Hans Egger

AstuteWheel has announced the launch of Cognitive Style, empowering financial advisers and their teams to frame advice in line with how their clients think, process information and prefer to communicate.

“Cognitive Style is a tool and process that aligns financial advice with the way a client naturally thinks,” says AstuteWheel Managing Director, Hans Egger. “Just as a lens brings clarity to vision, Cognitive Style helps financial advisers gain a clearer understanding of how clients think, process information and make financial decisions.”

By uncovering whether a client is analytical, sequential, interpersonal, or imaginative, advisers can refine their approach, ensuring financial advice is aligned with the way clients naturally interpret and respond to information.

“It even allows advisers to position exactly the same advice in two different ways, to match how individual members of a couple think.”

Mr Egger says traditional financial planning has long been dominated by numbers, logic and spreadsheets, which assumes that all clients process financial information this way, when in fact, research shows 80% of financial decisions are driven by emotion.

“To build trust and improve decision-making, advisers must present advice that aligns with the way their clients think,” he says. “Cognitive Style helps advisers navigate their clients’ unique cognitive thinking preferences, ensuring that every conversation, Statement of Advice and ongoing financial service is delivered in a way that resonates, engages and builds trust.”

By tailoring strategies to match cognitive preferences, advisers can enhance communication, build stronger relationships and boost financial confidence, leading to better decision-making and long-term success.

How it works

• Cognitive Style categorises clients based on their preferred way of processing information, that is:
• Analytical – Data-driven, logical decision-makers who prefer research, facts and numbers
• Sequential – Process-driven clients who thrive on structure, order and step-by-step strategies
• Interpersonal – Emotionally connected, relationship-focused individuals who prioritise security and personal impact
• Imaginative – Big-picture visionaries who prefer creative problem-solving and long-term possibilities

“With Cognitive Style, financial advisers no longer have to guess how to engage clients effectively. Instead, they can match their advice delivery to each client’s cognitive thinking preferences, making financial plans clearer, more engaging and easier to act on,” Mr Egger says.

“This is the future of financial advice – personalised, insightful and built around how clients think.”

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Hans Egger

AstuteWheel has leveraged cutting-edge technology and brought its development team in-house, to revolutionise its leading financial advice client engagement platform.

‘We have completely rebuilt our offer on a new platform, taking advantage of the latest technology to deliver an even better experience for users,’ said AstuteWheel Managing Director, Hans Egger. ‘We have also brought our development team in-house so that we can be even more responsive to user needs, innovate more quickly, and maintain a higher level of quality control.’

The new platform leverages a low-code development environment, ensuring flexibility and rapid iterations in building, maintaining, and upgrading the AstuteWheel offer.

‘This approach allows us to quickly adapt to industry changes, meet adviser needs, and continuously innovate while reducing development costs,’ Mr Egger said. ‘It also means we can focus on adding new features and improving user experience without being bogged down by complex coding requirements.’

AstuteWheel offers powerful client engagement and advisory solutions to financial advisers, designed to enhance the client experience, simplify the advisory process, and improve practice efficiency, giving advisers what they need to thrive in a competitive landscape.

‘At the heart of AstuteWheel’s success is our comprehensive suite of tools designed to solve the key challenges faced by financial advisers,’ Mr Egger said. ‘From the onboarding of new clients to ongoing client reviews, our platform is built to help automate processes, reduce administrative burden, and allow advisers to spend more time on what matters—building relationships and providing quality advice.’

Mr Egger said AstuteWheel is well positioned to take advantage of changes relating to the Quality of Advice Review as they are legislated.

‘Our platform’s flexibility and focus on compliance make it easy for financial advisers to adapt to new requirements, ensuring they can continue to provide high-quality advice efficiently,’ he said. ‘By staying ahead of regulatory changes, AstuteWheel helps advisers not only comply with new standards but also leverage these changes to deliver even better outcomes for their clients.’

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Michael Topper

Values are as important to clients as goals, according to AstuteWheel, and the evidence is in plain sight.

‘A recent report by the Responsible Investment Association Australasia, for example, reveals that 88% of Australians expect their investments to be responsible and ethical,’ says AstuteWheel Director, Michael Topper. ‘This is an example of a collective values-based expectation.’

