What's New: Other Enhancements
Schwab Advisor Center® has digital tools and resources to help you onboard new relationships, support your clients, and scale your business. Below you can learn about the latest enhancements and resources, or explore recent updates by clicking on a topic.
Get more from study participation with the new Benchmarking Results Dashboard
One of the key benefits of participating in Schwab's annual RIA Benchmarking Study is gaining critical insights to help you identify focus areas for the coming year, such as how firms are leveraging technology to enhance efficiency and strengthen operational security.
With Schwab's new interactive Benchmarking Results Dashboard, you can now customize your view to better understand your firm's performance and take actionable steps to drive your organization forward.
- Compare with ease. Select from various comparison groups, including AUM and average client size, to see how your firm stacks up.
- Learn from top performers. View your firm performance versus Top Performing Firms1 to help you identify strengths and opportunities.
- Access actionable resources. Get insights from Schwab's proprietary resources for RIAs.
If you would like to take advantage of this powerful tool, watch for your invitation to participate in the RIA Benchmarking Study, which begins on January 22 and runs through March 5.
December (1224-8FVL)
1. Top Performing Firms are those that rank in the top 20% of the Firm Performance Index. The index evaluates all firms in the study according to 15 metrics to arrive at a holistic assessment of each firm's performance across key business areas.
Fraudsters don't take holidays
For most of us, the holidays are a joyous time for relaxing with family and friends. But this season is also the busiest time of year for cyber criminals, who are eager to take advantage of our generosity and distraction. To protect yourself, your clients, and your firm, keep an eye out for the following fraud threats.
Charity scams. Scammers pretend to represent a legitimate charity and encourage generous clients to send them money. Advise your clients to research charities before making a donation—check for a valid taxpayer identification number, for example. They should watch out for pressure tactics, requests for gift cards or wire transfers, and especially requests for banking or credit card information over the phone, via email, or through a suspicious URL.
Senior and vulnerable investors. At this time of year, senior clients may reach out for charitable donations, required minimum distributions, monetary gifts, or other needs. When they do, listen for any signs of cognitive decline, ensure they have a trusted contact on file, and verify their beneficiary information. Unfortunately, holiday contact with family and friends can give unscrupulous people an opportunity to exploit elderly clients for cash gifts or loans. Listen for signs of emotional distress and be wary of a sudden interest in a client's finances by those around them.
Fake website and search engine optimization scams. In recent months, we've seen an uptick in impersonations of trusted institutions, including Schwab. Be sure your clients are on the lookout for impostors posing as Schwab employees and contacting them via phone, email, text message, and even social media. Some criminals create realistic-looking websites that appear to be for Schwab or another institution. When clients follow a link and enter their credentials on these sites, their information may be stolen, or they may be exposed to phishing attacks aimed at their data and assets.
Schwab offers an array of resources to help you protect your firm and clients from these and other cybercrime tactics. Visit the Fraud page of the Cybersecurity Resource Center.
December (1224-8FVL)
New at-a-glance Quick Quote bar available on Schwab Advisor Center
The new Quick Quote bar offers at-a-glance security quote information without interrupting your workflow. You can find the Quick Quote bar at the bottom of the Dashboard, Accounts, Trading, and Research tabs on Schwab Advisor Center. On each of these pages, you'll see:
- A snapshot of the market
- Real-time individual security quotes
- Auto-suggested symbols as you type
- Quick access to additional research info
We are working on future enhancements to the Quick Quote bar, which we will share with you as they become available.
November (1124-16WF)
New features available on the header bar of Schwab Advisor Center
The newly redesigned navigation experience, available at the top of each page on Schwab Advisor Center, puts important functionality at your fingertips.
- The enhanced Search help and support bar auto-fills suggestions as you type. You can select or click a suggestion to go directly to the page you need, or you can press return and view a full search results page.
- The new Get Help menu replaces the Support dropdown, giving you access to relevant links, including the Service Guide, the RIA Ed Center™, service requests, and a Contact Us link that you can use to contact your service or sales team, the trading desk, technical support, and other important contacts at Schwab.
- When you're trying to download large amounts of data and your request can't be processed immediately, you can find your queued export tasks by clicking the Exports menu. When your request is ready, you'll see a number next to the Exports menu, indicating how many exports are ready for download. Click the link to review and download your requests.
- When you click Settings on the Profile menu, a modal window lets you update not only your contact information, role at your firm, and notification, as well as your login credentials and security information.
And, as always, you can use the What's New link to see important technology updates like this one!
