From meeting to paperwork: how to stop putting off the client documents

Discovery notes, scopes of work and value summaries are exactly the documents advisers put off. Not because they do not matter, but because writing them well takes time the diary rarely allows. So they get templated, delayed or skipped, and the firm's thinking never reaches the page in front of the client.

That is a shame, because these documents do real work. They convert prospects, they show the client they were listened to, and they justify the ongoing fee. Writing client documents from meetings, while the conversation is still fresh, is the simplest way to make sure they get done.

Why these client documents matter

Each of the four documents carries weight beyond good service.

• Discovery. Suitability starts with information. COBS 9A.2.1R requires firms to obtain the client's knowledge and experience, their "financial situation including his ability to bear losses" and their "investment objectives including his risk tolerance" (COBS 9A.2). A discovery document written from the meeting records what the client actually said. See our guide to the discovery meeting.
• Scope of work. Ongoing adviser charges can only be for "an ongoing service for the provision of personal recommendations or related services", disclosed, with "a right to cancel the ongoing service… without penalty" (COBS 6.1A.22R). A clear scope is where the client learns what they are paying for.
• Client value summary. Consumer Duty includes a price and value outcome and a consumer understanding outcome (PS22/9). A plain summary of the value of the advice speaks to both.
• Attitude to risk report. The regulator has long been clear that risk profiling needs care. In FG11/05, the FSA (the FCA's predecessor) found that, among the firms it reviewed, "many fail to take appropriate account of their capacity for loss" (FG11/05). We look at the difference in capacity for loss vs attitude to risk.

Where the two hours go

Each document starts with a conversation you have already had. The time goes on getting it onto the page:

• going back through the meeting notes or the recording;
• pulling in the risk questionnaire and any emails since;
• writing it up in the firm's house style;
• formatting, branding and attaching it to a follow-up email.

Our estimate is around two hours a document by hand.

A worked example

A new client meets the adviser for a first meeting. The meeting is recorded in Fireflies, and afterwards the client completes the firm's risk questionnaire on a Google form. To produce the discovery document and the attitude to risk report by hand, someone has to:

1. listen back or read the transcript to find the objectives, circumstances and concerns the client raised;
2. open the questionnaire responses and work out where the client sits on the firm's risk scale;
3. write both documents in the firm's voice, then apply the branding and cover;
4. write the follow-up email and attach the finished files.

None of those steps is advice. All of them sit between the meeting and the moment the client sees the firm's thinking on paper, and the longer they take, the colder the conversation gets.

What Carbon does

Carbon turns a recorded client conversation into finished, branded paperwork.

• Connect your sources once. Carbon links to Fireflies, Gmail and Google Forms, so meetings, questionnaires and correspondence flow in without copying and pasting.
• Pick a meeting and a document. Choose a discovery document, scope of work, client value summary or attitude to risk report, and generate it straight from the meeting.
• Get a structured draft. An attitude to risk report, for example, comes back with a calculated risk score, a one to ten scale with the client's position marked, a plain-English explanation and an indicative asset allocation.

Every document is written in your firm's voice, using your house style and word list, with your branding, fonts and logo applied. Carbon can also draft the follow-up email with the finished document attached.

How to check a Carbon draft before it goes out

The draft is a starting point the adviser owns. A short check covers most of what matters:

1. Facts. Do the names, objectives, figures and dates match what the client said and what is on file?
2. Voice. Does it sound like your firm? The house style and word list do most of this, but read it as the client will.
3. Risk. In an attitude to risk report, does the score and its position on the scale match your own view of the client, and is capacity for loss dealt with properly alongside it?
4. Scope. Does the scope of work describe the service you will actually deliver, the charge and how the client can cancel?
5. Email. Is the follow-up email right, and is the correct document attached?

Because the document vault keeps every version, the file shows each version from first draft to final document, which helps when someone asks later how a document was produced.

What you still do

You read it, adjust it and send it. Each document is fully editable before you export it to Word or PDF, and the document vault keeps every version, so nothing is lost when you change your mind. Judgement about the client, and responsibility for what the firm sends, stay with the adviser.

It is worth noting where the rules may go. The FCA's CP26/10 proposes "Introducing a single 'attitude to risk' concept", and says firms would not need complex tools or detailed questionnaires to assess it. That is a consultation, not a final rule. Whatever the outcome, the client will still need a clear written explanation of the risk they are taking.

The numbers

By our estimate, a client document drops from around two hours to around fifteen minutes. At four documents per adviser a month, that is roughly seven hours back every month. More importantly, the documents actually get written, and written well, while the meeting is still fresh.

Carbon costs £69 per adviser per month, excluding VAT, with no contract. At the £150 charge-out rate our homepage calculator uses, the first hour it saves each month more than covers it.

Frequently asked questions

Which documents can Carbon write?

A discovery document, a scope of work, a client value summary and a full attitude to risk report, each in your firm's branding and house style.

Where does Carbon get the meeting from?

From Fireflies, where your meetings are recorded. Carbon can also pull risk questionnaire responses from Google Forms and correspondence from Gmail, so you connect each source once. The AI work runs through your firm's own Claude or ChatGPT account.

Does Carbon send emails for us?

No. It drafts the follow-up email with the finished document attached, and you check and send it yourself.

See Carbon turn a meeting into a document on a demo firm in twenty minutes on Microsoft Teams with Adam Booth, with nothing to prepare. Book a demo, or read more about Carbon.