In a broader sense, Dr Topper says it suggests that increasingly what Australians also want is financial plans that help them achieve goals that are in line with their personal values.

‘US research shows that clients who feel their values are reflected in their financial plans are more satisfied with the advice than those who do not and clients of advisers who initiate a values-based discussion are likely to recommend them to a friend or colleague.’

The challenge for financial advisers, he says, is that many clients struggle to articulate their values. ‘Give a client a blank sheet of paper, ask them to write down their values, and you may get a blank sheet of paper back,’ he says. ‘This is not surprising, you might struggle to articulate your own!’

AstuteWheel’s values tool helps overcome this struggle. Clients log into their secure client portal, click on an assigned task where 49 values playing cards come up on the screen and select 15 values that resonate most with them. They then reduce the number of values to a more manageable seven.

‘A values tool helps your clients walk through a process that is both valuable and enjoyable. It is also a structured and repeatable process that can become part of how you work with increasingly values-driven clients,’ Dr Topper says.

‘Build a sound strategy, starting with the client’s own unique values, and you will be able to create a financial plan that actually inspires them to achieve their goals. The strategies and products required to achieve their goals should then fall more easily and naturally into place.’

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Hans Egger

In response to a call from advisers using both services, leading financial advice client engagement software provider AstuteWheel has successfully integrated with Xplan.

AstuteWheel managing director, Hans Egger, says AstuteWheel decided to integrate with Xplan following requests from mutual clients. “Responses to a question on our own survey of advisers who use AstuteWheel and Xplan revealed that over 80% wanted the integration,” he says.

The integration uses Roar Software (Roar), an integration gateway platform for financial services businesses. Fact find and reverse fact find data collected via AstuteWheel’s client-friendly online questionnaires is exported through Roar to populate Xplan. Clients already setup in Xplan can be exported to AstuteWheel ready for reviews.

“The integration eliminates the double-handling of data, thereby saving time and reducing the margin for human error,” Mr Egger says. “It also allows advisers to use all of AstuteWheel’s tools and calculators live with the client quickly and easily, leading to greater practice efficiencies and cost savings.” The financial plan is then created in Xplan in the usual way.

Mr Egger estimates that the integration saves advisers between 60 and 90 minutes in onboarding a new client into Xplan and about 40 to 60 minutes in executing reviews for existing clients, each time the adviser conducts a review.

AstuteWheel provides advisers with a structured process and visual tools to make meetings more valuable and informative for the client.

“This helps clients better understand the bigger picture around how financial planning can assist them, and the benefits of individual strategies, making it easier for them to make informed decisions,” Mr Egger says.  “The integration with Xplan further enables this client-friendly journey, while also creating a compliance trail via a seamless back office process.”

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Hans Egger

Online fact finds and risk profiling tools, and scaled advice tools, are where advice practices believe they will receive the greatest benefits in financial planning technologies over the next 24 months, according to the 2020 Netwealth AdviceTech Report (the Report), recently released by Netwealth.

“AstuteWheel shone in both these categories, according to the 2020 Netwealth AdviceTech Suppliers Guide, which accompanies the Report, and measures the usage of technology by AdviceTech Stars,” says Hans Egger, Managing Director of AstuteWheel. “This means we are well-positioned for growth.”

AdviceTech Stars (Stars) are described as industry role models which have a higher average FUA and revenue, and are also successful adopters of technology.

In the online fact-find and risk profiling tools category, AstuteWheel was preferred by almost a quarter of the Stars (23.5%), second only to Xplan.

“Our usage has increased by 4% in this category since last year,” Mr Egger says, “and we expect this to increase again over the next 12 months, as we’ve recently improved the online questionnaire to offer clients a better way to provide information around their goals.”

Despite only launching its enhanced scope and scale of advice wizard in early 2019, AstuteWheel was also the third most popular software provider in the scaled advice tools category. The most popular solution was ‘built in-house’.

“Our solution provides a strong RegTech feature as it offers a structured process for the adviser to capture all the ASIC requirements when providing advice that is limited through scoping and scaling,” Mr Egger says. “We believe many of the practices currently using an in-house solution might therefore find our tool better once they see it.”

