In Genovo, an investment strategy is the name we’ve given to the underlying investment(s) that an existing or new plan invests into. For mainstream investments, this usually means a single fund, a collection of funds, a model portfolio, DFM, structured product, etc. In the case of a SIPP or SSAS, the investment strategy is potentially a lot wider, with commercial property, REITs, unquoted shares and gold bullion in the long list of permitted investments.


Investment strategies in Genovo come in two forms:

  1. A Current Investment Strategy (CIS)
  2. A Recommended Investment Strategy (RIS)

Current Investment Strategy (CIS)

A CIS is the underlying investment strategy of an existing plan. You can add a CIS to a plan in the following sections:

  • Review of your Existing Investments
  • Review of your Existing Pensions
  • Review of your Existing Retirement Income Plans


Before we cover why you might want to add a CIS, let’s have a look at some of the scenarios where you don’t need to add a CIS to an existing plan:

  • The plan doesn’t support it – for example a Cash ISA, any National Savings & Investments product, a Defined Benefit pension, a fixed-term annuity, VCT, EIS, etc.
  • The advice scenario doesn’t require it, for example:
    1. You’re recommending an existing plan is encashed / surrendered.
    2. You’re not advising any changes are made to the investment strategy of the existing plan.


Remember, if you don’t select anything in the 'Current Investment Strategy' field for the plan then no information relating to the Current Investment Strategy of that plan will be included in your report – just leave the 'Current Investment Strategy' field on -Please Select-.


How to add a CIS

If you want to include a CIS for an existing plan, it can be added at the very bottom of the 'Add / Edit plan' window of the Plan Summary step of a review section. 



There are three ways to add a CIS to a plan:


1. Select an existing CIS you have previously created for another plan in a review section of this report from the 'Current Investment Strategy drop' down menu.

2. Create a new CIS.

3. Clone an existing CIS that shows in the the 'Current Investment Strategy drop' down menu.


Each of these methods is covered in more detail here.

An RIS could be:

  • A revised investment strategy for an existing plan, or
  • A new investment strategy for a new plan recommendation.


You can add as many RIS as you need. This is really useful when there are multiple recommendations that have different investment strategies, for example:

  • A medium-term strategy for investments, and a long-term strategy for pensions.
  • A low-risk strategy for one client and a higher risk strategy for another client.
  • A revised strategy for an existing plan and a different strategy for a new plan.
  • One strategy for a lump sum investment and a different strategy for a regular contribution plan.


Adding a RIS is different in two fundamental ways to how a CIS is added:

  1. Firstly, you create a RIS in the Recommended Investment Strategy section, not in the recommendation sections.
  2. Secondly, as a result, unlike a CIS, there is no inherent link between a plan and its RIS.


How to create a RIS


Creating a RIS is easy and can be done in one of three ways:



1. Create a new RIS from scratch


Click Add recommended investment strategy and you'll be prompted to give the strategy a name and then add the underlying investments.


2. Clone a Current Investment Startegy


Cloning a CIS is a great way of ‘recycling’ information from an investment strategy that has already been created for an existing plan in a review section. You might want to do this if the RIS is identical, or even just fairly similar to a CIS, as you won’t have to spend time entering all the underlying investments again. 


To clone a CIS, click Clone current investment strategy. A new window will open showing all the CIS that have created in the review section(s) of the report. Just click the clone icon for the CIS you wish to clone.

 


3. Clone another RIS


Cloning a RIS that has already been created in the Recommended Investment Strategy section is another time-saving feature. You might want to do this if you’re recommending multiple plans with similar investment strategies.


This articles provides more detailed information about cloning investment strategies.


What’s in a name?

Unlike a CIS, a RIS has no inherent link with the plan(s) it relates to. Therefore, the name that you give to the RIS is important, as it’s the only thing that connects an existing plan or new plan recommendation to its investment strategy in a report. So – rather than just calling it “Your investment strategy”, you should get into the habit of applying descriptive names to investment strategies. Genovo even helps you with this by giving a suggested structure to the strategy name when you first create it.


Here’s some RIS naming suggestions:

  • RIS applies to one client and one new plan – “Tony’s Recommended Transact SIPP Investment Strategy”
  • RIS applies to multiple new plans – “Sarah’s Recommended Cofunds GIA and ISA Investment Strategy”
  • RIS applies to multiple clients and existing plans – “Tony’s and Sarah’s Revised Investment Strategy”

Adding visual interest

Genovo provides various places where you can add visual content to your investment strategies in the form of an image, graph or table. This could be at the investment strategy or individual investment level.

At investment strategy level

When you create an investment strategy, you may wish to include a performance graph of the investment strategy against its sector average or a comparison against a benchmark in the text box at the bottom of the 'Add / edit investments' window.



This article provides further information about how and where are you likely to want to add investment performance graphs into your reports.


At individual investment level


Alternatively, you may want to include further visual information (e.g an asset allocation pie chart) about the underlying investment(s) that makes up an investment strategy. This information should be entered into the 'Further Investment Info' field at the bottom of the 'Add / edit investment' window.

  

This article explains how to add an asset allocation pie chart and a table detailing the funds that make up a portfolio to an investment so this information is automatically pulled through into your reports whenever the investment is added to an investment strategy.


The benefits of having your investments preloaded in the Investment Library

The Investment Library allows you to save and centrally manage information about the underlying investments that you frequently recommend to your clients. You can add the investments saved within your Investment Library to a Current Investment Strategy in the review sections or a Recommended Investment Strategy in the Recommended Investment Strategy section of your reports with just a couple of clicks. This will save you considerable time when building a report as you won’t need to re-key the information about the investment each time.


However, we wouldn't recommend adding volatile information such as performance charts to the investments you save in your Investment Library, as they will become outdated very quickly. However, it is a great place to add more stable information, such as asset allocation, fund / portfolio objectives, or sector / benchmark information.