analyze data through graphs, maps, charts, dashboards, and stories. Pricing starts at $15 per month for access to the Tableau Viewer tool for financial data insights.
- Qlik: Qlik software is another great data visualization and business intelligence tool for the financial sector, and Gartner reveres it as one of the best. For $825 per month, you can get advanced analytics for up to 20 users from Qlik.
- Looker: Google-owned Looker gives financial professionals access to recurring analysis and in-depth data insights that provide a more holistic understanding of data. Google offers a tiered feature-pricing structure, but each tier still depends on your specific needs and a resultant custom quote.
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Compliance and regulatory reporting
Remaining compliant with industry regulations is essential in any industry, but even more so when managing finances. To meet these strict regulatory requirements and avoid potentially costly fines, it’s best to ensure you have compliance and regulatory reporting software as part of your tech infrastructure.
This software lets you manage your compliance data, stay abreast of industry regulations, and ensure your reports are accurate and valid. It’s also a great way to maintain transparency and instill trust with your business’s stakeholders and the governing regulatory bodies.
Some of the best compliance and regulatory reporting software includes the following:
- Workiva: Workiva provides a platform for transparent reporting and disclosure of financial information to help financial services businesses comply with industry regulations. For unparalleled regulatory reporting, contact the Workiva team for solution pricing.
- Adenza: Adenza combines comprehensive regulatory reporting with data and risk management features, giving financial service practitioners peace of mind and ensuring transparency for their clients. This web-based solution is available globally but comes at a premium price and is customized to your business.
- OneSumX: Known for its risk management features, OneSumX also offers significant regulatory reporting, ensuring compliance, improved data quality, better insights, and scalability. Financial services businesses will need to speak to the Wolters Kluwer team to determine the budget and pricing for their ideal solution.
Document management and collaboration
Contracts, policies, applications, permissions—a seemingly endless list of documentation is involved in managing clients’ finances. That’s why you need the right tools to help you store, organize, and share those documents with your team and clients securely and efficiently.
Investing in top-of-the-line document management software does just that, streamlining these processes and allowing you to manage and store large amounts of sensitive information. The best document management and collaboration tools let you edit and share documents with clients and colleagues in real time, reducing administrative burdens and elevating productivity.
With advanced cloud-based software, you can revert back to older versions of a document and access your documents from anywhere. Try these top-recommended document management and collaboration tools to find the right fit for your business:
- M-Files: Choose M-Files for revolutionary document creation, management, sharing, search, security, and collaboration, which also includes automation, AI, and compliance features. M-Files offers three platform options but requires businesses to contact them for a custom quotation.
- Box for Financial Services: Box offers a Content Cloud solution for financial services companies with sophisticated document management, onboarding, sharing, and collaboration capabilities to help streamline tasks and activities. Basic document management and sharing services start at $17.30 per month, but you’ll need to request pricing for Box’s custom Content Cloud solution.
- DocuWare: With DocuWare, financial service operations gain access to advanced, cloud-based document management and workflow automation software that facilitates data collaboration and secure storage. The entry-level Base pricing tier requires an investment of $300 per month.
Wealth management
Today’s wealth management software provides financial services companies with a host of features to manage client assets and influence financial growth. From portfolio management and wealth planning to client reporting, these platforms offer everything you need to manage your clients’ investments effectively.
Some of the features found in wealth management tools let you personalize investment strategies and track investment performance to ensure better growth results. Using this software is a great way to offer a tailored client experience and forge stronger long-term client relationships.
For the top wealth management software options for your financial services organization, look no further than the following:
- Orion Advisor Portal: The Orion Advisor Portal leverages its integrated tech, dynamic investment opportunities, and dedicated support to help you deliver personalized growth strategies and wealth management solutions. Pricing for access to the Orion Advisor Portal and its tools is quotation-based.
- Envestnet: Envestnet helps financial advisors and managers establish client financial wellness through several wealth solutions tools, including trading, legacy planning, tax management, and direct indexing solutions. Contacting Envestnet’s sales team to discuss your requirements will provide you with a pricing estimate.
- eMoney Advisor: A popular financial planning platform, eMoney Advisor helps financial services companies deliver personalized, flexible cash flow and goals-based planning for optimal wealth management. Although pricing is tailored to align with your business goals and needs, you can expect to pay at least around $2,000 to $3,000 per month.
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Build a solid tech stack with Nutshell
With the right software in your financial service arsenal, you can optimize your operations to enhance service delivery and client experiences while keeping your data compliant and secure. For the best results, focus on building a robust, integrated tech stack that you can easily adapt as the market changes and scale as your business grows.
Investing in the best software for your industry to build this comprehensive tech stack is the best way to drive growth and maintain a significant competitive advantage. And building this tech infrastructure with a solid CRM system as your foundation is the best way to ensure success.
Reinforce your financial firm’s tech stack with Nutshell, a world-class CRM platform built to provide stress-free, user-friendly client data management solutions that integrate with all your favorite financial services tools. Try Nutshell today with our free 14-day trial, or contact our sales team to discuss your software needs.
The post Software for Financial Services Companies: What’s Your Tech Stack? appeared first on Nutshell.
