A custodian is a firm that holds (takes custody of) your assets, and provides comprehensive reporting and statements about your holdings and transactions. You’ll also have 24×7 account access through the web-based client portal.
Accelerate Financial recommends that you establish the account with our custodian, TD Ameritrade Institutional with whom we have a “master account.” This keeps trading and reporting costs to a minimum – we can transact in multiple accounts simultaneously, and access transaction and position data electronically.
We prepare all necessary paperwork for your signature, and track the account setup and asset movements through to completion. This is usually done electronically and is a convenient process.
With TD Ameritrade Institutional, we have electronic access to all of our clients’ accounts. We receive direct daily downloads of transaction, position and price information from every one of those accounts. This provides efficiency in monitoring and rebalancing.
We recognize that some accounts (especially 401(k)s) must be maintained with other custodians. Including the assets from these accounts in the strategic allocation and your financial plan is important.
We use the Envestnet Yodlee aggregation service to track transaction and balance information for most 401(k) and 403(b) accounts, to include them in our portfolio management and financial planning services. Then we will be able to include the accounts held at other custodians in reporting and rebalancing. We will also advise which allocations to make in these accounts.