HD Vest Announces Functionality Enhancements to 1040 Analyst™ Tool

IRVING, Texas, Nov. 12, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- HD Vest Investment Services^SM – the leading independent broker-dealer empowering holistic wealth management-based financial advice – today announced that it has launched the first wave of functionality enhancements to its recently introduced, proprietary 1040 Analyst tool.  The enhancements are specifically designed to improve client investment solutions and holistic wealth management decisions to capture at least a dozen new tax-sensitive opportunities and client vulnerabilities identified by early adopters of the 1040 Analyst tool during its first 90 days after launch. 

The new 1040 Analyst technology, introduced in June 2014, draws upon each client's directly uploaded tax data, and incorporates relevant information about his or her personal financial situation, goals and needs, to deliver tax-sensitive insight that enables an advisor providing tax and financial planning services to introduce a detailed discussion of specific, immediately actionable investment and wealth management opportunities for discussion. Unique within the independent financial advisory space, 1040 Analyst is a fully scalable tool, so that advisors can create multiple customized reports at a time, resulting in unprecedented efficiency for delivering personalized counsel while discerning new client opportunities.

Since its rollout, 1040 Analyst has already been used by nearly 800 HD Vest-affiliated financial advisors and applied to more than 100,000 client tax returns. As a result of using 1040 Analyst, HD Vest-affiliated advisors have succeeded in initiating client discussions and offering new wealth management solutions that have brought in a total of more than $94 million in new investment assets.  

Scott Rawlins, Managing Director of National Sales at HD Vest, said, "We are extremely pleased with our affiliated advisors' hugely enthusiastic response to our recent launch of 1040 Analyst, and with the depth of insight they have gained and shared with us. These insights have been captured by us to make this ground-breaking tool even more effective than we initially imagined. The simplicity of the tool's data upload, through its integration with the four most popular tax planning software programs used by our advisors, has been a critical element in its early adoption success."

The specific functionality enhancements newly incorporated into the 1040 Analyst tool were based on a combination of advisor-use feedback and HD Vest planning specialists' continued review of the evolving financial planning landscape. Going beyond the more readily accessible hot-button issues already embedded in 1040 Analyst – such as analyzing sources of interest income, optimally allocating dividend-producing investments, or maximizing retirement plan contributions – these latest enhancements include added functionality that supports the following, among others:

• Enabling financial advisors who are not tax professionals to manually input their clients' tax form data to yield the same customized output through a "snap app" process
• Identifying opportunities for buy-sell life insurance agreements for business owners
• Taking advantage of passive activity losses
• Tax loss harvesting
• Determining optimal timing for taking Social Security benefits
• Calculating the most advantageous distribution schedule for retirement plan assets

Mr. Rawlins continued, "The real story here is in our clients' responsiveness to this tool and in how they have embraced the value of the 1040 Analyst output, as seen in their generation of additional investment assets. Those of our advisors who also provide tax advisory services reported that 88% of the families to whose tax returns they applied the 1040 Analyst tool had no prior investment planning programs with them. Going through the 1040 Analyst process resulted in a large number of new client conversions and a significant new inflow of investment assets, indicating the magnitude of the opportunity this tool represents."

"Moreover, these same advisors also discovered that clients were remarkably receptive to invitations to hold meetings and discussions based upon the 1040 Analyst findings, demonstrating that 1040 Analyst is a highly effective tool in helping to initiate and build a holistic financial planning relationship with their clients, and to increase the scope and stability of a tax and financial advisory practice."    

Mr. Rawlins concluded, "It's been remarkable to see how powerful a business-building and client service enhancement tool 1040 Analyst has proven to be outside of tax season. We are excited about these new enhancements to the tool's functionality that we have initiated, and we look forward to the response it will generate during tax season, when clients are far more focused on the immediate impact of their taxes and on the urgency to optimize the financial structures of their households, investments and businesses."

HD Vest noted that the firm expects to further refine 1040 Analyst as tax laws change, in order to continue to deliver "tax alpha" to the end clients of its affiliated advisors.

About HD Vest Financial Services
HD Vest is a leading, privately-owned independent broker/dealer empowering the delivery of holistic and objective financial advice through a network of Advisors whose roots began and continue as tax professionals. HD Vest provides tailored training, practice management support, turnkey asset management solutions and comprehensive technology platforms to nearly 5,000 trusted independent Advisors across all 50 states, as well as facilitating opportunities to share best practices and obtain peer group mentoring. The firm is ranked number 20 in Financial Planning magazine's 2013 list of top independent broker/dealers across the nation. HD Vest is headquartered in the Greater Dallas area, in Irving, Texas. For additional information, please visit www.hdvest.com.

HD Vest Financial Services^® is the holding company for the group of companies providing financial services under the HD Vest name.
Securities offered through HD Vest Investment Services^SM, Member SIPC, Advisory services offered through HD Vest Advisory Services^SM
6333 N. State Highway 161, Fourth Floor, Irving, TX 75038, (972) 870-6000.

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SOURCE HD Vest Financial Services

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