My wife has an expression to describe things that are designed poorly.

She says "it must have been designed my a man."

Take this refrigerator for example:

Freezer on the bottom?  Dumb.  Two handed water dispenser on the inside?  Dumber.

 

Most brokerage firm technology platforms are just as bad.  They are a throwback to the days when you (meaning someone... I'm not exactly sure who) would walk into your broker's office and say "Hey, Jim-Bob... Buy me 200 shares of Acme Rocket Boot Company!"

Normal people don't do that.  Intelligent investment plans are based on percentages.  "40% to XYZ fund" for example.  Dumb brokerage firms make you convert percentages to dollars, dollars to shares (in the case of stocks or ETFs), and then enter each trade separately.

Even if you are only investing in a handful of funds, and only making occasional changes, this technology wastes time and creates multiple opportunities for you (or your investment adviser) to make potentially costly mistakes.

Here's a much better alternative: