That’s a Wrap! – Schwab’s Transition that is!
As September comes to an end, we are busy wrapping up the loose ends from the recent TD – Schwab transition. Overall, we felt the transition went very smoothly. Most of the issues we saw were fairly isolated or things we anticipated. Service team hold times are returning to normal as the new service team members that transitioned from TD seem to be gaining confidence and familiarity with the processes. Many of our advisors expressed their gratitude that they were able to leverage our team’s extensive Schwab knowledge during this time, avoiding lengthy calls to the service team and minimizing disruptions for clients. We shared best practices, helped update internal processes and client communication to align with Schwab’s processes and terminology, and assisted advisors in making sure fee accounts were ready for upcoming billing activities.
What’s Up Next
Advisors are now embarking on their next transition – year end planning & activities. One challenge the TD – Schwab transition will present to advisors involves tracking Required Minimum Distributions and annual contribution limits. While many of the transactions made at TD will appear in the account transaction history, they won’t reflect in the RMD dashboard or trigger system generated warnings about contribution levels. This means that advisors and their clients will need to be vigilant not to over-contribute to retirement accounts and manually review accounts to ensure that all RMDs have been satisfied.
Anticipating this issue, we worked with many of our advisors to schedule client RMDs prior to the transition, for peace of mind. For advisors who preferred to wait or clients who use QCDs or systematic distributions to satisfy their RMDs, we helped run reports just prior to the transition for easy reference and queued reminders for individual clients.
Tax planning is top of mind for many of our advisors this season. Many of our teams are busy assisting advisors by requesting client tax returns ahead of upcoming meetings and leveraging the use of software such as Holistiplan to prepare tax reports or stage client tax letters.
Whether you need someone to help keep tabs on year-end requirements, assist with meeting prep, quarterly reporting and billing, or take on that project that’s been sitting on your back burner, talk with your team today about how we can help you finish strong in the 4th quarter!
If you aren’t yet a client and would like to schedule a call, visit our website at here and one of us will be in touch!
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