Iress ContributorHi Jason,
Great topic, there is so much functionality in Portfolios that can certainly get overlooked.
One topic I recently spoke to our advisers about was model portfolios and setting up Target Sets in Portfolios. These can add some great efficiencies within practices.
I'd love to hear your feedback on some common questions I have received:
1. What is best practice when creating target sets and applying them against a client's portfolio?
2. What Target Set functionality is underutilised but can add a lot of value?
3. Are there reports that can be generated to show the client's current portfolio weight against the target weighting for the model portfolios?
Thanks
Jackie
Iress ContributorHi Jackie,
Great questions, best practice when it comes to target sets and modelling will depend heavily on the business and how they choose to implement modelling for their customers. We built target sets and modelling with flexibility in mind, this often means there is more than one way to achieve the same or similar outcome. e.g. Managing a single mutli-asset class target set vs managing a target set per asset class and adjusting the ratio of each linked to a client to deliver the desired investment profile.
What I can say about best practice here is to ensure you keep it as simple as possible, an easy trap to fall into is to start with a basic target set, then as some clients require slight variations on this, create a modified version of that basic target set. Over time you will accrue many similar versions of the same target set, which can lead to a confusing user experience, complicated permissions and potential errors if a client happens to be linked to the incorrect version of the basic target set.
This does join nicely into point 2, a potentially underutilised function is the "Advanced" settings when linking a target set or sets to an account (see section F.3 in the Target Set Overview on Community https://community.iress.com/t5/Help-Guide-Xplan/Target-Set-Overview-and-Key-Features/ta-p/54566). This function allows a user to make adjustments, exclusions or substitutions when linking a target set to an account, ensuring you can add these slight variations to a target set without needing to maintain multiple similar versions of the same.
In relation to the 3rd point, I'll need to come back to you, as modelling is an active process I don't believe there is a standard report that can produce this output, there may however be a datasource that allows this.
Thanks,
Marc
