A spreadsheet, a folder and forty emails
The compliance lead picks cases to check, some by rule, some by feel, and lists them in a spreadsheet. For each case they open the back office, find the fact find, the risk questionnaire, the research, the suitability report, the application and the file notes, often across several folders. They work through the firm's checklist and write findings in the spreadsheet.
Findings go back to advisers by email. Some reply. Some fix things without saying so. Some forget. At the end of the quarter, the compliance lead builds a summary by hand for the board, and wonders which actions were actually closed.
Why file checking is so manual
File checking is detailed work that needs judgement, which makes firms reluctant to change how it runs. But most of the time goes on things that are not judgement: selecting cases, finding documents, recording results and chasing actions.
- Case selection done by hand, with no clear record of the rules used.
- Documents spread across the back office and shared drives.
- Checklists in Word or Excel, filled in differently each time.
- Findings and actions tracked by email.
- Reports assembled by hand each quarter.
Advisers feel the friction as well. Findings arrive by email weeks after the case, often without the context that would make them easy to act on, and there is no clear way to reply, attach a corrected document and have the finding marked as closed.
What the manual way costs
| Task | Manual effort | What it could be |
|---|---|---|
| Selecting cases | Scrolling reports, picking by hand | Rules applied automatically, logged |
| Gathering documents | Opening several systems per case | One view per case |
| Recording findings | Spreadsheet cells | Structured checklist answers |
| Following up actions | Email chains | Tracked tasks with due dates |
| Reporting | Built by hand quarterly | Available any time |
The compliance lead's time is the scarce resource. Hours spent gathering documents and chasing replies are hours not spent reviewing advice.
The file check queue we build
- Your compliance lead sets selection rules, for example all cases of a certain type, all new advisers' cases, or a proportion of each adviser's business. Manual additions are allowed.
- Selected cases appear in a queue, with the rule that selected each one recorded.
- Each case opens as one view, pulling the key documents from your back office and document store.
- The checker works through your firm's own checklist, recording answers and comments against each point.
- Findings become actions for the adviser or paraplanner, with due dates and reminders, and the checker confirms when each is closed.
- Reports show outcomes by adviser, case type and period, and outstanding actions, on demand.
The checklist, the standard applied and the outcome are your compliance lead's. The tool organises the work and keeps the record.
What changes for the compliance lead
Time goes on reviewing files, not finding them. Advisers see their actions in one place and know they are tracked. Quarterly reporting becomes a filter rather than a project. And patterns, such as the same finding across several advisers, show up in the data rather than in a hunch.
Where your firm uses an external compliance consultant, they can be given access to the queue for the cases they check.
Files that pass cleanly are recorded as clearly as those with findings, which gives the firm a fairer picture of each adviser's work than a list of problems alone. And when a new checklist point is introduced, it applies from that day, with the date recorded.
Is this how your file checks run?
- Checked cases are listed in a spreadsheet.
- Finding the documents takes longer than checking them.
- Findings go to advisers by email.
- You are not sure which actions have been closed.
- Board reports on file checks are built by hand.