Management of goals and recommendations

• US 8,190,502 B2
• Filed: 05/29/2009
• Issued: 05/29/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 05/29/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ameriprise Financial, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Ameriprise Financial, Inc.
• Inventors: Moran, William J., Charlesworth, Bryan, Jacobson, Stan, Geppert, James R., Keckler, Marcy, Doherty, Bryan, Reker, Nicolle
• Primary Examiner(s): Shrestha, Bijendra K
• Application Number:
  US12/475,260
• Publication Number:
  US 20100306126A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,096 Days
• Field of Search: 705/36, 705/36.R
• US Class Current: 705/36.R
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/06 Asset management; Financial planning or analysis

Abstract

Methods, systems, and computer-readable media are disclosed for managing goals and recommendations. A particular method includes identifying one or more financial planning objectives for a financial planning client, receiving information relating to the one or more financial planning objectives, and creating a financial planning goal for the financial planning client based at least in part on an analysis of the information. One or more financial planning recommendations are associated with the financial planning goal, and data identifying the financial planning goal and the one or more financial planning recommendations is stored in a data store. The method also includes monitoring progress of the financial planning client with respect to the financial planning goal over at least a portion of a financial planning lifecycle.

Claims

1. A financial planning method comprising:

identifying, by a computing device comprising at least one processor, one or more financial planning objectives for a financial planning client;

receiving, by the computing device, information relating to the one or more financial planning objectives;

creating, by the computing device, a financial planning goal for the financial planning client based at least in part on an analysis of the information;

associating one or more financial planning recommendations with the financial planning goal, wherein each of the one or more financial planning recommendations includes a proposed action to further progress towards the financial planning goal and a recommendation status;

storing data identifying the financial planning goal and the one or more financial planning recommendations in a data store that is in communication with the computing device;

storing, in a record of the data store, a first goal status associated with the financial planning goal and a first updated recommendation status of at least one of the one or more financial planning recommendations in response to receiving first input from a first application at a first time;

storing, in the record of the data store, a second goal status associated with the financial planning goal and a second updated recommendation status of the at least one financial planning recommendation in response to receiving second input from a second application at a second time, wherein the second application is different from the first application;

monitoring activity with respect to the financial planning client and at least one other financial planning client;

detecting one or more financial planning trends based on the monitored activity;

selecting a financial planning product in response to the one or more financial planning trends; and

enabling incorporation of the selected financial planning product into subsequent recommendations.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the information includes information regarding assets of the financial planning client, liabilities of the financial planning client, income of the financial planning client, expenses of the financial planning client, investments of the financial planning client, family status of the financial planning client, or any combination thereof.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of the first input from the first application and the second input from the second application is received after an interaction with the financial planning client.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of the first input from the first application and the second input from the second application is received from a financial advisor assigned to the financial planning client.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of the first input from the first application and the second input from the second application is received from a party other than the financial planning client and a financial advisor assigned to the financial planning client.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the first goal status is one of an ongoing status, an on track status, a not on track status, a deferred status, an achieved status, and a cancelled status, and wherein the second goal status is different than the first goal status.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the financial planning goal includes a goal attribute that is a type, a description, a date added, a date modified, a date changed, or a household identifier.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the first and second updated recommendation status are each selected from the group consisting of a proposed status, an accepted status, an implemented status, a deferred status, a rejected status, and a cancelled status.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of the one or more financial planning recommendations includes a recommendation attribute that is a source financial account identifier, a source financial institution identifier, a destination financial account identifier, a destination financial institution identifier, a suggested monetary amount, a financial services product identifier, an insurance provider identifier, a target completion date, a date created, a data modified, or a benefit statement.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating a client report for the financial planning client, wherein the client report includes a display of the one or more financial planning objectives, a display of the financial planning goal, and a display of the one or more financial planning recommendations.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving information related to a plurality of financial planning sessions between the financial planning client and a financial planning advisor that occur during a financial planning life cycle, wherein the first time corresponds to a first financial planning session, and wherein the second time corresponds to a second financial planning session.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the first financial planning session corresponds to a first financial event and the second financial planning session corresponds to a second financial event.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein at least one of the plurality of financial planning sessions includes accessing analytical data related to the financial planning goal and the associated financial planning recommendations from a plurality of applications.

39. The method of claim 1, wherein a portion of the record is modifiable by the first application and not modifiable by the second application.

41. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more financial planning trends include a trend in financial planning client behavior, a trend in financial planner performance, a trend in a particular financial planning product, or any combination thereof.

14. A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising instructions, that when executed by a computer, cause the computer to:

receive a financial planning goal associated with a financial planning client, wherein the financial planning goal identifies a client objective and includes a goal status and one or more goal attributes;

receive a financial planning recommendation associated with the financial planning goal, wherein the financial planning recommendation includes a recommendation status and one or more recommendation attributes;

create a record in a database, wherein the record includes the financial planning goal, the financial planning recommendation, and one or more client attributes of the financial planning client,

send a copy of the record to a first application;

receive a first modified record from the first application, wherein the first modified record includes at least one modification to the copy of the record;

update the record in the database based on the first modified record;

send a copy of the updated record to a second application;

receive a second modified record from the second application, wherein the second modified record includes at least one modification to the copy of the updated record;

update the record in the database based on the second modified record;

monitor activity of the financial planning client and at least one other financial planning client;

detect one or more financial planning trends based on the monitored activity;

select a financial planning product in response to the one or more financial planning trends; and

enable incorporation of the selected financial planning product into subsequent recommendations.

16. The computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the copy of the record is sent to the first application via an eXtensible Markup Language (XML) message, a Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) message, or any combination thereof.

17. The computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein at least one of the first application and the second application is a financial planning application.

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein at least one of the first application and the second application is a document development application.

19. The computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein at least one of the first application and the second application is a web application.

20. The computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the first application converts the copy of the record into a first application record having a data format native to the first application and creates the first modified record based on an analysis of the first application record.

21. The computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the first application is supplied by a first application vendor and the second application is supplied by a second application vendor that is different from the first application vendor.

40. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 14, wherein at least a first portion of the record is not modifiable by at least one application, and wherein at least a second portion of the record is not modifiable by any application and remains constant after the record is created.

15. The computer-readable medium of 14, wherein the first modified record is generated by the first application on a first date and wherein the second modified record is generated by the second application on a second date that is subsequent to the first date.

22. A system comprising:

at least one processor;

a data manager executable by the at least one processor to;

store goals and recommendations to a database; and

retrieve goals and recommendations from the database,

wherein each goal stored at the database includes a goal description and an updateable goal status to track progress toward meeting the goal and wherein each recommendation stored at the database includes a recommendation status and one or more recommendation attributes, and

wherein the goals and recommendations are represented by a data file in a first data format and wherein each recommendation is associated with at least one goal and includes at least one proposed action;

a first interface executable by the at least one processor to receive the data file representing the goals and recommendations from the data manager and to translate the data file representing the goals and recommendations from the first data format to a second data format compatible with a first application;

a second interface executable by the at least one processor to receive the data file representing the goals and recommendations from the data manager and to translate the data file representing the goals and recommendations from the first data format to a third data format compatible with a second application;

an analytics engine executable by the at least one processor to;

monitor activity of the data manager with respect to a plurality of financial planning clients;

detect one or more financial planning trends based on the monitored activity with respect to the plurality of financial planning clients; and

select a financial planning product in response to the one or more financial planning trends; and

a product allocator executable by the at least one processor to enable incorporation of the selected financial planning product into subsequent recommendations.

23. The system of claim 22, wherein the database includes at least one goal that is a financial planning goal and at least one recommendation that is a financial planning recommendation associated with the financial planning goal.

24. The system of claim 23, wherein the financial planning goal is a financial position goal, a retirement goal, an education goal, a major purchase goal, a cash reserve goal, an income tax goal, an investment planning goal, an employee benefits planning goal, a survivor income goal, a disability income goal, a long term care planning goal, a healthcare planning goal, a property and casualty planning goal, an estate planning goal, a divorce planning goal, a financial planning goal of a business owner, or any combination thereof.

