Advisor and Firm Operations for Financial Advisors and Firms

What changes

• Automation runs on a platform your compliance team already accepts.
• Nothing goes live before that review, and SDT prepares what the reviewer needs.

How it works

1. SDT starts from the platforms your firm has already approved and builds there.
2. Before anything goes live, SDT prepares what your compliance reviewer needs.
3. One example: an advisor automation built in Zapier was rebuilt in Power Automate to meet one firm's requirement. It passed that firm's compliance review.
4. The same rule covers AI tools. Any AI tool SDT builds runs only on a platform your firm accepts.

What changes

• A process that works before you buy a tool.
• The person who designs the process is the person who builds it.

How it works

1. Most engagements begin with the CRM and operations audit. You receive a written findings report and a prioritized list of fixes.
2. SDT redesigns the process, then builds it. The same people do both.
3. SDT starts with the technology your firm already owns.

What changes

• Repetitive work runs on its own.
• Tasks appear in the CRM and the right person is told, without anyone doing it by hand.
• Work that crosses several systems no longer waits on a person in the middle.

How it works

1. You describe the steps as your staff do them today.
2. SDT builds them: the notification, the task in the CRM, the data moved to the other systems that need it.
3. A workflow that crosses several systems completes on its own, and recurring work runs on a schedule.
4. One built example: client meeting prep, which fills a pre-meeting template with the client's information from the CRM.
5. Every solution goes through your firm's compliance review before it goes live. SDT prepares what the reviewer needs.

What changes

• A CRM that matches how the firm works today.
• One family's records are linked as a household instead of scattered across contacts.
• Recurring tasks are created by the CRM, not by staff.

How it works

1. Most engagements begin with the CRM and operations audit. It starts with your CRM data: duplicates, required fields left blank, household and contact relationships, and invalid or incomplete emails, phones and addresses. You receive a written findings report and a prioritized list of fixes.
2. Fields and data structure are set up around your service model.
3. Household and contact relationships are set up around how your firm serves each household. A household is the group of contacts your firm serves together.
4. Reports and workflows are built for the way staff work, and recurring tasks are automated.
5. Administration continues: new fields when the service model changes, new reports when management asks a new question.

What changes

• Every household checked, only the exceptions reported. Nobody opens a clean record.
• New gaps are routed to the person who owns the fix, instead of waiting for the next cleanup.

How it works

1. One built example, in Salesforce: an automated review of every household for missing required information, email, phone, address, client details such as birthdate and client status, household relationships, and the ownership and servicing fields.
2. Where it can, the review validates the information rather than only checking that the field has a value, so a phone number in the wrong format is caught.
3. It reports only the records that need attention. That review is the Carson Household Cleanup. Each Carson location defines which fields and standards its review covers, and SDT now runs it for multiple locations of that firm.
4. A second built example, automated data quality monitoring, finds missing or incomplete CRM information and routes each gap to the right person.

What changes

• The whole book moves, and staff are not left checking records by hand.
• A policy number or a household link lands where staff will look for it.
• The duplicates SDT finds are not carried into the new CRM, and missing policy values are filled before staff open it.

How it works

1. Import mapping: SDT writes the list that pairs each field in the old system with its place in the new one, before anything moves.
2. Duplicates: the old system can hold one person under two spellings. SDT finds those matches and keeps one record before the import.
3. Missing policy values: in the two insurance books SDT has moved, the values came from carrier data, the record the insurance company keeps for each policy.
4. After the import, every record is checked.
5. Built example: two advisors' insurance books moved into Redtail.

What changes

• Clients due for a review are contacted, followed up and tracked on their record until the review is booked.
• Staff see a task on the client's record instead of a list someone keeps in their head.
• Every text, email and follow-up is on the record, so anyone can see where each client stands.

How it works

1. The system reads each client's review month from your CRM and finds the clients whose review is coming up.
2. It sends a text and an email inviting the client to schedule the review. The text goes through a texting platform your firm's compliance has approved, such as MyRepChat.
3. Clients who do not respond get a follow-up.
4. It creates a task in the CRM for the right staff member. Calendly or GReminders, connected to the CRM, handle the scheduling.
5. Birthday, anniversary and beneficiary campaigns run from other fields your CRM already holds. They are under Milestone and Review Campaigns on the Marketing and Client Outreach page.

What changes

• Management sees what is outstanding without asking anyone.
• Advisor reports and management reports draw on the same CRM data, so both show the same figures.
• What is overdue, missing or stalled is listed today, not discovered in a meeting.

How it works

1. Custom Salesforce reports and dashboards by role. An owner sees the firm. An operations lead sees the work waiting. An advisor sees their own clients.
2. Exception reports list only what needs attention: the overdue review, the household missing a phone or email, the stalled task.
3. Excel reporting covers figures outside the CRM: account data from Albridge, planning data from eMoney, tax data from Holistiplan. The workbook refreshes by script, so nobody has to open it to refresh the numbers.
4. Reports go out by email or Microsoft Teams on the schedule you set. Permissions follow your compliance policy.
5. One built example: an advisor operations dashboard that combines CRM and operational data, so management sees outstanding tasks, client activity and where workflows are stuck, in one place.