Getting Started with Advisor Portal

Study Notes:

This course is designed to review Interactive Brokers’ turnkey Client Relationship Management (CRM) solution for financial advisors and RIAs. This introductory lesson will review the basics of navigating the IBKR Advisor Portal and future lessons will review the specific tools more in-depth.

How to Access IBKR’s Advisor Portal?

Advisors can login to the Advisor Portal from IBKR’s home page and clicking Log In in the upper right corner, then Portal Login from the drop-down menu. After entering their username, password and verifying with their Two-Factor Authentication device, the advisor will be redirected to the Home Dashboard of the Advisor Portal.

By clicking the Notification bell icon in the upper right corner, advisors can view Pending Items relating to their master account, corporate actions, messages, and FYI Notifications.

How to Navigate the Menu in Advisor Portal?

The main navigation menu can be opened by clicking the Menu icon in the upper corner. If a tab has a plus sign to the right of it, then it can be expanded to see more menu options within that category.

• The Home page provides access to manage client information and the onboarding process quickly and easily for new accounts.
• The Contacts page allows financial advisors to add, sort, edit, and export contact information of existing and prospective clients. 
• Administration & Tools menu contains CRM tools such as configuring billing & fees, creating Households, viewing clients’ risk scores, managing calendar events, and many more.
• The Trade menu in Advisor Portal allows access for advisors to trade any available products such as stocks, options, futures, crypto, and many more. Advisors can also view orders & trades, exercise options, convert currency, and close positions. Note that tools such as Models, Rebalance Portfolio and creating groups of accounts for trading are only accessed in the Trader Workstation or TWS. For more information, please see our dedicated TWS course.
• PortfolioAnalyst is a powerful analytical tool that consolidates, tracks, and analyzes the client’s complete financial performance.
• Reporting menu tab has access to IBKR’s robust reporting features including standard Statements, Flex Queries, Tax Documents and more.
• The Research menu contains the ability to create watchlists, configure market scanners, access the Fundamentals Explorer, and other research and news tools.
• Transfer & Pay menu in Advisor Portal provides resources to transfer funds, transfer positions, monitor transaction status and history, and more.
• Education menu has links to all the educational resources including short videos, Traders’ Insight, podcasts, webinars and the IBKR Forum. The IBKR Forum is designed to promote dialogue among IBKR clients where they can post observations, ideas, articles, and questions to which other clients can respond, resulting in a useful online exchange for the benefit of all.

In the upper right corner of the Advisor Portal is the Head & Shoulders icon. From this icon, the advisor can:

• Access their Account & User Settings
• Change the language of Advisor Portal
• Turn on or off accessibility features
• Switch between Light and Dark mode
• Enable Wide Layout to maximize efficiency on larger screens and monitors
• And log out.

Are there support resources in Advisor Portal?

Next to the Head & Shoulders icon is the Help menu with access to Frequently Asked Questions, the Support Center, and the opportunity to provide feedback on the portal functionality and features.

Additionally, throughout the Advisor Portal, there are blue question mark icons that provide contextual help designed to give the advisor quick answers while working in a particular section of the portal.

Now that we have reviewed the basics of navigating Advisor Portal, the following lessons in this course will dive into the key functionality pertaining to onboarding clients, configuring automatic billing, generating reports, and more.

Resources

Advisor Portal User Guide

Advisor Welcome Center