From Auditor to an Unorganized Wealth Management Firm... Did I Make the Wrong Move?
I will take all the advice I can get :/ (sorry english is not my first language)
I (30M) recently made a career shift from auditing local governments for 2.5 years to wealth management as a Client Service Advisor at a boutique independent RIA. After a while, I became pretty miserable with the repetitive nature of auditing; sitting in a small room doing nonstop testing, then moving on to another client (city) every few weeks and repeating the same process.
I’m a very social person, so I wanted a career where I could actually work directly with people, build relationships, and help them with their needs. Even though we technically had “clients” in auditing, I never really felt like I was making much of an impact on anyone’s life, which was a big reason I decided to make the switch.
The first few months at the RIA have definitely been a learning curve, but it’s been refreshing to actually talk with people and help them day to day. The advisor has also taught me a lot about investing, risk management, custodians, and the business in general.
That said, the workflow is extremely unorganized.
All client documents (bank statements, investment accounts, onboarding paperwork, applications, etc) are basically stored in one folder thats shared with the team. Quarterly reports are sent manually to 200+ households with very specific instructions on who gets what, making the process heavily dependent on the advisor’s memory. The CRM also has a lot of outdated information and errors that we’re correcting one client at a time.
Coming from auditing, this stresses me out because our electronic files were organized almost perfectly. Even if I didn’t know exactly where something was, the folder structure made it easy to find. It seems like the business operations make sense to him, but only because he’s been running them this way for years. If the firm is going to grow into what he wants it to become, I think there needs to be more standardization, documented procedures, and processes that someone else can easily follow.
I don’t want to give up on the firm because my employer is good at what he does, and I enjoy the client facing side of the job. I just think the operational side could be much more organized and scalable.
Before I start making suggestions, I’d love to hear from other RIAs or operations people: How is your firm’s workflow set up? How do you organize client files, manage your CRM, handle recurring tasks, and make sure processes aren’t dependent on one person’s memory?
TL;DR: I left auditing for wealth management because I wanted more client interaction and meaningful work. I enjoy the people side of my new RIA role, but the firm’s operations are extremely disorganized and seem to make sense only to the owner. I’m looking for insight on how other RIAs standardize files, CRM workflows, recurring tasks, and procedures so the business can scale.