July (0724-CCZA)
At-a-glance information from the new Account Overview dashboard
The new Account Overview dashboard makes it easy to see and act on client account data, including balances, positions, and other key information, without the need to navigate to multiple pages. The dashboard features a number of modules:
- Real-time balances, including total value, cash, short balances, funds available to trade, purchased funds, and balances over time
- A snapshot of the account's asset mix, along with other high-level performance calculations for various time horizons
- Profile data, including contact and master information on the account and account-holder level; for details click the Go to Profile link
- Stay up-to-date with all the account's important alerts; if you need to take action, click the Go to Alerts link to view the Alerts tab
- View status updates at the firm and master account level in a convenient module; to address items that need action, click the link to view the Status page
June (0624-518X)
New features bring more key Schwab Advisor Center data into Salesforce
We've incorporated some of your most requested features into our Salesforce application, minimizing the need to switch between Salesforce and Schwab Advisor Center while working in your account.
Here are some key highlights:
- Required minimum distribution (RMD). This feature adds 32 new fields to the Schwab account record, offering comprehensive information about your clients' RMD statuses and history. The data is automatically updated during the daily scheduled downloads, ensuring accurate, up-to-date insights.
- Account roles. A new custom account role is now linked to the Schwab account in Salesforce. You can easily view beneficiary account roles categorized by role type, name, and percentage. Data updates are automatically synchronized during the daily scheduled downloads.
- Standing authorization. This feature introduces a custom standing authorization object that you can view for each Schwab account in the Salesforce application. Updates to standing authorizations are made at the account level. You have the flexibility to retrieve this information on-demand using the Update Schwab Standing Instructions button or through the Real-Time Standing Instructions Update page element, which automatically retrieves the data each time the page is opened and refreshed.
- Single sign-on to move money. The new single sign-on (SSO) capability for money movements complements the existing SSO functionality for Account Details and Documents. Now you can easily access the move money tool on Schwab Advisor Center in a new window—while staying within the context of your original account—saving you time and reducing the likelihood of errors.
- Update balances page element. We've also introduced a page element for updating balances to ensure that you always have access to the latest figures. You can update balances on-demand, using the existing Update Balance button or the Real-Time Balance Update page element, which automatically updates balances each time you open Account Details or refresh the page.
To begin using these enhancements, please contract our service team at 888-400-5067. For more information, view the Schwab Advisor Center Integration for Salesforce user guide.
June (0624-518X)
Now access Morningstar Direct Compass from the Research tab
The Research tab on Schwab Advisor Center now offers a single-sign-on link to Morningstar's Direct Compass tool, giving you access to leading investment research directly from Schwab Advisor Center. You can also customize your experience and save the changes to ensure that you always get the information you need quickly and easily.
The new link is under Morningstar in the Market Reports section of the Markets page. It replaces the previous Analyst Research Center link. Enhanced customization and features include:
- Morningstar's independent and proprietary data, ratings, research, and analysis
- A powerful screener for searching securities across a variety of criteria
- Integrated watch lists
- A customizable dashboard
- Analyst coverage in equity, manager, and credit research, including global research and editorial content
Visit Morningstar to learn more about this powerful tool. (Note: This link opens an external website.)
March 2024 (0324-4DNK)
New enhancements provide more transparency for digital onboarding and deposits
As we continue to welcome new advisors to Schwab Advisor Center, we are listening closely to feedback and working quickly to deploy key enhancements across the platform. Here is a roundup of some of the latest updates we've launched based on your suggestions.
- You'll now receive messages on the Status page for any not-in-good-order or processing issues with your check deposits, making it easy to locate these issues among your other status updates.
- Previously, you received alerts only for check, wire, or direct deposits of $25,000 or more; now deposits of all dollar amounts trigger these alerts. In addition, you now receive alerts for insufficient funds related to IRA check requests.
- It's easier to see the edits clients have made when reviewing a digital onboarding or account management envelope. You can also now choose Level 2 options (spreads) with limited margin when opening IRA accounts with digital onboarding.
- A new feature lets you process qualified charitable deductions (at a 0% withholding level) without changing the account-level tax withholding elections.
These enhancements are in addition to our recent improvements to the user experience when using Schwab Advisor Center, reviewed in What's New from November 2023. What can you look forward to next in Schwab's tech ecosystem? Take a look at our roadmap of Schwab Advisor Center.
January 2024 (0124-4DB4)
Sort clients by last name, firm-level cash information, and other expedited enhancements based on your feedback
As we continue to welcome new advisors to our platform, we are listening closely to feedback and quickly working to deploy key enhancements across Schwab Advisor Center. Here's a roundup of some of the latest updates we've launched based on your suggestions.
- Sort by primary account holder's last name. You can now sort by the last name of the primary account holder on the Balances and Profiles tabs to make it easier to quickly scan client accounts.
