How To Avoid a Forms Disaster

The right forms solution prevents rejected financial forms

We get it! Forms are boring. You spend tedious time combing through minute details that lull you into mind-numbing boredom - one field at a time. After all this and a few sips of coffee, you finally reach it. The surging moment of hope as your mouse inches towards the submit button.

Relief sweeps over you like a wave as you lean back in your chair. The submission confirmation blares boldly on your screen. Then it happens. The package comes back because the form you completed - the form your customer signed - was out of date. All that time was wasted with some embarrassment to sharpen the sting.

A rejected form may seem like a small mistake but not to a financial professional who’s experienced it. This event leads to a frustrating set of consequences. And it sets off a chain reaction that ripples through a company. No one likes NIGOs (Not In Good Order).

The NIGO can generate an unfortunate impact on a business. As the Business Impact Analysis cites, a business impact can affect lost or delayed income, increased expenses, contractual penalties, or loss of contractual bonuses. All this is on top of customer dissatisfaction and the delay of new business ventures.

And while it may seem like a small error, a rejected form can put many people on hold - your valued client included. After using an out-of-date form, it can be annoying and embarrassing to dig yourself out of that pitfall. Quik! understands this and works to reduce or eliminate the chance of a rejected form. The Quik! Forms Team makes it their number one job to keep all forms in the Quik! Forms Library up to date.

How do we maintain the Quik! Forms Library?

The Quik! Forms Team employs every tool they can to keep all the forms in the Quik! Forms Library current:

1. The majority of our customers and vendors send form updates to us on a regular basis through email at forms@quikforms.com.

2. Another popular way is through our forms management system – Quik! Forms Manager (QFM to those who use it). This system enables those companies supplying us with forms to have direct access to their library. There, they can upload updates, add forms, edit the metadata surrounding the form and get reports.

3. We allow companies to send updates for their forms by using FTP or File Transfer Protocol. Using FTP, a form provider uploads forms directly to a secure platform and alerts our team of the updates.

4. Our team also uses special software to help them spot the differences between the forms in our library and the forms our providers have on their websites. We compare the form found with the form in our library to make sure they are the same version.

5. If those methods weren’t enough, some providers give us a special login to a section on their company website that allows us to check for updates.

6. And to take the process one step further, the forms team at Quik! does a periodic review of individual company libraries. If a company's forms haven’t been updated in a while, the team sends a list to the form provider to make sure they are still current and active.

Does it really take a whole team? Yes. Is it easy to get on the team? No.

Our highly specialized forms team works tirelessly to provide our customers with the most updated forms. All of them know their way around a computer and use a couple of dozen apps and tools, both commercial and internal, to do their job. They also boast the company's highest typing speed with an average of over 110 WPM.

In addition, to either build or update the forms, they have to apply the accurate field definition to each field on the form from a database of close to a million field definitions. When selecting our team members, we don’t cut corners.

In a library that numbers over 38,000 forms, the Quik! Forms Team changes over 50% of the library every year. The team has to either add, remove, or update more than 1,600 forms a month on average.

What does all this mean for you?

A NIGO or out-of-date form can be devastating for a financial advisor. It is also a costly mistake throughout an entire company. Quik! helps our customers avoid these costly errors by ensuring our forms are continuously updated.

You hate rejected forms. Your company hates rejected forms. And our forms team hates rejected forms. Although the acceptance rate for our forms is over 99.9%, even one is too many. We work hard to maintain the most accurate and complete library possible so that your forms get accepted the first time.

Want to learn more? Call 877-456-7845 (and select option 2) or get in touch online!