Moneyscope Blog

We've moved

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 21:34:59 +0000

We’ve updated the Moneyscope website and, as part of this, have integrated the blog into the new site. So if you want to read the latest from Moneyscope come on over to the new site as we’ll no longer post updates to this blog.

Here’s the new Step 2 screen. Regular Moneyscope users...

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 18:21:42 +0000

Here’s the new Step 2 screen. Regular Moneyscope users will notice that negative values are now displayed in orange but, when you print the client report, they appear in red.

We just thought we’d post a a couple of preview shots of...

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 18:12:35 +0000

We just thought we’d post a a couple of preview shots of the new Moneyscope Too design, before it goes live on Monday. Here’s the redesigned Step 1 screen.

'Moneyscope Too' coming soon. Very soon, in fact.

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 09:51:18 +0000

Back in January we told you about some changes to Moneyscope we were working on. Well the time has come and we’ll be putting the first stage - which we’ve nicknamed Moneyscope Too - live on Monday 19 March.

What’s changing?

Firstly, don’t worry. We’re not playing with Moneyscope just for the sake of it, and this isn’t the first in an inexhaustible list of ‘enhancements’.

For a while now, we’ve felt that Moneyscope would benefit from a bit of a tidy up as well as a few tweaks to smooth out its edges.

So the update to Moneyscope Too deals with some niggly little issues that both you and us wanted to address, including:

In addition to making the total savings over time graph larger, it will also show negative values in a different colour: on screen a negative value will be in orange but, in your printed report, negative values will appear in red;
The 'Income’ and 'Expenses’ labels in 'Step 1’ of the process will change to 'Money coming in’ and 'Money going out’ - we just think this labelling is clearer;
We’ve made the ability to re-sort content in a column - by clicking on the column heading - much clearer. We say clearer because, believe it or not, this ability has always been there; it just hasn’t been all that visible until now.

Once Moneyscope Too is live, we will be delivering two more changes:

The ability to apply individual inflation rates to each item of money coming in and money going out. This is something we’ve had lot of requests for so we’re adding it. And those of you that don’t want to make use of it, and are happy with how it works now, don’t have to.
Hot on the heels of this, we’ll add the problem-solving feature which Rich spoke about in this blog post.

What do Moneyscope users need to do?

Absolutely nothing.

We’ll update the site and - so long as it all goes well - when you log-in on Monday morning, you’ll be using Moneyscope Too.

In order to switchover, Moneyscope may not be available from 4pm on Sunday afternoon but it will be back on Monday morning. We hope this doesn’t disrupt you too much and hope you’ll like Moneyscope Too.

OK so, first, we must confess that Moneyscope does...

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 16:30:05 +0000

OK so, first, we must confess that Moneyscope does sponsor Meaningful Money’s mission to help consumers make sense of money.

But, much as we’d like to, we’re afraid that we can’t claim the credit for insisting that Moneyscope co-starred with Pete Matthew in his latest episode on cash-flow planning.

Besides the fact that it is a big compliment for Moneyscope to feature - so ‘thank you’ Pete - what we really like is the way that Pete is able to use Moneyscope to easily demonstrate the benefits of cash-flow planning for consumers.

It illustrates exactly how we’d always hoped Moneyscope would work for financial advisers and planners: a refreshingly straightforward way to calculate your client’s lifetime cashflow, in a way which your clients can easily understand.

In the fourth of a series of six animated phone calls, John Gay...

Fri, 02 Mar 2012 14:09:00 +0000

In the fourth of a series of six animated phone calls, John Gay of Frisco Financial Planning in Frisco, Texas, explains why he likes using Moneyscope.

Just like last month’s call with Phil O'Connor, what you hear is what was said. It’s an unscripted, unedited and unprompted one-take ‘open mike’ phone call.

Cashflow planning - bringing money to life

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 17:20:00 +0000

Richard presented at today’s IFP Financial Planning Day 2012 and we thought we’d share the slides for those who couldn’t make it or just want to take another look.

At the IFP Conference last October, Richard focussed on the role of cashflow forecasts in assessing risk. Building on this, Richard’s talk today illustrated the ways in which cashflow planning can be used to help bring clients’ financial situations to life; whether this is as part of detailed financial planning, for clients who are saving for a specific goal or in order to address the wider issue of risk.

With experience across a number of different cashflow forecasting tools, Richard also explored a number of different systems available to help advisers in this area. It goes without saying that Moneyscope was included but Richard also takes a look at the other tools available to meet varying adviser needs and preferences.

Note: The slides may take a moment or two to render. During that time you may spot the odd rogue number in slide titles before they appear correctly.

threesixty Paraplanning Forum

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 18:02:29 +0000

Richard was on stage for the London threesixty Paraplanning Forum today and will be presenting again at the second event on 29 February in Coventry. We’ll be publishing Richard’s slides here following the event on the 29th.

For those of you at a loose end next Thursday, Richard will also be speaking at the IFP Financial Planning Day; sharing his thoughts on the role of cashflow forecasting in the financial planning process. We’ll be sure to share any useful snippets after the event.

