Blog · Board and management reporting · Wealth managers
The ten questions the chief executive of a wealth management firm puts to the advisers and the operations team, which advisers' books leave with them, which clients keep most of their assets elsewhere, which clients have gone quiet before an outflow, where do new clients come from and what does each source keep, which clients receive a service model their fee does not pay for, which introducers does the firm depend on, which fact-finds are stale, which advisers are at capacity, what is fee margin per client, and what changed, each with the table from the client master, the assets and fee records and the activity log, and the answer to send back.
A wealth firm CEO asks the advisers about their books and hears about their books. The client master, the assets and fee records and the activity log hold the books as tables, including the assets the firm does not have. This guide is the ten questions, the tables, and the answer to send back.
| # | The question | The table | Identity | Send back |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Whose book leaves with them? | Adviser concentration; sole-relationship share; assets at risk | Office assets = Σ advisers | An adviser's reassurance |
| 2 | Who keeps most of their assets elsewhere? | Held-away with source and date; share of wallet; consolidation list | Source on every line | A share with no source |
| 3 | Who has gone quiet before an outflow? | Contact recency against cadence, by assets | Assigned clients sum | Meeting counts |
| 4 | Where do new clients come from, and what does each source keep? | New clients by source and adviser; three-year retention | New clients = Σ sources | Onboarding assets |
| 5 | Who receives a service their fee does not pay for? | Fee margin: fees less service cost at stated rates, vs segment norm | Hours sum to logged | Cost from headcount averages |
| 6 | Which introducers does the firm depend on? | Introducer share of new assets, per adviser and firm | Same as 4 | Referral counts |
| 7 | Which fact-finds are stale? | Held-away source age per client; share under two years per adviser | Same as 2 | Assumed current |
| 8 | Which advisers are at capacity? | Reviews due against calendar hours | Assigned clients sum | Client counts |
| 9 | What is margin per client, in context? | Margin with held-away and tenure beside it | Fees sum to ledger | Margin alone |
| 10 | What changed? | The movements page | Every line cites | Narrative |
CEO: Whose book leaves with them? Response: Adviser A-07: 43 percent of the office, 71 percent of it sole-relationship. $369m with no second contact. Table 1. CEO: And the assets we do not hold? Response: In A-07's book, client 2207 has $3.1m held away per a fact-find eight months old, and we write their plan. Client 1187's fact-find is forty months old. Tables 2 and 7. CEO: Where does A-07's growth come from? Response: 62 percent client referrals; no introducer above 8 percent. A self-growing book, which is why losing it matters. Tables 4 and 6.
Three tables, one adviser, one succession plan.
Books described by advisers. Confident, from memory.
Held-away never recorded as a number. In the file; in no report.
Fee margin from headcount averages. The ranking is the fee ranking.
Introducer dependence unseen. The adviser leaves and the accountant goes too.
Covirage produces the ten tables from the client master, the assets and fee records, the fact-find extract and the activity log, with the identities checked. The wealth managers page describes the setup, and the adviser concentration guide covers the first table.
Adviser concentration with the sole-relationship share, because it is the assets that leave the firm with one resignation letter, and the fix, a second contact on those clients, takes a year. A firm that reads it first has time; one that reads it after the letter does not.
No. Client and adviser identifiers, assets, fees, the held-away figure with its source and date, the segment fields, and the activity log on the same identifiers. The adviser has the names; the tables do not.
Office assets equal the sum of advisers' assets as primary; fees per client sum to the fee ledger; hours per client sum to logged hours; every client has one source or is counted unknown. A book described by its adviser without the table is sent back.