Our comprehensive financial planning platform is built for the way you work and designed to scale to meet the growing needs of your firm.Microsoft Windows has long been the default operating system for advisors, and indeed most of the business world. At eMoney we’re committed to delivering innovative, planning-led solutions that power your business. Neither do the tech solutions that power them. Click Yes to proceed.Financial discussions don’t have to be difficult. You may be prompted to run an unknown application. Depending on your browser, click Run (in Internet Explorer), FPNetwork.exe (in Chrome), or Save File (in Firefox).
![]() Financial Planning Software How To Integrate TheirVendors focused only on Internet Explorer, and their products often were full of glitches when run on a Mac.Newer web-based software is starting to change that, since it can usually be run on any web browser on any operating system, including mobile platforms.“As more and more advisors opt to use web-based platforms like SalesForce, Albridge and Tamarac, the actual hardware platform becomes completely abstracted,” says Golaszewski. See: A key Schwab web manager jumps cross country to Pershing.But with most of the industry producing PC-only software, those IT guys didn’t have much to say on the subject until fairly recently. As I started using more and more I gradually became more comfortable with the Mac OS.”“The desirability of these form factors often creates a compelling enough case for an advisor to ask his IT guy how to integrate their usage into their business,” says Golaszewski who was formerly a key tech exec for Schwab. “Most conferences want speakers to bring their own hardware, so I’m not going to lug around a traditional spinning hard-drive laptop and requisite brick AC power adaptor. My guess is that the ease of use, simplicity and relative safety of the OS X platform has led them to ask the next logical question: Can this product be used for the benefit of my practice?”Golaszewski added: “Anybody who travels back and forth – whether it be to a client’s home or an industry conference – can see the benefit of toting around something like a MacBook Air, which weighs next to nothing.” Cloud comfort zone“I bought a MacBook Air in January this year to use when I present,” says Bill Winterberg, a writer and former financial planner.![]() The benefit of cloud-based software is more of a lucky side effect for Mac users, and I have yet to hear of a vendor contemplating making a native Mac desktop application.Enter Sunit Bhalla, principal of OakTree Financial Planning in Fort Collins, Colo. It’s the best of both worlds.”Bhalla says that when the Apple users group on NAPFA debuted a few weeks ago, 28 people signed up the first day.But the despite all its advantages, demand for Mac software makes up only a tiny segment of market share, according to industry vendors. “In other words, advisors are able to run both the software they want to run and the software they need to run. Luckily for Mac enthusiasts, Apple actually changed the underlying architecture of Macs a few years ago to be just like a PC, so you only have to jump through one hoop to run those Windows applications on your Mac desktop.“Apple’s switched to Intel processors in 2005 and the growing use of virtualization products like Parallels and VMware Fusion means that advisors can run both native OS X applications like Safari and Mail and PC software like Advent and NetX360 at the same time, on the same desktop, and share the data between each operating system,” says Golaszewski. Office 365 for mac couldnt verify subscriptionPershing is currently working on a browser-based version of NetX360, which will eliminate Bhalla’s need to run Windows for trading. He says he’s just trying to help people be more efficient, and if someone is interested in the Apple platform he’ll show them how he made it work.Here are the core wealth management applications that Bhalla uses: ApplicationBy using VMware Fusion or its competitor, Parallels, Mac users can boot Windows at the same time as running Mac OS, without having to restart the computer. “I love the platform and the tools on a Mac, so I tried to stay with it,” he says.Despite speaking at T3 and NAPFA about how he makes use of the Mac, Bhalla is not one of those hardcore Apple acolytes you run into. “My goal is to stay small and use software to be efficient and scalable,” Bhalla says.Bhalla, who was a manager at HP until he switched to financial advising, initially used Mac at home to take pictures and make home movies and before he knew it, he wanted to use it for business. “I can log into my bank in seven keystrokes,” he laughs. I’m constantly plugging in and out of an external monitor, so Divvy is a huge headache saver, since Macs don’t really have a simple way to maximize windows quickly.But Bhalla is streamlined beyond belief. Bhalla shares the list so that others can speed up the points in their workflow that are the worst for them. In part that’s because of Mac OS itself, which is power-user friendly, but Bhalla has searched out a long list of productivity apps to avoid time-consuming steps that most of us wouldn’t even think to optimize.Here are the Mac apps he’s found useful for reducing keystrokes every minute of the workday: ApplicationPassword management for quick login and better securityTo-do lists designed after David Allen’s Getting Things Done philosophyCloud storage and syncing files to multiple computers and mobile devicesQuick launching of applications with the keyboardAllows you to save articles to read laterSave snippets that you type often like email addresses and insert them with a few keystrokesCreate and open new documents with a right clickSpeed up the process of choosing where to save documentsFast application switching with the keyboardFast window manipulation with the keyboardSystem-wide notification system that many applications use to post updates to user’s screenMassive note-taking app that syncs with many devicesKeeps your computer from falling asleep when you don’t want it toMondo app for keeping resources together on writing projectsAccess your desktop computer from your mobile deviceDownloading all of these at once would surely be overkill. It takes some strategy at the beginning, but he says it’s worth it for the efficiency and, perhaps more importantly, to avoid making mistakes.But Bhalla’s tech-driven hyper-productivity goes far beyond these industry apps.
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