Count your logins. If a 2 adviser firm needs more than 5 of them to get a case out of the door, the problem isn't the software you're missing, it's the gaps between what you already own. A small UK advice firm needs 4 jobs covered: a client record, a way to produce advice, a way to evidence it, and a way to handle the paperwork. Everything else is either inside one of those or a purchase you can defer. Buy in that order, and judge each one on hours removed per case rather than features listed on the pricing page.
Key takeaways
- There's no single best product. There's a shortest stack that covers 4 jobs, and an order to buy it in.
- The cost that hurts a small firm isn't the subscription, it's the work in the gaps between systems.
- Buy the client record first. Everything downstream draws from it, and a bad one poisons the rest.
- Defer anything that only helps at scale you don't have yet: analytics suites, marketing automation, a second research tool.
- Test on 1 real case of your own, not a demo client, and time the result.
What software does a small IFA firm need?
Strip the category back and there are 4 jobs. Everything sold to advice firms is a version of one of them.
1. Hold the client record. Who they are, what they own, what you've agreed, what you've charged. This is your system of record, and it's usually a CRM or back office. It has to be right, because every document you produce inherits whatever is in it.
2. Produce the advice. Fact find, cashflow, research, the recommendation, the suitability report. This is where the hours go, and it's the job most small firms cover with a template and their own evenings.
3. Evidence it. The file that shows what you recommended, why, who checked it, and what the client received. Not a separate product in a well-built stack. If evidencing is a separate task, you'll do it late or not at all.
4. Handle the paperwork. Letters of authority, provider forms, the chasing, signatures, storage. Unglamorous, and reliably the biggest queue in a small firm.
If a tool doesn't sit clearly inside one of those 4, ask what it displaces. If the answer is nothing, it's an addition to your week rather than a replacement.
The order to buy them in
Client record first. It's the hardest to change later and the most expensive to get wrong. Migrating a client database is a project. Swapping a drafting tool is a fortnight. Pick the record you can live with for 5 years, then build outward.
Advice production second. This is where the recoverable hours are, so it's where a purchase pays back fastest. The test is whether it draws from the record you already hold or asks you to type the fact find again.
Paperwork third. Once cases move faster, the provider queue becomes the visible bottleneck. Fix it after you've fixed drafting, not before, or you'll optimise a queue that wasn't the constraint.
Evidence throughout, never as a bolt-on. If your first 3 choices record what happened as they go, you're done. If they don't, no fourth purchase rescues it.
What you can defer
Small firms lose real money to software bought for a firm they don't have yet.
- A second research tool, if research is already inside the platform producing your advice.
- Marketing automation, until you have a repeatable enquiry flow worth automating.
- Analytics suites, when the question you have is "where do my hours go" and a fortnight of honest logging answers it for free.
- A separate document portal, if the system producing documents can already send and store them.
- Anything with a per-adviser minimum above your headcount. A 3 licence minimum on a 1 adviser firm is a price rise dressed as a plan.
None of these are bad products. They're answers to questions a 2 person firm hasn't reached yet.
Why "best" is the wrong question
There's no product that's best for every small firm, because the variable isn't quality, it's fit with the work you already do. 2 firms of the same size with the same client bank will get different answers depending on whether their book is pension heavy, how much of the advice is ongoing rather than transactional, and how much re-keying they've quietly accepted as normal.
What travels across every firm is this: the value is in the joins. A stack of 6 good products with nothing shared between them will lose to 3 that pass data to each other, every time. Nobody chooses a fragmented stack. It accumulates, 1 sensible purchase at a time, and the cost shows up in the gaps rather than on the invoices.
That's also why the single platform question keeps coming up. It isn't a fashion, it's firms noticing that integration is the product.
What a small firm should expect to pay
Compare cost per case, not cost per month. A £600 monthly platform that removes 3 hours from every case is cheaper than a £150 one that removes none, and the arithmetic is your own to run.
3 things to check on any quote:
- Minimum seats. Per-user pricing with a floor is a different price for a solo adviser than the headline suggests.
- What's inside the number. Cashflow, research, document sending and storage are often separate line items elsewhere. Add them up before comparing.
- The exit. What it costs to leave, in money and in data. Ask before you sign.
Any figures a vendor gives you, ours included, are designed to support a business case rather than guarantee an outcome. Ask what has to be true for them to hold.
How to test software properly in 2 weeks
- Pick 1 real case. Not the demo client. One of yours, including the awkward part you'd normally leave to last.
- Time the current version. How long from first meeting to a report you'd sign. Write it down before you start, or you'll misremember it favourably.
- Run the same case through the tool. Note every point where you have to type something the system should already know.
- Measure the draft, not the demo. Time to first draft matters, and so does how much editing it needs. A fast draft that needs a rewrite has saved nothing.
- Check the trail. At the end, can you show what was produced, who checked it and what changed? If not, you've bought speed and given back evidence.
Frequently asked questions
What software do most small IFA firms use?
The common pattern is a back office or CRM for the client record, a cashflow tool, some form of research, and Word plus templates for the advice itself, with provider paperwork handled by hand. It works, and it's also the source of the re-keying that eats the week, because none of those 4 were designed to hand work to each other.
Do I need a CRM if I only have 100 clients?
Yes, though it doesn't have to be expensive. The point isn't volume, it's having 1 authoritative record so that documents, reviews and fee data all come from the same place. A spreadsheet fails the moment 2 people edit it or a regulator asks what you held on a client 3 years ago.
Is one platform better than best-of-breed for a small firm?
For a firm of 1 to 3 advisers, usually yes, because you don't have the operations time that best-of-breed assumes. Best-of-breed works when someone owns the integrations. In a small firm that someone is the principal, and their hours are the scarcest thing in the business.
How much should a small advice firm spend on software?
Frame it as cost per case rather than a percentage of turnover. Add every subscription you pay, divide by the cases you complete in a year, then ask which of those subscriptions removes work rather than adding a login. Firms are usually surprised by 2 things: the total, and how many tools nobody has opened in a month.
What should I buy first if I'm starting from scratch?
The client record, then the thing that produces advice from it. Those 2 decide how much manual work exists for everything that follows. Buy paperwork automation once cases are moving fast enough that the provider queue is what's holding you up.