Introducing IFA Tools: six AI apps for UK financial planning firms
IFA Tools launches six AI desktop apps for UK financial planning firms, built inside a working Chartered firm. Who we are, what each app does, how your data and AI account work, prices and how to see a demo.
On this page
- Why we built IFA Tools
- The six IFA Tools apps
- How the apps work
- Desktop apps on your own computers
- Your own AI account
- Where client data goes
- Your firm's branding
- What IFA Tools does not do
- Pricing and time saved
- See it for yourself
- Frequently asked questions
- Who is behind IFA Tools?
- Do I need my own Claude or ChatGPT account?
- Do the apps work on Windows as well as Mac?
A lot of software for advice firms is built by technology companies looking in from outside. IFA Tools started the other way round. Our apps were built inside Cervello Financial Planning, a working UK Chartered financial planning firm, to run its own compliance, review and client document work. Today we are making them available to other firms.
This post explains who we are, what IFA Tools makes, how the apps handle your data and your AI account, what they cost, and how to see them for yourself.
Why we built IFA Tools
Anyone who has worked in a planning firm knows where the week goes. In the NextWealth study for Fidelity of 209 advisers in 2025, advisers spent 33% of the day in client meetings, 20% preparing reports and plans and 18% on compliance and admin. Their ideal was 51% client time and 6% admin.
Much of that reporting, compliance and admin time is assembly: annual reviews built figure by figure from platform valuations, discovery notes and scopes of work written up from a meeting, and file reviews that take, by our estimate, around half a day each by hand. None of these jobs needs less care. They need less assembly, so that the time can go into the judgement.
So we built an app for each of those jobs, to run the firm's own compliance, review and client document work, designed around the way an adviser, paraplanner or compliance manager actually does it.
The six IFA Tools apps
Each app does one job, and does it fully.
| App | What it does | Price per adviser per month |
|---|---|---|
| Scrutineer | Compliance file review: reads the whole client folder, scores it against FCA rules and your firm's standard, and quotes the evidence behind every finding | £99 |
| Strata | Annual reviews: turns platform valuation PDFs into a finished, branded review, separating investment return from money paid in | £89 |
| Carbon | Client documents: discovery, scope of work, value summary and attitude to risk report from a recorded meeting | £69 |
| Reckoner | Cash savings: an evidenced recommendation from 239 FSCS-protected products, with rates checked against the live market | £69 |
| Asclto | Meeting intelligence: scores recorded meetings on talk share, questioning and tone, and writes a coaching plan | £59 |
| Freeboard | Adviser assessment: scores competency against skill profiles and a versioned, dated standard | £49 |
Prices exclude VAT. You can see how the apps fit together, from first meeting to file check, in AI across the client journey.
How the apps work
Desktop apps on your own computers
All six are desktop apps for Mac and Windows. They run on the firm's own computers, and they work the same way on both.
Your own AI account
The AI work is done through the firm's own account with Anthropic's Claude or OpenAI's ChatGPT, signed in with a subscription or an API key and chosen during setup. IFA Tools does not resell AI or sit between the firm and the AI provider. Keys are stored in the computer's own keychain: macOS Keychain or Windows Credential Manager.
Where client data goes
Client documents are read on the firm's computer and sent to the AI provider the firm chose, under the firm's own account. IFA Tools does not hold the firm's client data. We want to be precise about this: the AI provider does process the data, and the meeting apps (Carbon, Asclto and Freeboard) work from meetings the firm has already recorded in Fireflies. Some steps stay on the machine entirely: Scrutineer reads scanned documents with on-device text recognition, and transcribes meeting recordings found in a client file locally, with nothing uploaded for that step.
Your firm's branding
Every app starts with a guided setup that records the firm's details, FCA details, logo, colours and document covers, so every document carries the firm's own branding. Optional sync between the firm's computers is off by default, and each app includes built-in help guides.
What IFA Tools does not do
We would rather be clear than oversell. The apps help firms do the work, produce evidence and check it against the rules. They do not make a firm compliant, and they are not approved or endorsed by the FCA or anyone else. Every draft, score and finding is there for a person to check, edit and approve, and responsibility for the advice stays with the firm.
The FCA has said it will regulate AI through existing frameworks. Its blog of 8 June 2026 says it will "rely on existing frameworks, including the Consumer Duty, the Senior Managers and Certification Regime (SM&CR), and our expectations on governance and controls." Firms adopting any AI tool, ours included, should complete a DPIA and decide their own lawful basis, as the ICO's (now the Information Commission's) guidance on AI and data protection explains. Our rollout plan for introducing AI in an advice firm covers the steps.
Pricing and time saved
Each app is priced per adviser per month, excluding VAT, from £49 for Freeboard to £99 for Scrutineer. The full suite of six is £299 per adviser per month, against £434 for the six bought separately. Annual billing gives two months free. There is no contract, and you can cancel monthly.
By our estimate, the six apps together save around forty hours per adviser per month across reviews, client documents, file checks, meeting reviews, savings recommendations and competency assessments. As an illustration, at the £150 charge-out rate our homepage calculator uses, the suite's £299 is covered by the first two hours it saves each month. Your own figures will depend on your volumes; our worked example of the cost of admin in a financial planning firm shows how to calculate them.
See it for yourself
The best way to judge the apps is to watch them work on realistic files. Our demo is twenty minutes on Microsoft Teams with Adam Booth, one of our founders. He runs the apps live on a demo firm, with its own fictional clients, meetings and files, so there is nothing for you to prepare and no client data involved.
Bring the questions your compliance manager or data protection lead would ask. We would rather answer them in the demo than after you have signed up.
Frequently asked questions
Who is behind IFA Tools?
IFA Tools was founded by Chris Daems and Adam Booth. The apps were built inside Cervello Financial Planning, a UK Chartered financial planning firm, to run its own compliance, review and client document work.
Do I need my own Claude or ChatGPT account?
Yes. The apps use the firm's own Anthropic Claude or OpenAI ChatGPT account, by subscription or API key, chosen during setup. IFA Tools does not resell AI, so that cost sits with your AI provider.
Do the apps work on Windows as well as Mac?
Yes. All six apps are desktop apps for both Mac and Windows, running on the firm's own computers.
Start with the app that matches your biggest job, such as Carbon for client documents after a meeting, or book a twenty-minute demo to see all six.
