AI across the client journey: how the six IFA Tools apps fit together

A client relationship in a planning firm follows a familiar pattern. A first meeting, a discovery write-up and a scope of work. A risk assessment and a recommendation. Then a cycle of ongoing service, annual reviews and, behind the scenes, supervision and file checks. Each stage produces documents, and each document takes time.

We built six apps to take the mechanical work out of those stages. This article shows how AI fits across the client journey, stage by stage, which app does which job, and what stays with the adviser throughout.

AI across the client journey at a glance

The times are our estimates. Added up across typical monthly volumes, they come to around forty hours per adviser per month, by our estimate.

Onboarding the client and advising on cash

Stage 1: the first meeting and onboarding

The documents after a first meeting are the ones advisers most often put off: the discovery summary, the scope of work and the explanation of value. They are also the documents a prospect reads when deciding whether to go ahead.

Carbon connects to Fireflies, where the meeting is already recorded, and turns the conversation into four kinds of client document:

• a discovery summary;
• a scope of work;
• a client value summary;
• an attitude to risk report, with a calculated risk score, a one to ten scale marking the client's position, a plain-English explanation and an indicative asset allocation.

Carbon can pull risk questionnaire responses from a Google Form, writes in the firm's house style and word list, drafts the follow-up email with the document attached as a Gmail draft, and keeps every version in a document vault. The adviser edits inline and exports to Word or PDF. For more on writing these documents, see client documents from the meeting itself.

Stage 2: cash and deposits

Cash often gets less attention than investments, yet many clients hold large balances. Reckoner builds an evidenced savings recommendation from a universe of 239 FSCS-protected products across 15 categories, covering direct deposit-takers only.

• The deposit amount rules out unfundable products and flags FSCS limits.
• A suitability questionnaire on branch access, digital comfort, withdrawal needs, bonus rates and FSCS protection re-weights the ranking.
• Rates, terms and FSCS status are checked against the live market before the report is built.
• The output is a nine-page branded client report, adviser-signed and dated, plus an Excel comparison, carrying the date its market data is current to.

Stage 3: supervising the advice

Recorded meetings are useful for more than compliance. Two apps use them for supervision, in different ways.

Asclto: how the meeting went

Asclto scores a recorded meeting on talk share, open and closed questions, questions the client asked, the longest adviser monologue and tone of voice read from the audio. It scores nine dimensions, gives a meeting score and an adviser score out of ten, pulls out key moments with the exact words, and writes a coaching plan and an FCA checklist of what the meeting did and did not evidence. The PDF is an internal record, never shared with the client.

Freeboard: how competent the adviser was

Freeboard assesses competency against skill profiles and a versioned, dated scoring standard. It assesses attitude to risk, capacity for loss, knowledge and understanding, and vulnerability separately, alongside confidence, decision readiness and evidence completeness, with every conclusion quoted from the client's own words. It is built to support a structured training and competence scheme.

Ongoing service: the review and the file check

Stage 4: the annual review

For a firm with a large ongoing book, the annual review is usually the biggest recurring writing job. Strata reads the platform valuation PDFs the firm already receives, compares two or more periods, separates genuine investment return from money paid in, and tracks how charges moved year on year. Every figure is traced to the report and page it came from, it guards against mixing up clients when several packs are staged together, and it reports any file it could not read. The result is a finished, branded review with adviser-only sections flagged, editable and exported to Word or PDF.

If reviews have fallen behind, our guide to clearing an annual review backlog sets out a catch-up plan.

Stage 5: the file check

At the end of the cycle, someone needs to check the file holds together. Scrutineer reads the whole client folder and every subfolder, including scanned documents through on-device text recognition, and transcribes meeting recordings found in the file on the machine. It gives an FCA compliance score, a score against the firm's own file-quality standard and a verdict of Suitable, Unclear or Unsuitable. Every finding names the rule it engages and quotes the passage from the file, and each review comes with outstanding actions and a missing-document checklist.

What all six apps share

• Desktop apps for Mac and Windows, running on the firm's own computers.
• The firm's own AI account. Claude or ChatGPT, by subscription or API key, chosen in setup. IFA Tools does not resell AI or hold the firm's client data; the chosen AI provider processes it under the firm's account.
• The firm's branding. A guided first-run setup records firm details, FCA details, logo, colours and document covers.
• Optional sync between the firm's computers, off by default.
• Built-in help guides in every app.

Prices run from £49 to £99 per adviser per month, excluding VAT. The full suite of six is £299 per adviser per month, against £434 for all six separately, with two months free on annual billing and no contract.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need all six apps?

No. Each app works on its own. A sensible place to start is the stage that takes your firm the most hours, often the annual review or the documents after a first meeting. The suite is there if you want every stage covered.

Which apps need Fireflies?

Carbon, Asclto and Freeboard work from meetings recorded in Fireflies. Strata works from platform valuation PDFs, Reckoner from the client's details and priorities, and Scrutineer from the client folder.

Does the adviser still approve every document?

Yes. The apps produce drafts, scores and findings. The adviser, paraplanner or compliance reviewer checks, edits and approves them, and the firm stays responsible for the advice.

The first meeting is a natural place to begin. Read more about Carbon, or book a twenty-minute demo with Adam Booth on Microsoft Teams to see all six apps run live on a demo firm, with nothing for you to prepare.