Satis UK is a financial advisory firm that uses an external compliance consultancy to review their files. The team brought in AdvisoryAI primarily for the reports side of the platform, expecting the efficiency gains to come from Emma. What they did not expect was that the Evie meeting notes, added almost as a by-product of the wider rollout, would quietly reshape how compliance reviewers interacted with their files, as well as adding efficiencies for the advisers and massively reducing their time writing up meeting notes. As the firm has grown over the past seven to eight years, the need for that evidence trail has only become more pronounced, and Evie happens to sit in exactly the right place to provide it.
"I would say, actually, weirdly, it was kind of accidental. The reason we're using AdvisoryAI is more for the reports side, and the meeting note was just an added benefit. It's quite quick to get up and running and save time and get detail you weren't getting before. It ended up being a quick win for something we already wanted to use for everything else."
Lee McGuinness, Associate Planner, Satis UK
The Challenge
Before Evie, Satis was recording client meetings and saving the files, but the written meeting note that ended up on the file was typed up afterwards by whoever was in the room. It was a summary, not a record. It captured the outcome of the conversation rather than the texture of it. When the external compliance checker reviewed a file, they could only see what had made it into the final report. Discussions that happened in the meeting but did not need to sit in the final advice document left no written trail. Reviewers would come back asking for evidence of conversations that the advisers and planners knew had happened, but which no one had written down in a way that could be audited.
The two examples that came up most often were pension switches and attitude to risk. For pension switches, alternative recommendations were discussed with the client and/or discounted by the advisor, but none of that was visible on the file. For attitude to risk, the real risk assessment is a conversation between the adviser and the client, with the risk profiling questionnaire as a starting point. Therefore, that conversation needs to be visible on the file to justify any deviation from the questionnaire result.
How Evie strengthened compliance evidence on every Satis file
Evie now runs transcription against client meetings and produces a detailed meeting note that sits on the file alongside the advice report. The compliance checker sees the underlying discussion, not just the conclusion. Where a reviewer previously had to ask the team to explain what had happened in a meeting, they can now read it directly. Where a team member previously had to stop work and walk through a file that was flagged with questions, those questions are increasingly answered by the meeting note itself.
"There might be something not in the report and they'd say, there's no evidence you've discussed this with the client. But the meeting note provided that evidence. It might not necessarily need to go into the report, but it needs to be evidence on the file that you had the discussion."
Lee McGuinness, Associate Planner, Satis UK
The compliance win was the headline, but a second benefit showed up as the firm has grown. When Satis was smaller, everyone knew every client. As the team has scaled, people are less directly involved with every case, and new team members join a firm with years of client history behind it. A detailed meeting note gives anyone stepping in a faster, fuller picture than the subjective summaries a colleague might have typed from a two hour meeting. For handover and for cover when a colleague is off, the Evie meeting note is now the fastest way into a client file. See the before and after table below for the full side by side view.
"Having a full meeting note that outlines everything that's happened gives me a clearer picture of what's going on than typed meeting notes, which are subjective because the person's writing what they think is relevant out of a two hour meeting rather than a full record of it."
Lee McGuinness, Associate Planner, Satis UK
Before and after: How Evie changed the compliance file at Satis UK
Before Evie | After Evie |
|---|---|
Meeting notes typed up by whoever was in the room | Full transcription-based meeting note on every file |
Notes captured the outcome, not the discussion | Notes capture the discussion behind the outcome |
Reviewer questions required the team to stop and explain | Reviewer questions increasingly answered by the meeting note itself |
Pension switch alternatives dismissed in the room but absent from the file | Alternatives considered are visible on the file |
Risk assessment conversations lived only in the adviser's head | Risk assessment conversations sit alongside the risk profiling questionnaire |
Handover to a covering colleague meant rereading subjective notes | Handover means reading a full record |
Satis UK did not set out to change how compliance reviews worked. They set out to save time writing up meeting notes and reports. Evie did both, and in doing so created an audit trail that the firm's external compliance consultancy, and anyone covering for a colleague, can now lean on. Visit www.advisoryai.com/demo to learn how AdvisoryAI can help your firm achieve similar results.
Subscribe to our newsletter
Get an AI summary of AdvisoryAI
For questions or partnerships,
contact us at team@advisoryai.com
Solutions