Here at AdvisorBlogger, we're outspoken supporters of transparency in the financial services industry. In fact, we've written about it before.

Transparency can be improved at all levels of financial advice. Whether it's the regulatory environment that financial advisors work in or providing clear, concise advice to investors, I hope we can all agree that the concept of transparency is a good thing for both professionals and consumers alike.

That's why I was very interested to recently learn about a new service for Advisors called "Advisor Watchguard."

What is Advisor Watchguard you ask?

Let me turn it over to Kevin Fryer, the Founder & President of Advisor Watchguard:

We developed Advisor WatchGuard during a period when the stock market lost half its value. Clearly, investors are looking for new ways to participate in their investment decisions. WatchGuard Financial’s new product makes that possible,” said Kevin Fryer, chief executive officer of WatchGuard Financial. He added, “80 percent of mutual funds underperform their benchmarks. Investors and advisors alike are looking for new information and new strategies so they can invest in top performing funds.

The fundamental approach for these products is to start with an analysis of each investor’s mutual fund holdings and individual equities and align them with the individuals’ personal values and beliefs. WatchGuard has a proprietary system for rolling up equities along with mutual fund holdings and reporting detailed information on sectors, styles, historic returns and social responsibility/values and beliefs ratings for holdings. In addition, the tools include familiar historic returns data.

I'll admit, after reading the above description of the service, I was intrigued. Kevin went on to describe the service as a kind of "Morningstar Lite" but with socially responsible screening baked right in.

Here's Kevin with more on the social screening technology built into Advisor Watchguard:

Everyone who tries these products reacts to the 360-degree view of investment analysis, notes Fryer. He added that investors like knowing that they can select a top-performing mutual fund screened – at their discretion – to exclude specific holdings such as companies with questionable environmental or animal welfare histories.

Further, Kevin points out that historically clients with an interest in socially responsible investing didn't have a lot of choice in the matter. They were basically limited to the Domini funds and some other small investment managers that focused on social responsible criteria in their investment selection. What you can do with Advisor Watchguard, however, is look at some of the largest and most popular funds already in the marketplace and screen them to see if they align with your social preferences which suddenly makes the world of socially responsible investing much, much larger.

But, let me be clear, Advisor Watchguard isn't just about socially responsible investing. It also provides a nice "look through" into the underlying holdings and asset allocation traits of your mutual funds, ETFs and equities. It looks at these holdings by size and style and can even compare them to major indices. The tool will even look into your holdings across funds and report of overlap issues -- for instance, when you have a single holding in more than one of your funds -- which can reveal inefficiencies in your portfolio implementation.  Here are the available reporting details in Advisor Watchguard.

WatchGuard Financial is proud to be a chosen resource for some of the world's most respected financial institutions, as well as independent financial planners and 401k administrators. It is an ideal resource for institutions that distribute mutual funds or products with underlying fund investments. These institutions include:

• Investment banks
• Life insurance companies
• Mutual fund companies

In addition, a wide variety of individual professional investment advisors trust WatchGuard Financial. This includes certified financial planners, chartered financial consultants, and CPAs in the AICPA Personal Financial Planning Division.

Have more questions about Advisor Watchguard?  Check out their helpful FAQ section.

OK. So what's the price tag?

Advisor Watchguard currently offers two subscription options: Monthly or Annually.  The monthly cost is $40 and the annual cost is $399.  However, Advisor Watchguard has been kind enough to offer AdvisorBlogger readers a 25% discount on their annual subscription*.  The discount code is "TWM2509" which you can enter on the Advisor Watchguard purchase screen.

*AdvisorBlogger shares compensation on subscriptions using this discount code.