Financial advice firms are spending an average of 105 days per year per adviser preparing for client review meetings.

The review meeting is a critical moment in the relationship between financial adviser and client. A financial plan should be an ever-evolving document that tracks a client’s financial goals and aspirations. The moment a plan is put together it is out of date and the annual review meeting offers an important opportunity to check in and update the plan.

But did you know that preparing for the meeting takes 105 days per planner? In our latest Advice Tech Stack report, we included a special section on review meetings. Financial advice firms that have calculated the time taken to prepare for a meeting say it takes an average of 4.9 hours per client. The latest Nucleus census estimated that financial advisers have an average of 161 clients. Assuming a 7.5 hour work week – that’s 105 days a year.

That’s a lot.

The meeting with the client is undeniably time well spent. But what about the time taken chasing providers for valuations? One firm we spoke to for the research said that his firm has set up an automated process to mail out to providers 3-months before a client review meeting in order to get updates in time for the meeting.

Gathering data from clients is another important step. It doesn’t take as long but client portals have been shown to really speed this along. Clients can update their information in the portal themselves. One adviser told us he’s built a widget that automatically contacts clients to reschedule the meeting if the information on the portal isn’t updated.

Report writing systems are helpful for clients with simpler needs but anyone with off-platform assets will typically need some manual additions.

We’d like to hear from you. What are you doing to make preparing for annual review meetings easier? Any tips to share?