Meet Phil O'Connor of Whitewell Financial Planning based in...

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:33:52 +0000

Meet Phil O'Connor of Whitewell Financial Planning based in Bolton, Lancashire. Phil features in the third of a series of six animated phone calls in which users of Moneyscope explain why they like using it.

Just like last month’s call with Philippa Gee, what you hear is what Phil said. It’s an unscripted, unedited and unprompted one-take ‘open mike’ phone call.

We’ve got two projects on the go at the moment which are...

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 15:12:30 +0000

We’ve got two projects on the go at the moment which are due to go live soon: one is the release of a new problem-solving feature that we’re building (which Richard described in a recent webcast); the second is a subtle evolution of the screen designs (pictured above).

Regular users of Moneyscope will recognise the screen above and, if that’s the case, we think you’ll be pleased to see that the bar chart now has one colour when a plan is in the black and one when it’s in the red.

But how come the bars are orange when you’re in the red?

Well, the screen designs might not seem like a radical shift but we’re seeking to improve the clarity of Moneyscope’s layout by improving the way we use type, forms and colours.

By reducing the number of colours we’re using on a screen, our ambition is to make Moneyscope that bit easier to ‘read’ at a glance and, therefore, navigate.

When you come to print out a report, however, Moneyscope will keep the green bars green, but the orange bars will become red so your clients get a report where their cash is either in the green or in the red.

(At least, that’s what we’re working towards at the moment.)

It’s the kind of thing that pixel-perfect people like us get very exercised about, but what do you think? Are you happy for negative values to be displayed in orange on screen, and then displayed in red in print?

Just post a comment below to let us know what you think. But hurry because we’re cracking on with the work!

Michael Kitces: Is our financial planning software improving our productivity or destroying it?

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 16:45:06 +0000

Michael Kitces: Is our financial planning software improving our productivity or destroying it?:

We really enjoyed reading this post by US financial planner, Michael Kitces, in which he asks whether increasingly complex financial planning software is:

Consuming more of a financial adviser’s time than is desirable en route to the generation of a client’s financial plan?; and
Deterring clients, who would like to work on the creation of their financial plan with their adviser, because the software appears so impenetrably complicated to the untrained eye?

Our own view is no secret because we’ve posed the question before about ‘Who is financial services technology for?’.

We've also talked about the irony that financial planning technology awards appear to measure the quality of technology by the number of features packed into it, rather than the usefulness or ease with which those features can be used (see: 'We’re one year old today and are proud to have failed to win a single award’).

But we particularly like Michael’s point about software being designed so it’s easily used by clients and advisers alike.

We won’t pretend that we set out to design Moneyscope to be used by our users’ clients (because we didn’t) but it seems that Moneyscope users aren’t afraid to let their clients loose on Moneyscope on their laptop, iPad or tablet during meetings anyway - like this example or this one.

And, like Michael, we think that this can only be a good thing for both clients and advisers.

After all, the ability of software to enable clients and advisers to work collaboratively on lifetime cashflow forecasts must, surely, contribute to a greater sense of partnership and common purpose?

Just imagine if all financial planning software was designed so it was intuitively easy to use, regardless of whether you’re an adviser or a client working alongside an adviser - that’s bound to lead to software which aids adviser productivity isn’t it?

Out and about in February

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 08:10:00 +0000

Richard Allum of Moneyscope will be taking to the road for a few dates in February. He’ll be spreading the word about cashflow forecasting.

Richard will be speaking at the threesixty Paraplanning Masterclasses taking place on 17 and 29 February, and the IFP Financial Planning day on 23 February, and will talk about the role of cashflow forecasting in helping to bring clients’ financial situations to life.

So don’t be a stranger. If you’re going to any of these events then say ‘hello’. We’d love to catch up with you.

"Love it! Made a big difference during early meetings when we are working through a clients plan. It..."

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:00:00 +0000

“Love it! Made a big difference during early meetings when we are working through a clients plan. It has impacted on a number of client decisions already so paid for itself more than a few times.”

- Andrew Moore of Goodmans Financial Planning commenting at our support site.

Late last year, we posted the first of six animations featuring...

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 11:20:00 +0000

Late last year, we posted the first of six animations featuring Moneyscope users.

Here’s the second. This time we’ve recorded a call with Philippa Gee of Philippa Gee Wealth Management based in Church Stretton, Shropshire.

Just like the call with Gary Phillips, what you hear is what was said. It’s an unscripted, unedited and unprompted one-take ‘open mike’ phone call.

Problem-solving and other things Recently we’ve been...

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 12:53:43 +0000

Problem-solving and other things

Recently we’ve been considering the problem of problem-solving with Moneyscope.

By problem-solving, we mean those occasions where a client’s forecast kicks up a cash-flow dilemma somewhere down the line - where cash runs out, for instance.

At the moment, you might have to turn to your own Excel spreadsheet - or a heavy-duty piece of financial planning software - to help solve the problem and remodel the forecast.