One aspect of Stars behaviour that the report highlights is that they are less likely to engage in ad-hoc spending on software solutions. Thinking carefully about their investment, Stars use a defined technology roadmap and annual budget which helps them to achieve higher results than the rest of the industry in areas of improved efficiency, compliance management, improved advice quality, better client engagement and higher client satisfaction scores.

Some of the reasons they are able to enjoy these benefits are because they are careful to not only bring on the resources they need to make sure technology is implemented effectively but they also ensure that their various tech solutions integrate effectively thereby eliminating inefficiencies from multiple handling of data.

“Integration of data is an area that AstuteWheel has focussed on over the last 12 months,” Mr Egger says. “Within our own software system, we have created efficiencies by flowing relevant information to auto populate downstream tools. This also assists with compliance as relevant links are established and captured between client needs and the advice eventually provided.”

Integration between AstuteWheel and financial planning CRMs and other software providers is achieved through the ROAR Software integration hub.

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Hans Egger

AstuteWheel has passed an independent IT & Cybersecurity health check on its business with flying colours.

The health check was commissioned by AstuteWheel and conducted by Gridware, a leading third party IT and cybersecurity organisation that delivers world class solutions to help Australian companies protect against and minimise cyber risks.

AstuteWheel Managing Director, Hans Egger, said AstuteWheel scored 4.9 out of 5, well above the industry average, where 5 is the highest possible score.

“We were especially pleased that AstuteWheel ranked in the 98th percentile against our industry peers which is a fantastic result,” Mr Egger said. “AstuteWheel is ranked as ‘Adaptive’ for cybersecurity posture, which means we have practices that actively adapt to the changing cyber landscape and threats.”

Mr Egger said as cyber threats evolve, AstuteWheel will continue to focus on a range of measures to regularly monitor its information security framework and avoid any future gaps as and when they may arise. “AstuteWheel uses risk-informed policies, processes and procedures to proactively address cyber risks,” he said.

These measures include (but are not limited to):

• Security overview
• Business continuity
• Breach policy
• Multi factor authentication for users and their clients

The IT & Cybersecurity health check was performed using proprietary methodologies developed by Gridware Cybersecurity with reference to industry-leading standards such as:

• ISO 27001 Information Security Management Systems
• The National Institute of Standards and Technology (“NIST”)
• Cyber Security Framework
• Open Source Security Testing Methodology (OSSTM) and Penetration Testing Execution Standard (PTES)

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Hans Egger

Client engagement solution, AstuteWheel, is celebrating its seventh birthday with the launch of third generation software that includes a regtech solution for financial planners.

AstuteWheel Managing Director, Hans Egger, says the latest version of the software comes with new functionality and a new way of taking up the AstuteWheel offer as well as addressing a number of compliance issues that have frustrated advisers for years.

“As the system functionality expanded it became obvious that advisers may like the flexibility to implement our various software solutions as and when required, starting with the base product that now includes powerful compliance tools and adding additional functionality later,” he says.

The new base product, Astute Client Engager provides a turn key solution for financial advisers to onboard new clients, provide engaged clients with a more valuable review, or to re-engage existing clients who are either disengaged or who do not have an ongoing service agreement in place.

Information gathering is made simple via an online fact find and five-minute financial health check sent to new clients or via an electronic reverse fact find and changes questionnaire sent to review clients.

“This process allows relevant information to be collected before the client meeting and automatically loaded into the client database to avoid any double handling of data,” Mr Egger says.

The Astute Client Engager also includes:

Goals based advice tool

Allows the adviser to help the client articulate their goals by expanding them into SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-Bound). Additional file notes can be added and goals that have been achieved or discontinued can be date stamped and saved in the archive for future reference. The adviser’s compliance requirements are embedded in the process and a goals report can be auto generated as part of the audit trail.

Scoping wizard

Automatically transfers relevant information from the five-minute financial health check and goals tool allowing the adviser to walk the client through a series of conversation steps to ultimately produce a comprehensive report. This helps advisers to appropriately scope and scale advice to fit the client’s needs and provides an audit trail to meet ASIC requirements.

