The RIA Back Office Is Broken
Why financial advisers’ growth stalls when operations can’t keep up.
The Opportunity Most RIAs Can’t Act On
There’s no shortage of demand for financial advice in the U.S.
But access? That’s a different story.
Only 34% of Americans work with a financial adviser, and just 36% have a written financial plan.1,2 Meanwhile, independent RIAs manage over $8 trillion in client assets, with lean teams and deep relationships.3
The opportunity is massive.
But most small firms can’t take advantage of it.
Why? Because they’re buried under operations.
The Work Behind the Work
Running a modern advisory firm shouldn’t require cutting and pasting your way through every client interaction.
And yet, for many founder-led RIAs, that’s exactly what it looks like:
Renaming PDFs from clients
Copying data between CRM and custodian portals
Logging ADV delivery in spreadsheets
Rebuilding follow-up emails manually
Chasing signatures across inboxes and shared folders
These aren’t edge cases - they’re weekly routines.
In fact, studies show that back-office tasks consume 15–20% of total firm revenue for independent RIAs.4
And according to Kitces Research, most solo advisers spend more time on operations than they do on business development or actual planning work.5
That’s not sustainable. It’s a silent tax on growth.
Why Current Solutions Don’t Solve It
You’ve got tools. Probably too many.
CRMs like Wealthbox or Redtail
Planning platforms like eMoney
Shared drives, email, Zapier, maybe a spreadsheet for compliance
But these tools don’t connect in meaningful ways. And stitching them together often falls to you — the adviser.
Here’s what we’ve seen:
Hiring ops staff early is costly and slow to ramp
Zapier or n8n automations break easily and don’t handle compliance nuance
Manual workflows (“swivel-chair ops”) leave advisers stuck between tabs, juggling follow-ups, and hoping nothing slips through
It’s not that the tools are bad. It’s that none of them talk to each other, and none of them were built for the realities of lean advisory teams.
What Needs to Change
Here’s what we believe:
RIAs shouldn’t have to hire before they grow
Ops should run quietly in the background, not dictate how advisers spend their time
Compliance should be baked into process, not bolted on at audit time
Great advice shouldn’t be gated by bad infrastructure
We need a new approach to advisory operations - one that turns the back office into a source of leverage, not limitation.
It’s not about more tools. It’s about creating a connective layer that makes your existing ones smarter, faster, and automatic.
When ops become invisible, advisers can finally do what they’re best at: serving clients, building trust, and growing the business.
Why We’re Building Prodos
Prodos is our answer to the silent pain of advisor operations.
It’s an AI-powered assistant that automates the operational glue work between your CRM, inbox, drive, and planning tools, without requiring another login or full-time hire.
More soon. But for now, just know:
We’re not here to replace people.
We’re here to give great advisers the infrastructure they’ve always deserved.
Sources:
1 Financial Planning Association, Financially Sound Households
Use Financial Planners, Not
Transactional Advisers, 2019
2 Charles Schwab, Modern Wealth Survey 2023
3 Investment Advisor Magazine & Cerulli Associates, 2023
4 Kitces.com, "The Future Of Advisor Platforms: Reducing Overhead Costs With Services (Not Technology)", 2022
5 Kitces Research, “How Advisors Spend Their Time”, 2020
