By Rob Burgess, WealthManagement.com featuring  Shane Cummings, CFP®AIF®, Wealth Advisor, & Director of Technology/Cybersecurity

Shane Cummings, an advisor and director of technology and cybersecurity, has helped keep the $3 billion AUM firm efficient, flexible and focused on security.

I’ve been in the industry for almost 18 years, the whole time with Halbert Hargrove. I fell into it by accident. I started in the mortgage industry. That imploded early in my career. My parents are clients of Halbert Hargrove. After leaving my last job, I contacted them about rolling over a 401(k). They had some job openings for which they asked me to apply. I ended up as a financial analyst. My skillset evolved. I got my CFP. Eventually, I was working with clients. I also worked as a trader for several years. I did a stint on the investment committee. I then started specializing more in operations and IT. I was promoted to director of technology and cybersecurity, but I still work with clients.

I started in our Long Beach, Calif. headquarters. I’m a California native, but I moved to Denver in 2016, where I am now. It’s been partially remote and partially in office since COVID-19. It was fortuitous because when I moved, it helped me get everything ready for the firm to be mobile. When COVID hit, it was a smooth transition for us to work remotely. We had everything ready. Nobody needed any new training.

We use Envestnet | Tamarac for reporting, rebalancing, portfolio management and trading. Because of that, we’re using their implementation of the CRM, Microsoft Dynamics 365. We’re a Microsoft shop. Tight integration is essential. We had our in-house implementation of Microsoft Dynamics 365. Over time, we migrated into the Envestnet | Tamarac implementation. Frankly, there’s not much difference between that one and the plain, vanilla version of Microsoft Dynamics 365. I like that it’s portable. If we ever migrated from Envestnet | Tamarac, and I’m not saying we’re going to, we could always find another provider.

Financial Planning: Envestnet | MoneyGuidePro

We’re a big MoneyGuidePro shop, and it’s tightly integrated with Envestnet | Tamarac. They’ve done a lot of work behind the scenes. We’ve benefited from that and harnessed efficiencies. Ten years ago, whenever we did a MoneyGuidePro financial plan, we’d have to update the accounts manually. That could be a big time suck. With the Envestnet | Tamarac integration, you hit a button, and those holdings get pushed over to MoneyGuidePro. It refreshes everything, and in about 10 seconds, you have all the accounts up to date, which helps.

We use Envestnet | Tamarac for reporting, rebalancing, portfolio management and trading. Because of that, we’re using their implementation of the CRM, Microsoft Dynamics 365. We’re a Microsoft shop. Tight integration is essential. We had our in-house implementation of Microsoft Dynamics 365. Over time, we migrated into the Envestnet | Tamarac implementation. Frankly, there’s not much difference between that one and the plain, vanilla version of Microsoft Dynamics 365. I like that it’s portable. If we ever migrated from Envestnet | Tamarac, and I’m not saying we’re going to, we could always find another provider.

Account Aggregation: Yodlee by Envestnet

We haven’t implemented this firm-wide or consistently, but we use Envestnet | Yodlee for account aggregation. It has been frustrating. It’s never worked perfectly. Some linked institutions work better than others. Fidelity and Schwab, with which most clients work, tend to be consistent. We do have to deal with aggregation issues. I wish the technology were better there, but I don’t think we’re unique in having that issue. That is a sore point within our industry. It’s a mixed bag.