Why advisor transitions are broken
Repapering hasn't been redesigned in decades.
A typical transition takes 90 days. Some take longer. Each household generates dozens of forms, account applications, transfer-of-asset forms, feature forms, multiplied across every account in the book. Tracked in spreadsheets. Chased across email threads. One missing field sends a form back, and the cycle resets.
For the advisor, it's months of operational work that has nothing to do with why they got into the business. For the team, it's overtime season. For clients, it's a stretch of silence that some don't wait through.
The industry loses an estimated $19B in client assets every year to transitions that didn't go smoothly enough.
Industry estimate for the not-in-good-order (NIGO) rate on transition paperwork. Every rejection sends forms back and resets the clock.
What every week a transition drags costs on a $200M book, at a ~1% advisory fee, before any client attrition.
How FastTrackr does the repapering
Data Collection
AI extracts client and account data from documents, transcripts, and conversations. Pre-populated household records, ready for review, without another intake form.
Documentation
Smart mapping across custodians and firms. The right forms identified, pre-filled, and ready for signature. Push to the custodian via API where supported, or generate signature-ready documents.
Project Management
Hundreds of households, every form, every status, in one place. Replaces the Excel war room. Visible to you, your team, and your clients.
FastTrackr understands the paperwork requirements from your custodian and firm setup, so every form and every required field is known before data collection even begins. Gaps surface early, not at the signing table, and there's no scramble at the end.
How an advisor transition runs with FastTrackr, in four steps
Same engine, every book. The first move is the slowest; every one after is faster.
Collect
AI pulls client and account data from your existing systems, documents, and conversations, so nobody retypes a household from scratch.
Prepare
The right custodian and firm forms are identified, mapped, and pre-filled, then validated to catch NIGO issues before they reach the custodian.
Sign & submit
Clients confirm and sign what we already have. Documents push to the custodian via API where supported, or generate signature-ready.
Track to done
Every household, form, and status in one place, visible to you, your team, and your clients, until the last account lands.
Delivered the way each custodian wants it
Three ways out
One-click push to DocuSign for signature, filled PDFs you can download where a wet signature is still required, or the household data mapped straight into a custodian's or broker-dealer's own template when they'd rather do the filling.
Custodian quirks, handled
Every custodian has its own rules — a carbon copy here, an SMS verification there. FastTrackr knows them per custodian and builds them into the submission, so nothing bounces on a technicality.
Nothing slips
A single view tracks what's still outstanding across every household, so you can see completion at a glance and close the gaps before submission.
The same transition, with and without FastTrackr
Built for every kind of transition
Protocol move, non-protocol resignation, tuck-in acquisition, or a same-custodian switch, the operational work is the same shape. FastTrackr handles the variations on either side.
Protocol transitions
Advisors moving between firms in the Broker Protocol take a defined set of client information. FastTrackr organizes that data, flags the gaps, and speeds up collection with an AI-driven flow, then repapers the book at the new custodian, firm paperwork included.
Non-protocol transitions
When the departing or receiving firm is outside the Protocol, the move is more constrained. The system adapts to what can and can't travel, and keeps the audit trail clean.
Tuck-in acquisitions
A practice folding into a larger RIA or platform runs through the same engine, so the acquirer's ops team absorbs the volume without growing headcount.
Same-custodian moves
When only the firm or affiliation changes and the custodian stays the same, the assets don't move — often just a change-of-advisor form on the custodian side. FastTrackr handles that lighter custodian lift and still prepares the full firm paperwork — advisory agreement, fee schedule, and disclosures — so nothing on the firm side is missed.
Custodian Coverage
Live today
- Fidelity
- Charles Schwab
- Goldman Sachs
- SEI
- …and more
In active development
We're adding new custodian mappings on a rolling basis, prioritized by customer roadmaps. If yours isn't listed, talk to us.
The Outcomes
This is the smoothest transition anyone in our circle has seen or heard about. It aligned with our workflow, and it just worked. We had planned for a month, we finished in two weeks.
Grier Rubeling, founder of Advisor Transition Services
Nearly two decades moving books of business — why better technology hasn't made transitions simpler, the AUM trap, and what advisors get wrong when they move.
Grier Rubeling founded Advisor Transition Services in 2018 and has become one of the names advisors turn to when they start researching how a book of business actually moves. Her conversation with our team on Advisor Ally is the clearest primer we know on the operational reality of a transition.
Watch the full episode →