Initial letter of engagement and ongoing service agreements

Auto generated Word documents which include relevant information flowing from the goals and scoping tools, adding visual descriptions of the review process. These documents can be customised for each adviser’s service offering.

Add-on modelling calculators

There are also six suites of modelling calculators that can be added to the Astute Client Engager product depending on the adviser’s needs. These include:

• Income Planner
• investment Planner
• Debt Planner
• Risk Planner
• Retirement Planner
• Estate Planner

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Hans Egger

Leading client engagement platform AstuteWheel yesterday launched Astute Estate Planner at a media event hosted at fintech hub Stone & Chalk.

Astute Estate Planner is a stand-alone estate planning tool which revolutionises the process for professionals, including financial advisers, risk advisers, accountants and lawyers. In the case of financial advisers, Astute Estate Planner enables them to facilitate their component of the estate planning process in under an hour.

“Astute Estate Planner helps clients understand and consider important things, like deciding on an executor, guardians or beneficiaries before meeting with their estate planning professionals,” said AstuteWheel’s Hans Egger. “Clients can therefore complete much of the perfunctory information required by their professionals electronically before meeting with them.”

While financial advisers are not legally permitted to provide estate planning advice, they can facilitate the process. Astute Estate Planner has been confirmed as a tool which facilitates the gathering of information on the clients wishes to create a briefing document that streamlines the estate planning process.

Mr Egger said Astute Estate Planner allows advisers to spend better quality time with clients, using auto-generated visuals like electronic family trees and entity diagrams and recording the client’s wishes with regards to Wills, beneficiaries, powers of attorney and guardianship, and how they’d like their estate to be distributed and protected.

“Astute Estate Planner translates to considerable savings in both time and money for the client and better, more efficient meetings not only for financial advisers but also for other professionals engaged in the process such as lawyers and accountants.”

Mr Egger said AstuteWheel has also been working on integration projects with two online legal firms to provide even greater estate planning efficiencies.

“The information collected and documented using Astute Estate Planner by the adviser, can be imported into legal document generation systems such as, for example, Yodal and View Legal, to produce draft Wills and estate planning documents for the lawyer for review and discussion with the client,” he said. “This integration work has provided a seamless, cost-effective and efficient experience for clients.”

Astute Estate Planner was developed as a stand-alone tool, following the launch last year of AstuteWheel’s estate planning module to financial adviser users of AstuteWheel.

“Their positive feedback has been quite overwhelming,” Mr Egger said. “We have also had a lot of interest from other professionals including accountants, lawyers and risk advisers, who have all shown a strong interest in using this software to improve their own client engagement. The development of Astute Estate Planner is in part the result of the conversations we have had with all these professionals over the past year.”

4 Step Process using Astute Estate Planner

1. Client provides key information online prior to meeting (20 to 45 mins)
2. Adviser meets with the client and documents their wishes (30 to 60 mins)
3. Lawyer reviews the system’s Briefing Document and drafts the relevant Wills and Estate Planning documents
4. Lawyer meets with the Client and confirms that the draft documents satisfy the client’s wishes (45 to 60 mins)

Note: The Adviser may wish to attend the Lawyer/Client meeting.

Adviser comments:

“This tool allows financial planners to add real value for their clients, by giving them the opportunity to plan the preservation of their estate in a clear, illustrative process. The clients not only feel confident that they understand their estate and non-estate assets, they are able to present the finalised notes to their solicitor, which saves both parties time and money.”
(Emma Linton Doig, Fortress Financial Solutions)

“There is a whole lot of relief and the family tree building process is where a lot of that comes to life. I can have the conversation with the client and provide the report to the solicitor so he can take the clients through the documents. And it’s done!” (Emma Cunningham, Aventree)

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Hans Egger

AstuteWheel is challenging the boundaries of Australian financial advice, exporting its flagship client engagement platform to South Africa and becoming a member of Stone and Chalk, the independent not-for-profit Fintech hub located in Sydney.

Building on its momentum in the Australian financial services market, AstuteWheel ran a Pilot Program with 20 financial advice practices in South Africa, which received very positive feedback.

