(From the July 2026 edition of eFORUM) 

By Angelina Hung and Zainab Williams

Today’s advisory practice relies on a growing array of technology, from financial planning software and document management platforms to client portals, e-signatures, meeting transcription tools and AI assistants. At the centre of it all sits the customer relationship management (CRM) system. According to the T3/Inside Information 2025 Software Survey, 86 per cent of advisors use one, making it among the profession’s most widely adopted technologies.

Yet many advisors still feel buried. The problem is rarely too little technology. Most of us have plenty. The real question is: Which tools genuinely improve the client experience and which just add noise?

As certified financial planners who have also built financial technology platforms, we have come to see efficiency and security less as a software-buying exercise and more as a design choice: shaping a practice where technology removes friction without eroding the trust clients place in us.

The right fit from the start

The client experience begins long before the first planning meeting. It begins the moment someone visits your website, subscribes to your newsletter or books a discovery call. Each of those moments tells you something about who they are and why they reached out. Used well, a CRM does more than store contact details. It holds the client’s story.

A client might be preparing for retirement, working through a divorce, caring for aging parents or managing an inheritance. Each situation needs a different conversation. When those details live in your CRM, you can pick up where you left off rather than starting cold every time.

Once you capture the client’s story, financial planning software becomes a bridge between understanding the client and delivering meaningful advice. Remember to treat the financial plan as a living document rather than a report you build once and file away. It should evolve with the client’s life and anchor every review that follows.

Feature lists matter less than integration with other technological tools. When information flows between your CRM, planning software, document management tool and client portal, you spend less time re-keying data and more time giving advice.

What we’ve learned

Building these platforms taught us the same lesson from the other side. The tool that earns its place is the one that ties the whole client journey together, from the first conversation through implementation and ongoing reviews, even when a flashier product offers more features.

Efficient workflows matter just as much.

Discovery meetings should automatically generate notes, action items and follow-up tasks. Documents should be collected through secure client portals rather than scattered across email inboxes. Team responsibilities should be clearly assigned, and every client interaction should build upon the previous one instead of requiring duplicate data entry.

Every administrative task you hand to technology gives you back time and capacity for the conversations that matter.

Follow-through makes the difference

One area where our profession has a significant opportunity to improve is accountability. Too often a meeting ends with strong recommendations and no system for carrying them out. Good technology should do more than record what was said — it’s most helpful when it nudges the advisor and client to follow through together.

Picture a client logging into their portal and seeing this at a glance:

• Outstanding action items
• Completed milestones
• Upcoming priorities
• Progress made toward their financial goals

Instead of wondering, “What did we discuss six months ago?,” clients can clearly see how far they’ve come.

Security means safeguarding

Security must keep pace with efficiency. Clients hand advisors some of their most sensitive information. So safeguarding it belongs in the same category as the advice itself: something they are paying you to get right. Unfortunately, I’ve known of multiple advisors that have either had their email compromised or had system breaches. It’s more common than you think, and cybersecurity continues to be a challenge.

According to IBM’s 2025 Cost of a Data Breach Report, the financial sector experienced the highest average breach costs in Canada. For a practice built on trust, that puts security well beyond the IT department and squarely in the realm of business risk.

Secure document sharing, multi-factor authentication, password managers, encrypted communications, regular software updates and clearly defined staff access should all be considered foundational business practices. Advisors should also understand where client data is stored, who has access to it and whether their technology providers meet Canadian privacy and security expectations.

The RCMP also recommends verifying payment and transfer requests through a second communication channel, such as a phone call, rather than relying solely on email. As business email compromise schemes become increasingly sophisticated, this simple step can help protect both advisors and their clients.

Remove friction, gain focus

An aim for any practice is to ensure the technology stays in the background, absorbing the administrative load and the security work so your attention can go to what clients actually value: sound advice, real follow-through and a relationship that lasts. Clients don’t remember how many platforms you run. They remember how easy you made the process, how safe they felt sharing their information and how much ground they managed to cover with a trusted professional alongside them.

Technology is there to remove friction, not to replace you.