"It's Such a Manual, Manual Process"

A transitions specialist described her compliance review process this way: “It’s such a manual, manual process. Right now it’s extremely slow.”

The repetition is intentional. Manual isn’t just the method — it’s the quality of the experience. Opening a folder, checking whether the required documents are there, cross-referencing against a checklist, flagging what’s missing, moving on to the next client. Repeated across hundreds of households, within a 75-day compliance window, by one or two people.

The speed problem isn’t unusual effort or skill. The process is designed this way. Every firm that handles M&A transitions at scale has some version of this: a compliance requirement that demands human review, a document vault that doesn’t make the review easy, and a timeline that doesn’t forgive a slow start.

What changes the math isn’t adding reviewers. It’s changing what the reviewer has to do. If the system can surface which documents exist, which are missing, and which are the wrong type — automatically, for every client in the incoming practice — the reviewer is validating outputs instead of producing them. The same person can cover more ground in the same window.

The process doesn’t have to be slow just because it’s compliance. The compliance requirement is fixed. The manual layer on top of it isn’t.

#RIA #Compliance #Transitions #WealthManagement