Thursday 21 May 2020, the date our app was approved for both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. 

There have been a few moments where I’ve punched the air in celebration over the last few months and this was one.  The very initial discussions of why we wanted to create a new financial services firm rather than change employers and work inside a different wealth management firm was to be different and to push financial planning to the next level.

Having all of my finances summarised in one place, on my smart device, was the dream.  To see exactly where I stand from an income, expenses, liquidity, and long-term asset perspective is what I want to see for myself and my clients.  Having it in one place that is updated daily avoids me personally keeping a spreadsheet and as an adviser I can see in real time what other assets a client has managed elsewhere as these need to be born in mind in my advice process.  So what if they have an ISA portfolio managed by a competitor?  Using the app I can be aware of the risk they are taking elsewhere, which is the very point of having two advisers that are both aware of what the other is doing.

I can upload my car insurance documents, holiday insurance documents.  Previously I was using cloud storage linked to my email, which is fine and I may keep that for a backup but now I can include my Will, Power of Attorney document alongside my investments and share this with my advisers quickly so they can look at it when they need.

The level of detail you can include is amazing and while the cost of development has been significant, it has been truly worth the wait.  Seeing our logo (a nod to The Design Gent is absolutely appropriate here) alongside those of FirstDirect, Barclaycard, AmEx, is a champagne moment. 

And the absolute best part, it exceeds my expectations.  While I had a wish list of what I wanted, to see it work in practise is amazing.  It lets me scroll through my banking history, then I flip to my credit card with a different bank, and then into the performance of my individual ISA funds with another party, and lastly I can see if the tax reclaim due to my pension fund was paid last month!

Thanks for reading.