- Reduced white space on core pages. Updates to the Balances, Positions, and Profiles tabs reduce white space to allow more data to be displayed, improving readability and providing a more compact, operationally efficient view.
- Account selector updates. Changes to the Account Selector reflect the latest feedback from advisors, including improved compactness by displaying more accounts when the Short view is active, more recently accessed accounts available on the Recent list, and a new quick link to Group Manager to help maintain your groups.
- Enable access to firm-level cash in and out information. From the Dashboard tab, you can now download an export of recent deposits and withdrawals for the current and prior business day at either the firm or individual master account level. This enables you to look across your accounts for incoming deposits that need to be allocated or outgoing cash transactions to be aware of. Note that the module and corresponding export is available only for firms or master accounts with fewer than 1,000 subaccounts.
What can you look forward to next in the Schwab tech ecosystem? Take a look at our roadmap of upcoming enhancements to Schwab Advisor Center.
November 2023 (1123-3N4A)
A new look and feel for Schwab Advisor Center
As you have probably noticed, we updated the style of Schwab Advisor Center's global navigation. The new color scheme and tab styles bring the site into line with Schwab's other web properties and are designed to make using the site's tools a more pleasing experience. The enhancements are all cosmetic—we have not made changes to functionality or our policies. We hope you enjoy the new, more user-friendly experience.
In addition, we have added an entry to the Profiles page, indicating the country in which client accounts are registered. This information is under the heading Jurisdiction Country and is visible in both the account view and the account holder view. For foreign-domiciled clients, only the country of residence is listed. For U.S. clients, you will see the state name, as well.
This registration is important for determining an account's features, trading ability, and update requirements. Please share the new country registration designation with your service team to simplify the process of determining which product or service is best suited for each specific client.
May 2023 (0523-3R4H)
Schwab Data Delivery® update will automatically install new scheduler software
In the coming weeks, you will be prompted to install the latest version of Schwab Data Delivery. The new enhancement offers a number of benefits, including the ability to schedule tasks instead of manually starting them. In addition, the data viewers now display Schwab's enhanced core file formats, and we have also refreshed the look and feel of Schwab Data Delivery as a whole.
You will be prompted to install the upgrade in the coming weeks. The download will be automatic, but to install it and activate the new functionality, you must either have administrator privileges on your computer or ask your firm's security administrator or other IT professional to grant permission and install the upgrade.
May 2023 (0523-3R4H)
New Positions page and account selection tool available now—more enhancements coming soon
For more than a year, we have been hard at work modernizing and enhancing core Schwab Advisor Center features that you use every day. Now you can experience a number of these enhancements, with more coming in the next few weeks.
Recent improvements include:
- In late March, we launched a modernized Positions page on the Accounts tab. In addition to improvements to the page's look-and-feel, you can now view positions at a firm level—a feature that wasn't available in the legacy version—and you'll be able to toggle between start-of-day and intraday settings for firm, master account, client, and custom group views. You can also group positions by security type individually or collectively. In addition, the grid supports drag-and-drop column customization, and we’ve made it easier to access important footnotes and disclosures.
- A modernized Balances page is scheduled to be released in the coming weeks, featuring benefits similar to those of the Positions page discussed above.
- We also recently upgraded the account selection tool with a new version which was rewritten from the ground up to provide a better, richer search experience. You will be able to separate recently viewed and bookmarked accounts from the rest of your search results, view account groups by category, and see highlighted results to help you find the right account quickly. And to help you differentiate accounts with similar names or ownership, we've added a new focus section and provided at-a-glance balance information.
For a limited time, you will be able to toggle between the new and legacy views for each of these features. In the coming months, we will retire the legacy versions.
Finally, in the next few weeks, look for a revamped look-and-feel of the global navigation bar at the top of the site. This long-anticipated refresh of our top-level user interface brings Schwab Advisor Center in line with our other web properties but without functional changes.
April 2023 (0423-3V78)
New dashboard view puts Schwab Advisor Center data at your fingertips
We are in the process of adding a new dashboard feature to serve as your "front page" for Schwab Advisor Center. Just like the front page of a newspaper, the new dashboard lets you see at-a-glance the most important information you need to start your day. You may already see the new feature as the first tab at the top of Schwab Advisor Center. If not, we will be rolling out this feature to your firm in the coming weeks.
The dashboard features a series of modules, each of which provides easy-to-read data regarding an important aspect of your clients' accounts:
- All bulletins posted in the past 14 days
- Events and webcasts happening over the next two weeks
- Your firm's alerts by category, along with links to details
- The number of high-level status updates and requests for your firm, along with links to details
- Firm- and master-level assets under management
- For firm security administrators, firm-level components-of-change calculations and a balance-over-time chart
Best of all, you can customize and arrange these modules to suit your needs.
More content modules are coming soon:
- Firm-level asset flow calculations, lists of clients generating the largest inflows and outflows, and the net asset flow over time
- Current market index information for U.S., European, and Asian markets
- At-a-glance lists of the top 10 highest-value accounts and security holdings
We encourage you to visit the dashboard today—and to make it part of your everyday Schwab Advisor Center routine.
February 2023 (0223-34F3)
The Service Guide—same information, new modern look and feel
We know that you rely on the Service Guide for in-depth information about the Schwab policies and functionality you interact with every day. We have refreshed this tool to look and work more like our other digital experiences—yet all the same resources are still available. We hope this enhancement makes it even easier for you to find the information you need.
Functionally, very little has changed. Service requests, bookmarks, and Help—all work the same way as before; you'll just notice a few tweaks:
- The new homepage has easier access to popular topics and key resources, with the search bar prominently featured at the top of the page
- Navigation has been consolidated at the top of the page and features more concise labels
- Some topics have been rearranged to give you an at-a-glance understanding of more important subtopics
We hope you enjoy the modernized experience when using the Service Guide.
February 2023 (0223-34F3)
The top five Schwab Advisor Center enhancements of 2022
We are continuously looking for ways to bring you better digital tools to help you run a more efficient business, provide a better client experience, and minimize fraud. Here's a quick overview of the top tech enhancements we made to the Schwab platform in 2022.
- Digital client onboarding. Expanded our digital client onboarding workflow with the ability to open, set up, and fund multiple accounts for a household in one streamlined workflow.
- New digital account management workflows. Added four completely digital workflows that allow your clients to quickly and securely approve common account maintenance tasks such as transferring assets or adding a beneficiary.
- Move money. Launched import transactions, giving you the ability to submit multiple onetime cash journal transactions quickly and securely by uploading a comma-separated values (CSV) spreadsheet file.
- Schwab Advisor Center mobile app. Added new check deposit functionality in the Schwab Advisor Center mobile app to photograph and deposit checks of up to $3 million into your clients' retirement and brokerage accounts.
- Status and Alerts overview page. Launched the Status and Alerts overview page, providing you with a consolidated view of all recent status updates and alerts and enabling you to take action on those notifications from a single page. We also added the ability to make the overview page your default homepage when you log in to Schwab Advisor Center.
For more information about the coming enhancements to Schwab's technology ecosystem, review the Schwab Advisor Center digital roadmap and register for the 2023 Tech Talk webcast series.
January 2023 (0123-2523)
The new Action menu on the Profiles page makes it easy to perform key tasks
Now you can use new functionality to easily navigate to important pages and create easy-to-remember nicknames for your master and sub-accounts.
When you select a master or sub-account on the Profiles page, you can now click Action on the right side of the screen to access a menu allowing you to trade, move money, manage the account, and do portfolio analysis—all without navigating through other pages of the site.
One of the links on the Action menu allows you to create custom nicknames for your master and sub-accounts, making them easier to remember and look up. Your firm's security administrator controls which users have access to add or modify a nickname for each account.
We hope that these and future such quality-of-life improvements will make using Schwab Advisor Center to conduct business on behalf of your clients and firm even better.
November 2022 (1122-20T1)
Better readability, editing, and viewing of key data
The cost basis page features a new look-and-feel designed to make it easier than ever to find the information you need for your clients' accounts.
The improved page features include:
- Better readability, interactivity, and use of widescreen resolutions in the gain/loss tables
- New user interface that offers easy access when editing information or viewing and subscribing to reports at the account level
None of the functionality you depend on has changed, meaning these enhancements should not affect your daily workflows—other than possibly expediting them!
If you would prefer to transition more slowly, you can still use the classic version of the page temporarily: Click the View legacy Cost Basis link to toggle between the new version and the older view.
We will continue to enhance this and other pages on Schwab Advisor Center as we work to modernize your experience.
November 2022 (1122-20T1)
Tag accounts, masters, and groups for easy access across the site
Get the best of both worlds. As part of the ongoing TD Ameritrade integration, a major set of new enhancements is being added to Schwab Advisor Center that incorporates top capabilities from TD Ameritrade's Veo One® platform. Long-term enhancements include a new dashboard with customizable modules and a modern design that simplifies the user experience. The first enhancement—new bookmark functionality—is now available.
The new bookmark icon appears next to each account, master account, and group you view on Schwab Advisor Center. When you click it, that account or group is added to your bookmarks—all of which can be accessed by clicking the Bookmarks link at the top of the page, on the left rail, or on various page grids. This new functionality makes it easier than ever to find the items you interact with frequently, no matter where you are on the site.
June 2022 (0622-2NSK)