25. The system of claim 22, wherein the database includes at least one goal that is a non-financial goal.

26. The system of claim 22, wherein the database is a relational database and wherein the data manager is further executable by the at least one processor to receive and transmit the data file representing the goals and recommendations via XML messages, SOAP messages, or any combination thereof.

27. The system of claim 22, wherein the first application is a financial planning application.

28. The system of claim 27, wherein the financial planning application is executable by the at least one processor to:

when a current financial planning client is a new client;

receive user input regarding the new client;

create one or more goals based on the user input;

create one or more recommendations for each of the one or more goals; and

send data identifying the one or more goals and the one or more recommendations to the data manager via the first interface; and

when the current financial planning client is an existing client;

modify a goal status of a particular existing goal;

modify a goal attribute of a particular goal;

modify a recommendation status of a particular existing recommendation;

modify a recommendation attribute of a particular existing recommendation; and

send one or more of the modified goal status and the modified existing recommendation status to the data manager.

29. The system of claim 22, further comprising a web interface infrastructure executable by the at least one processor to support a planner web interface for a plurality of financial planners, wherein the planner web interface for a particular financial planner includes a display of goals and recommendations associated with each client served by the particular financial planner, wherein a display of a particular goal includes a display of the goal status of the particular goal and wherein a display of a particular recommendation includes a display of the recommendation status and a display of the one or more recommendation attributes of the particular recommendation.

30. The system of claim 29, wherein the planner web interface further identifies actions due for a particular financial planning client and is useable by the particular financial planner to respond to inquiries from the particular financial planning client.

31. The system of claim 30, wherein the planner web interface is further useable by the particular financial planner to monitor financial planning recommendations having a recommendation status other than implemented.

32. The system of claim 29, wherein the web interface infrastructure is further executable by the at least one processor to support a client web interface that includes a display of goals and recommendations associated with a particular financial planning client.

33. The system of claim 22, wherein the second application is a document development application executable by the at least one processor to:

receive a user selection of a document template;

receive goals and recommendations for a particular financial planning client;

create a financial planning document for the particular financial planning client based on the document template and the received goals and recommendations; and

automatically update the received goals and recommendations and send the updated goals and recommendations to the data manager when a print function of the document development application is activated.

34. The system of claim 22

wherein the one or more financial planning trends includes a client behavior trend, a financial planner performance trend, a financial planning product trend, or any combination thereof.

35. The system of claim 22, wherein the data manager is part of a financial planning software service.

36. The system of claim 35, wherein the financial planning software service is accessible by a plurality of financial planners and a plurality of applications.

37. A system comprising:

at least one processor;

a data manager accessible by a plurality of applications, wherein the data manager is executable by the at least one processor to store financial planning goals and financial planning recommendations for a plurality of financial planning clients to a database;

a financial planning application executable by the at least one processor to access the data manager and to create a financial planning goal and associate one or more financial planning recommendations with the financial planning goal;

a document developer application executable by the at least one processor to access the data manager and to;

modify a goal status of an existing financial planning goal; and

modify a recommendation status of an existing financial planning recommendation;

receive a user selection of a document template;

create a financial planning document for a particular financial planning client based on the document template and based on financial planning goals and financial planning recommendations associated with the particular financial planning client; and

store the generated financial planning document at a file manager;

an interface infrastructure executable by the at least one processor to support a plurality of interfaces, including;

a first interface that comprises a display of financial planning goals and financial planning recommendations associated with each financial planning client served by a particular financial planner; and

a second interface that comprises a display of financial planning goals and financial planning recommendations associated with a financial planning client;

a data mining module executable by the at least one processor to monitor the data manager with respect to the plurality of financial planning clients, to detect one or more trends based on the monitoring, and to identify one or more products based on the one or more trends; and

a product allocator executable by the at least one processor to enable incorporation of the identified one or more products into subsequent recommendations.

38. The system of claim 37, wherein the interface infrastructure is further executable by the least one processor to support a third interface that is useable by a financial planning client to input information related to financial planning goals and financial planning recommendations associated with the financial planning client.