As part of the service you provide to your clients, you may wish to provide your client with a regular holistic review of their financial affairs, as well as their existing investments. This article provides a step-by-step guide as to how you can quickly and easily write just such a report within Genovo.

1) Select or add the client

Go to Write report and select or add the client to whom you wish to write the report.

2) Select the Report Creation Method

3) Create the report

In Report details, give the report a name and select the Report Type (if you're creating the report 'from scratch'). We'd suggest using the Review Report 2.0 Report Type. 

4) Add the required advice sections

You’ll then be directed to the Report Builder where you should add the necessary sections from the 'Available sections' drop down, which in this case could be:

• Review of Cashflow section.
• Any relevant review of existing plan section(s).
• Any relevant recommendation section(s) if you're making any new plan recommendations. 
• Recommended Investment Strategy. This is only required if you're recommending a change of investment strategy for the existing plan(s) in the review section(s) or recommending a new plan)

5) Complete all section wizards

Next you'll need to step through the section wizards of all of the sections that require your input, starting with the Introduction Section.

6) Complete the Introduction section

You will progress through the steps of the Introduction section in the usual way. It's within this section that you'll be prompted to provide:

• An update on the client's circumstances.
• An update on the client's assets and liabilities, and IHT position (optional).
• A detailed review of the client's objectives (optional). 

7) Complete the Client Risk Profile section

It's in this section that you will confirm the client's:

• Attitude to risk
• Capacity for loss
• Knowledge and experience
• Investment preferences 

8) Complete the Review of Cashflow section

This is an optional section that you can add into the Report Builder should you wish to include a summary of the key outputs / takeaways following a review of the client's cashflow plan in the report.

9) Complete any review section(s)

You’ll be prompted to provide details of the existing investment / pension within the Plan Summary step of the review section. As a bare minimum, you should include some basic policy details e.g. provider name, policy number etc and the Current Fund Value £.

You may also wish to include details of the existing plan's Current Investment Strategy. This is particularly relevant when you are recommending a change of investment strategy.

You will also be prompted to summarise the on-going charges of the existing plan in the Current Plan Charges step. 

In the Recommended Action step, you will need to confirm what action you are recommending for the plan, and you can confirm any disadvantages associated with this recommendation in the Key Disadvantages & Tax Implications step of the review section.

10) Complete any recommendation section(s)

If you are making any new plan recommendations as part of of your review, these can be covered off within the relevant recommendation section(s).

11) Possibly complete the Investment Strategy section

If you're recommending a change of investment strategy for any of the plan(s) in the review section(s) or you've included a new plan recommendation you will need to include details of the new investment strategy(s) being recommended in this section.

12) Complete the Important Information section

This is the last section you'll need to complete. You'll be prompted to:

• Confirm what approach to ex-post charges disclosure you wish to take in this report.
• Summarise a review of your service so you can demonstrate the value you have provided to the client over the past twelve months / since your last review.
• Signpost to any supporting information / other documents associated with the report.
• Summarise any next steps and action required by you or the client.

13) Tailor the structure of the report

Having completed all of the section wizards you should then tailor the structure of your report by unchecking any sections you do not wish to include in your report; and then change the sort order of any sections to reflect your personal preferences. 

You’ll find more information about how to remove sections from your report here.

You'll find more information about how to reorder the sections in your report here.

14) Download the report / covering letter

Click the Download report / Download cover letter icon and the report / covering letter will download to word.

Cloning a review report

When it comes around to the next review, you may wish to use last year's review report as the basis for this year, and just update any relevant details e.g. fund values that have changed. This is really easily achieved within Genovo by using the clone existing report feature.