“The system was launched to the South African market earlier this month during a roadshow that visited Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg and Pretoria,” said AstuteWheel’s Hans Egger. “Initial signs are very encouraging with a number of advisers subscribing to the software following the demonstration.”

Mr Egger said the South African financial advice market is facing the same kind of regulatory change that the Australian market faced over the past few years. “It is a sophisticated financial advice market looking to grow, and our solution really fills a gap for many of these practices which are already providing good advice, but need a more efficient and better client engagement process to demonstrate to clients the value of their advice.”

AstuteWheel is a client engagement platform that helps financial planning practitioners have better conversations with their clients and to demonstrate the clear value they are delivering. It directly impacts the profitability of a planner and their practice, keeping clients satisfied and engaged and making a more robust and sustainable business model.

And the business methodology is simple – provide a structured, logical and rewarding financial planning journey for clients to better understand, enjoy and value.

Donavan Maree recently started a new financial planning company in South Africa and says that Advice Wheel has essentially provided him with a ‘business within a box’.

“From their financial engagement process through to their marketing material, most of the hard work has already been done for me. By far the best aspect of using their software to date is the ‘5 Minute Financial Health Check’ as well as the ‘About You Questionnaire’. I have been getting my existing clients to complete these and the results have been amazing.

The dynamic between myself and my clients has changed because I can immediately see where they need help, and my job is to show them what strategies are available and then implement the ones that they are comfortable with. The Financial Health Report quantifies the value I add to my clients, which they see for themselves.”

With over 500 Australian financial advisers currently using the AstuteWheel’s platform, the business is in good shape to expand, innovate and create which is the reason behind the decision to become a member of Stone and Chalk, the independent not-for-profit Fintech hub located in Sydney.

“We are really excited about the position our business is in and the opportunities we have in front of us,” Mr Egger said. “However this year is about not only moving beyond national boundaries but also challenging – as we see it – the pre-conceived boundaries in financial advice.”

Mr Egger said these tools allow financial planners to explain strategies and concepts in a visual and easy to understand way, empowering the client to make an informed decision about which strategy is best for them to achieve their objectives.

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Hans Egger

Financial planners can now provide clients with a tangible estate plan in the time it takes to deliver a client review, according to Hans Egger, co-creator of the AstuteWheel Estate Planning suite of tools.  

“Planners need to be dealing with estate planning within their practices in order to make sure their client is fully protected – life is short and this process is integral to complete the advice process,” he said. “But in the past, the process of preparing estate plans has not been efficient and some planners have either outsourced the task to their referral partners or put it in the too-hard basket.”

The comprehensive AstuteWheel Estate Planning solution enables all parties involved in the process – the client, financial planner, solicitor and accountant – to understand the client’s situation, without the client having to repeat and recall their details to each professional.

The tools helps financial planners walk their clients through the estate planning process, ultimately producing an estate plan briefing document which they can take to a solicitor. The document details assets and liabilities; contains a family tree and entity diagram which together explain who owns, owes and controls all the major assets and liabilities; what special relationships, or specific risks, need to be catered for; and what asset protection and tax consequences need to be considered.

“Most Statements of Advice have a cut and paste description of what a Will, Power of Attorney and perhaps a Testamentary Trust are, and a motherhood statement that the client should see a solicitor to get everything implemented,” Mr Egger said. “The AstuteWheel Estate Planning tools will take the estate planning discussion to the next level, ensuring that the client is best looked after within the planner’s practice; a trusted environment.”

Mr Egger said that as well as adding to the planner’s suite of services, the AstuteWheel Estate Planning tools will provide peace of mind for dealer groups, as their practices will be better able to fulfil their Best Interests Duty. It will also help advisers offer a more complete service to their clients and as a consequence increase revenue.

“Financial planners are well-positioned to do the estate planning groundwork because they have already collated all the financial information about their clients,” he said. “The AstuteWheel Estate Planning tools will help expedite the process and make it less expensive for clients.”

Mr Egger said having an estate plan entirely prepared by a solicitor is an expensive option.

“The other problem with this approach is the solicitor may simply take instructions from the client which may result in an estate plan that does not take into consideration the client’s overall financial position, tax consequences, superannuation assets or insurance. The AstuteWheel Estate Planning solution helps remove these risks.”

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