Advisor Training: Introduction to Orion

One of the benefits of the XYIS TAMP service for advisors is access to Orion’s portfolio management platform. Below is a summary of how it helps you serve clients and what you need to know to use it seamlessly in your back office operations.

What is Orion? 

Orion, at its core, is a portfolio performance reporting and billing tool, known in the industry as portfolio accounting software. With this software, you can trade accounts, run compliance reports, apply advisory fees to accounts, share reports with clients, and open accounts - to name a few of its many capabilities.

For most advisors using Orion or any other portfolio accounting software for the first time, setting it up themselves can be overwhelming as it is highly customizable. However, the XYIS Advisor Service Team configures your platform and client portal as part of our onboarding process and ongoing support and training on the specific tools you’ll need to implement your investment management services. 

While it is not necessary for you to become an Orion expert to successfully leverage this platform in your business, if you do wish to learn beyond what we teach you here, you can register for Ascent Training, Orion’s own training program.

How Will I Use Orion?

Orion has numerous tools that allow you to complete many of the functions of managing investments. In previous versions of Orion, you’d find these tools listed as icons (similar to an iPhone display) on the home page. Now when you log in, you’re brought to a customizable dashboard page where you can see stats on your business and recent account activity. You can still find all of the tools you’ll need by navigating to All Applications in the left panel or searching in the top left search box.

Here are the tools you’ll frequently use:

Billing: Advisory Fee Reports - View your fees charged each billing period

Integrations: Element - Account opening wizard that works with multiple custodians and allows you to quickly open new accounts, initiate ACATs, and generate paperwork to send to clients for electronic signature. Here you can also complete a risk tolerance questionnaire for clients and generate an investment proposal.

Performance: Benchmark Assignments - Update benchmark assignments across multiple levels - by Advisor (for multi-advisor firms), by Household, by Registration (Individual), or by Account

Portals: Client Portal - Preview what your clients will see when they log on to your firm-branded Orion portal.

Portfolio: Householding - Organize accounts (as needed) between Registrations (Individuals) and Households and to add Registrations within the same Household.

Portfolio: Portfolio Audit - Manage portfolio data across all levels (Households, Registrations, Accounts, Assets and Transactions). 

Reporting: Deliver - Create custom email templates to deliver portfolio information to your clients, set recurring delivery dates and track for compliance.

Reporting: Query - Select from pre-built queries and pull data on account activity and metrics to help you understand and run your business. Queries can be exported to Excel and set up to be delivered to your inbox.

Reporting: Reporting - Access all reports (standard and custom) in one place.

Reporting: RMD Dashboard - Review specific information related to Required Minimum Distribution needs. Access Forms and generate Mail Merge letters. Update related RMD information stored on the Registration (Date of Death) and Account (Systematics) lists..

Tools: Ascent - Access Orion’s training directly from your dashboard.

Tools: Manage Users - Create and reset user logins for your advisor branded client portal.

Tools: Notifications -  Easily update your notification preferences for all Orion system notifications.

How Does XYIS Use Orion?

In addition to the various tools you’ll use in Orion, XYIS also leverages Orion’s trading functionality through Eclipse - a powerful trading and rebalancing tool, completes your period-end billing processes and generates your firm’s client performance reports.

In the next training article, you’ll learn more about the frequent tasks you’ll complete in Orion.