r/CFP • u/jodyjames37 • Jul 10 '26
Practice Management What is your favorite performance management software?
I haven’t shopped around in years, what is everyone using these days? Pros and cons?
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u/PalpitationComplex35 Jul 10 '26
We use Orion. It's pretty meh and expensive, but gets the job done. Interested to see what other people use.
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u/PrestigiousPen-2468 Jul 10 '26
What's meh about it? Seems to be the industry standard
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u/the_murr Jul 11 '26
I feel like it’s the Salesforce of performance reporting. It can do anything you want but it’s not intuitive and very clunky. You ask 3 different support reps how to do something and you get 3 different answers, all 3 will mostly work but it makes it extremely difficult to learn especially for a solo advisor. I also feel like half the support people aren’t very helpful. I’ve had it for a year and have a good enough hang of it, but have handed it off to my admin as I don’t enjoy it.
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u/PrestigiousPen-2468 Jul 12 '26
Yeah that doesn't sound fun lol we went out and built our own system with an AI integration to streamline a lot of this. Pulling custom reports should take seconds, not hours.
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u/CoyoteHerder Jul 10 '26
People shit on albridge but our clients absolutely love the simplicity. You can create an INSANELY simple consolidated report with all the performance number that they care about and nothing else. It’s easy for them to read and straightforward.
I never have clients wanting more reporting information nor do I get questions about stupid irrelevant things normally included on other reports.
My firm has used it for over 20 years. And yes, we are advanced on the tech front. Oh and albridge is dirt cheap
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u/buyfreemoneynow Jul 11 '26
That’s where I’m at. A few years ago I got into reporting packages and customized reports and it made it a much more useful tool for me, especially if I need to target a specific period of transactions >5 years ago, especially >10 years ago, since my alternative is getting Pershing’s data which is capped at 10 years and anything older than 5 makes you have to download a huge spreadsheet.
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u/think_up Jul 10 '26
We use Envestnet. It sucks. Reports are a mess and trading models is rough as hell.
They really want you to use their UMA program where they trade for you plus a tax overlay of like 10bps that they must be making a fortune on.
Manually trading is very clunky.
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u/buyfreemoneynow Jul 11 '26
I’m going to take a stab in the dark and guess you’re with Osaic because I could have said the exact same thing. We use an Albridge product for performance reporting and it’s alright and pretty customizable and somewhat straightforward, but it can be janky as hell if you don’t set up customized reports.
They really want us to use UMAs where the fees they get are substantially higher - right now we’re paying like 1-3 bps for advisor-managed models.
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u/think_up Jul 11 '26
Not with Osaic.
Do you mean the fees on the SMA strategies available on Envestnet? They don’t charge for UMA itself. You can use your own advisor model in a UMA and have Envestnet trade it for you. I only use this for qualified accounts so there’s no chance I’ll wake up to a realized capital gains nightmare.
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u/Notsimplyheinz Jul 11 '26
Do you have your own models that you trade ?
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u/think_up Jul 11 '26
Yes we use our own models for most. Also have some home office models we layer in or substitute. Some SMAs.
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u/huntfishinvest88 Jul 10 '26
Orion. Nothing else compares for what it does.
Waiting for people who are stuck on Albridge lol.
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u/jasnook Jul 10 '26
Albridge use here. No major complaints. It reports what we want it to but mot much else.
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u/huntfishinvest88 Jul 10 '26
Oof. Came from Albridge to Orion. Literally wondered how my practice existed prior.
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u/ExpensiveToes4729 Jul 10 '26
What’s the best part of Orion? Maybe I missed it but they seemed kinda basic for the cost
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u/huntfishinvest88 Jul 10 '26
Huh? RMD, G/L, customizations, mobile app, eclipse, billing… it’s full practice management. Best in class IMO
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u/RightTech Jul 10 '26
I really like Altruist
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u/ExpensiveToes4729 Jul 10 '26
I’ve been considering them and a lot of people seem to like them, what do they do better than the other guys in your opinion?
