Managing Client Marriages in Practifi

Overview

A client's marriage is one of the most significant financial life events your firm will manage. When two clients marry, or when an existing client takes a spouse, their financial picture changes in ways that can touch everything from estate planning and service agreements to reporting and relationship tracking. Practifi's Household record type is designed to reflect exactly this kind of combined financial life.

A Household record groups related individuals under a single entity, giving your advisors a unified view of the household's relationships, services, definitions, and activities. Converting individual clients into a Household and nesting the spouse within it allows your team to manage the couple's shared journey in a single record, rather than maintaining two separate ones.

The steps in this article are organized based on whether the spouse already exists in your Practifi organization. This is not an exhaustive list of all possible scenarios, and custom workflows may be needed for special cases. Your firm may also have a specific process that differs from the options outlined here. If you have questions about your firm's best practices for managing client marriages, please contact your CSM.

• Spouse Is a Client in Practifi
  • Change Primary Contact to a Household Record
  • Add Spouse to Household
  • Change Household Name
  • Service Management
• Spouse Is Not a Client in Practifi
  • Change Client to a Household Record
  • Add Spouse to Household

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Spouse Is a Client in Practifi

When two of your firm's clients have married, you will want to consolidate their two Individual Client records in Practifi into a single Household Client record. This gives your advisors a complete picture of the couple's combined relationships, services, and definitions in one place, and ensures that nothing related to the household is scattered across separate records.

The process involves three stages: converting the primary contact's Individual record to a Household, nesting the spouse's record within it, and updating the Household name to reflect both members.

Change Primary Contact to a Household Record

Before the marriage, both client records are most likely the Individual record type. To combine both clients' Individual records into a Household, the primary contact's record type must first be converted to a Household record. Once this is complete, the spouse can be added by nesting their record within it.

1. Navigate to the client record of the individual you would like to be the household's primary contact. 
2. Click the Actions menu in the record side panel. 

3. From the drop-down menu, select Add to new Household. 

   

4. Leave the spouse question set to No, as this option is used when creating a new spouse record.
5. If there are dependents as part of the marriage who have not yet been recorded in Practifi, enter the number of dependents in the How many dependents do they have? field.

6. To retain the client's definitions and related records on the new Household record, select Yes, move them to the Household from the drop-down menus for the definitions and related records questions.

   

   • Please note: If this option is not selected, your new Household record will not retain the Individual's Client definition or related records. 

7. Click Next.

8. If dependents were specified in the previous step, you will be prompted to enter information for each dependent. Once the information is entered, click Next to continue.

   

9. A success message will indicate that the Household record has been created. Click Finish to close the display. 

   

Add Spouse to Household

Now that the Household record exists, the spouse's Individual record needs to be nested within it. This links both clients under a single Household and consolidates their records for easier relationship management.

1. Click the Actions menu on the record side panel of the Household record you just created.

2. From the drop-down menu, select Add Household Member under the Household Actions header. 

   

3. A pop-up workflow will appear. Click the Add an existing member option, then click Next.

   

4. In the Who are you adding? field search for the spouse's name and select their name from the drop-down menu of results. 

5.  How are they related? field, select Spouse from the drop-down menu, and then click Next.

   

6. To retain the information from the spouse's Individual record, leave the Do you want to move this person's definitions? field set to Yes, move them to the Household.

   

7. Click Next to continue through the workflow. A success message will indicate that the spouse's record has been merged into the Household record. 

   

Change Household Name

After the spouse has been added to the household, you will want to update the Household record's name to reflect both members. Your firm may have a preferred naming convention for household records.

1. Click the Overview navigation icon on the record side panel. 
2. On the Overview page, click the Basics subtab. 

3. Click the pencil icon beside the Account Name field.

   

4. Update the name to reflect the household using your firm's naming preference. 
5. Click the Save button at the bottom of the Overview section to finalize the record name change.

Service Management

After the Household record is created and the spouse's record is nested within it, the Household may contain two services: one from the primary contact's original Individual record and one from the spouse's. Your firm will need to decide how to handle these. Common approaches include closing both existing services and opening a new one that reflects the couple's combined needs, or retaining both services under the Household record.

The right approach will depend on your firm's workflows and the client's situation. Services can be managed from the Services & Pipeline navigation icon on the Household record's side panel.

Spouse Is Not a Client in Practifi

If your client's spouse is not currently in Practifi and you would like them to be in the system, you can create a new spouse record when converting the client to a Household. This allows you to build out the household relationship in a single workflow, rather than creating records separately.

Change Client to a Household Record

1. Locate the client record in Practifi to which you would like to add the new spouse. 
2. On the record side panel, click the Actions menu. 

3. From the drop-down menu, select Add to new Household within the Individual Actions section. 

   

4. A pop-up workflow will appear. Click the toggle button next to the Do they have a spouse? question to enable it.
5. If any dependents are included in the marriage, enter the number of dependents in the How many dependents do they have? field.

6. To retain their definitions from their Individual record to their Household record, select the drop-down menu for the definitions and related records questions, then select Yes to move them to the Household. 

   

   • Please note: If this option is not selected, your new Household record will not retain the Individual's Client definition or related records. 

7. Click Next.

Add Spouse to Household

1. After clicking Next, you will be prompted to enter the spouse's information. Fill in the relevant fields and click Next to continue. 
2. If the number of dependents was set to a value greater than 0 in the previous step, you will be prompted to enter information for each dependent. Once the information is entered, click Next to continue. 
3. A success message will confirm that the Household and spouse records have been created. Click Finish to close the display.