We’d like to fix that and we thought you might be interested to see what’s behind our thinking. So Richard has recorded the short screencast (above) to explain what we’re working on at the moment.

As you’d expect from Moneyscope, we’ll make sure that the addition of the problem-solving feature doesn’t dilute the speed and simplicity that we know advisers enjoy; we’re just eager to add an easy-to-use tool that we think users will really like.

All being well, we expect to put this change live early in 2012.

A few more things for the wish-list

We consider the addition of the problem-solving feature to be the final piece in the Moneyscope jigsaw, but we’re also thinking about a few small - but potentially useful - tweaks at the moment including:

Enabling advisers to add their own logo to Moneyscope reports;
The ability to apply varying rates of inflation to different items of income and expenditure;
Negative values highlighted in red in Moneyscope graphs.

That’s what we’ve been thinking about but would you find those innovations useful? Let us know what you think.

Are you Apple Mac or Windows PC?

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 16:49:00 +0000

In a moment, we’re going to invite you to help us satisfy our curiosity.

We’re interested to discover the extent to which financial advice professionals use Apple Macs versus Windows PCs for work – and which they would prefer to use.

But, first, the back story. (Although, if you really can’t wait, we’ll be inviting you to complete a very quick three-question survey which you can visit here: Mac or Windows PC survey.)

Last week, Moneyscope founder, Richard Allum, became embroiled in a debate on Twitter which was swirling around the question of whether applications developed by investment platforms worked equally well on both an Apple Mac and Windows PC.

Anecdotally, the evidence was pretty inconclusive. However, amid the exchanges, there was a suggestion from one tweeter that there simply wasn’t the demand from Mac users to warrant development of software for Mac as as well as for Windows.

That assertion piqued our interest.

We wondered whether people who’d prefer to use Macs were having to resort to Windows PCs at work in order to use some of the software out there. Then we wondered whether this, ironically, was leading technology providers to conclude that there wasn’t latent demand to design for the Mac operating system.

In other words, are developers of software basing their assumptions on actual use rather than preferred use? Would more people prefer to use a Mac at work if they could only use their Macs at work? (Otherwise known as the ‘chicken and the egg’ question.)

And what about emerging mobile platforms? Would people already prefer to use an iPad or tablet device (where Apple and Google offer the leading operating systems, of course)?

So that’s why we’re inviting you to complete this short survey about the technology you currently use and would prefer to use.

There are only three questions, so it should only take a matter of moments to complete.

We’re really interested to hear what people think so feel free to pass the survey link on to other financial advice professionals.

Here’s the link to the survey again: Mac or Windows PC survey.

Not so long ago, we asked for volunteers who would be willing...

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 13:30:00 +0000

Not so long ago, we asked for volunteers who would be willing speak to us - over the phone - and let us know what they like about Moneyscope.

So here’s Gary Phillips of Phillips Financial Planning in Newry, County Down; the first of six advice professionals who feature in six individual animations that we’ll occasionally publish over the next few weeks.

What you hear is what was said. It’s an unscripted, unedited and unprompted one-take ‘open mike’ phone call.

We let people like Gary know what we hoped to achieve by recording the call - to help people who don’t use Moneyscope understand why people who do use Moneyscope do - but, as far as the content of the call was concerned, well we left that up to Gary to decide.

We’d like to thank Gary for taking the time to talk to us, and for letting us use the audio from the call for this animation.

And, while we’re at it, we’d also like to thank Philippa Gee of Philippa Gee Wealth Management, John Gay of Frisco Financial Planning in Texas, USA, Paul Richardson of Concept Financial Planning, Phil O'Connor of Whitewell Financial Planning and Pete Matthew of Jacksons Financial Services - for kindly offering their time to contribute to the project.

By the way, if any of our featured advisers ever fancy a change in career direction, we’re certain that they could all cut it as broadcasters if they ever wanted to!

"I use Moneyscope after having either been a user of or trialled Truth, Voyant, and PlanLab. The..."

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 18:15:00 +0000

““I use Moneyscope after having either been a user of or trialled Truth, Voyant, and PlanLab. The latter are all very competent, but I like the simplicity of Moneyscope and it does all that I and my clients need.””

- Independent financial adviser, David Hopkinson, in FT Adviser

22 November 2011 - FT Adviser / Cashflow modelling tools: go with the flow

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 13:11:08 +0000

22 November 2011 - FT Adviser / Cashflow modelling tools: go with the flow

"It works well on Galaxy tab 10.1 on Android 3.1. Screen size good, could be used with a client...."

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 17:13:00 +0000

“It works well on Galaxy tab 10.1 on Android 3.1. Screen size good, could be used with a client. Saved report to Evernote easily”

- Despite being enthusiasts for all of their products, we try to remember that there is life beyond Apple. So with that in mind, we asked people to let us know if they were using Moneyscope on tablets other than the iPad.

We already know that it works well on the iPad and even iPhone.

However, we were delighted when James Dean replied to our question on Twitter to confirm that it worked well on the Galaxy Tab running on Android.

So have you used Moneyscope on something other than an Apple device? We’re curious so let us know.