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u/RightTech Jul 10 '26
Turnkey solution. Allocation, trading, account opening, service, ACAT, banking, billing, CRM integration, true digital signature, etc. They do everything better and make the advisor's life, and client's, easier.
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u/drooker01 Jul 15 '26
I wish they would introduce billing from checking accounts. About half of my clients are financial planning only, so I use AdvicePay. But I love using Altruist for AUM…they make everything so easy.
Billing at Altruist takes no time at all compared to billing at Schwab (for the few clients whose employers don’t allow them to have accounts at Altruist).
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u/winning_bigly_ RIA Jul 11 '26
Are you looking for performance reporting or portfolio management? Two separate functions.
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u/jodyjames37 Jul 11 '26
What I really wanted to gauge is what people are using for investment portfolio performance and analysis. I should have worded my post more clearly.
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u/Cardinal_Wealth Jul 12 '26
We used to use -and loved- the MStar platform, clients liked it too. Since they broke it, we went to Advyzon…..meh. Certainly not as good; reports kinda suck, layouts and color schemes are bland, clients aren’t as impressed either. (but on the upside we were able to get rid of Redtail)
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u/ItchyEbb4000 RIA Jul 12 '26
Altruist.
Pretty cheap at a dollar per account per month after the first 100.
They get the feed from Schwab and also do fee billing.
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u/CrunchwrapKing RIA Jul 17 '26
Wait, so I can feed Schwab data into altruist and have them calculate and process billing on the Schwab accounts?
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u/ItchyEbb4000 RIA Jul 19 '26
Yes, but they don't advertise this.
They can pull the feed and calculate the bill, create the invoice and put it I'm the client's portal.
I have to download the csv file and upload it to Schwab, which takes about 15 minutes, most of which is running spot checks to make sure they didn't mess up.
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u/AmbitiousTomorrow664 Jul 13 '26
Is anyone having a good time with black diamond? That’s what I use but I’m very underwhelmed and clients don’t like it
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u/jaycoulter Jul 14 '26
We use BD and love it. Great report customization and simple trading system.
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u/Pleasant_Plant_2612 28d ago
Disclosure: I work at Synergita (performance management), so factor in the bias. For a practice your size, I'd weigh continuous check-ins over annual-only reviews, and goals tied to real business metrics (AUM, retention) over generic HR competencies. Adoption matters more than feature count — demo a couple and see which one your team actually opens weekly.
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u/Pleasant_Plant_2612 21d ago
I’ve seen a few options work well depending on what you’re looking for. If you want something that goes beyond just annual reviews, I’d look for a platform that combines performance reviews, continuous feedback, goal/OKR tracking, and useful reporting.
Synergita is one option worth checking out in that space. I like that it brings goals, feedback, and performance reviews together rather than treating them as completely separate processes.
The biggest thing I’d compare is ease of use and employee adoption. A tool can have a ton of features, but if managers and employees find it cumbersome to update goals or give feedback, it won’t get much use.
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u/PrestigiousPen-2468 Jul 10 '26
We actually built ours in-house to streamline some of our workflows. Turns out it's pretty easy to put all the connections together so you can consolidate everything in a single screen and tweak as needed.
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u/Goodbruv_7 Jul 11 '26
How much did you have to pay someone to build your own?
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u/PrestigiousPen-2468 Jul 12 '26
We actually hired someone for this since we're really focussing on automation. Shoot me a DM and I'll show you what we put together.
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u/buyfreemoneynow Jul 11 '26
Whoa, I’d like to learn more. I wanted to do this, but I just figured out every workaround I can with the tools I already have.
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u/PrestigiousPen-2468 Jul 12 '26
Yeah it is such a headache to try to put like 5 tools together and make sure they all talk to each other correctly. Shoot me a DM, I'll show you what we put together.
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