Tip 01 of 10
Put a proposed portfolio side by side with the client's existing one, and show which is the better fit.
Reports › Portfolio Comparison
One report that runs two portfolios through the same analysis at the same time. Performance, volatility, asset allocation and charges, side by side, so you can show exactly where the proposed solution beats what the client already holds.
The example on the right compares an existing pension against a proposed Dimensional World Allocation 60/40. Work down it in four moves. What it costs, what it returned, how bumpy the ride was, and what the money is actually invested in.
Tip 02 of 10
Chart a portfolio as it actually was, month by month, and show the client what would have happened if it had never changed.
Charts › Performance › Dynamic Portfolio
Most performance charts treat a portfolio as if it has held the same funds since day one. It never has. The dynamic portfolio tool plots the portfolio as it really evolved, picking up every switch and every rebalance on the date it happened, so the line on the screen is the return the client actually experienced.
Plot the current portfolio against a version frozen at an earlier date and you have the counterfactual. What would have happened if we had left it alone. That works for a single fund swap, fund A out and fund B in, and it works for a model portfolio where the changes are small but constant, quarter after quarter.
It answers the question every client eventually asks, which is whether the advice was worth paying for. The gap between the two lines is the answer, and it is the only chart in the market that shows it.
Tip 03 of 10
Chart what actually happens when money goes in every month, or comes out every month, instead of pretending every client invested a lump sum on day one.
Charts › Regular Savings/Withdrawals
Cumulative performance charts almost always assume a single lump sum invested at the start and left alone. Very few clients invest that way. This charts a regular contribution going in, or a regular withdrawal coming out, on the date and at the frequency you set, so the line reflects how the money was really used.
Two groups of clients are badly served by lump sum charts. Anyone saving monthly towards retirement, where the timing of each contribution shapes the outcome, and anyone in drawdown, where taking an income in a falling market does lasting damage. Sequencing risk is invisible on a lump sum chart. Here it is the whole story.
Everything sits in one options panel on the right. Choose savings or withdrawal, set the amount, the frequency and the date, add the initial investment, then generate. The panel is signposted on the first screen.
Tip 04 of 10
A treasure trove of index data going back decades, and most advisers never open the tab.
Active List Pro › Market Indices
113 index providers sit behind that one tab. FTSE, MSCI, S&P, Nikkei, Hang Seng and Nasdaq, but also the Bank of England, the European Central Bank, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, commodity prices, the London Bullion Market Association and MoneyFacts. Equities, bonds, gold, cash and inflation, all in one place.
This is where good client content comes from. Chart the last 30 years of equities against cash and inflation and you have settled an argument no spreadsheet ever wins. The history goes back decades, so you can show clients what happened through the events they remember.
Two uses. Social posts and newsletters that earn attention because the chart is genuinely interesting, and client education, where the difference between asset classes is easier to see than to explain.
Tip 05 of 10
The chart that ends the argument about leaving money in the bank.
Charts › Performance Line Chart
Three lines on one chart. An invested portfolio, a cash rate, and the consumer price index. Cash looks safe until you put the cost of living next to it. Over 10 years the gap between the invested line and the inflation line is the cost of doing nothing, and it is a number rather than an opinion.
Everything is set up before you press the button. On the left, three selections. The fund, an FE interest rate series standing in for cash, and Irish consumer prices. On the right, four performance periods, 1, 3, 5 and 10 years, so you can show the same story over four horizons without rebuilding the chart.
It does the work that words cannot. Clients holding too much cash rarely respond to a lecture about real returns. They do respond to seeing the buying power of their savings fall while the invested line compounds away from it.
Tip 06 of 10
Cut a database of thousands of funds down to the handful that meet your criteria, in seconds.
Active List Pro › Fund Filters
A screening tool that sits on the whole fund universe. Set the criteria that matter to you, and the filter returns only the funds that pass. Performance over the periods you choose, quartile position, FE fundinfo Crown Ratings, ongoing charges, sector, size, and anything else you research on.
The Fund Filters tab on the left, highlighted on the screen. Every filter you build can be saved, so the next review starts from your criteria rather than a blank screen. New builds one from scratch, Edit reopens one you already trust.
Fund selection is where paraplanners lose hours. Running a saved filter instead of a manual sift turns an afternoon into a couple of minutes, and the criteria are written down, which is exactly what a file needs when someone asks why these funds and not others.
Tip 07 of 10
Design your own client report once, then run it against any portfolio you hold.
Reports › Custom Portfolio Report Builder
A page library and a template builder. Choose the pages you want a client report to contain, save the layout, then point it at any portfolio. The system assembles every page into a single document, adds a cover and a glossary, and gives you somewhere to write your own commentary.
Portfolio performance, cumulative and discrete holding performance, valuation, ratings analysis, ESG analysis, risk and return, asset, sector and region breakdowns. Then the documents that usually arrive separately, summary fund factsheets and the full KII and KID set, aggregated into the same report.
Most firms build review packs by hand, pulling pages from several systems and stitching them together in a PDF editor. This replaces that job with a saved template. Same pages, same order, same branding, every client, every quarter.
Tip 08 of 10
One click on any portfolio, and out comes a full analysis of what the client holds.
Active List Pro › quick links › Short, Medium or Long Scan
Three ready made reports that run against any portfolio in your list. A short scan is a single page, the medium runs to two, and the long scan to five. Same engine, same data, different depth, so you choose how much detail the conversation needs.
The short scan suits a prospect meeting where you want one page that says what they hold and how it has done. The medium works as a review document. The long scan is the full analysis, and it is the one to reach for when a client is deciding whether to move.
The pages are not locked. Adjust the tables and change the chart types, then save those choices as your defaults so every scan you run afterwards comes out in your house style.
Tip 09 of 10
Risk along the bottom, return up the side. One picture of whether a client is being paid for the risk they are taking.
Charts › Scatter Chart
Every investment or index plotted as a single point. Return on the vertical axis, annualised volatility on the horizontal. The further left and the higher up, the more return for less risk. It turns two columns of numbers into a position on a page.
Plot a whole range from the same provider and the trade off becomes obvious. The example here holds the Zurich Prisma range, 2 through 5, with a client pension dropped in alongside. The client sits at 18.4% return for 8.9% volatility. Prisma 4 returned 31.4% for 8.5%. More return, slightly less risk, and the chart makes the point before you say a word.
Run it static for a report or a client pack. Switch the chart type to interactive and every point becomes hoverable, so you can explore the detail live in a meeting rather than flicking between tabs.
Tip 10 of 10
Pick up to five funds and get one report showing exactly how they differ, and where they do not.
Reports › Fund Comparison
Select between one and five funds, generate, and the report lays them out side by side across every measure that matters. Standard fund data, pricing, performance over every period, risk ratings and the underlying sector and region weightings. No tabs, no exporting, no building a spreadsheet.
Quick stats first, covering ISIN, sector, domicile, fund size, FE fundinfo Crown Rating, FE fundinfo Risk Score, yield and launch date. Then pricing, a five year chart, cumulative and discrete performance, calendar year returns, volatility, alpha and Sharpe, and finally sector and region weightings.
This is the shortlist tool. Once a filter or a client question has narrowed things to a handful of candidates, this is how you choose between them, and how you evidence the choice afterwards. The example compares five Irish pension multi-asset funds that all look alike on the label and are not alike underneath.