Vellum

For financial advisors and RIAs

Vellum is where AI fits your advisory firm — built so nothing touches a client or a regulator before you sign off.

You're an advisor, not a data-entry clerk — but every client hour drags two more behind it in notes, CRM updates, and compliance archiving. Vellum maps your firm, scopes the security and books-and-records side before anything goes live, and builds the back-office AI with you. Done with you, from $499/mo — you approve everything.

7 min read

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The shift

AI adoption among RIAs more than doubled in two years — about 63% now use it in some capacity, and most advisors see generative AI as helpful. But it's mostly individual experimentation: only about 1 in 10 firms have integrated AI into how the firm actually runs. The curiosity is here; the governed, firm-wide build is the gap.

The advisory reality

The typical RIA isn't Wall Street — it's an owner-operator practice averaging about 8 employees and $424M in assets, where the founder is also the lead advisor and often the compliance officer. Margins at smaller firms have slid to a historic-low ~18% as people costs dominate revenue, and the advisor who could grow the book is throttled by their own keyboard: more than two behind-the-scenes hours for every client-facing hour. Capacity, not demand, is the constraint.

63%

of RIAs now use AI in some capacity

1 in 10

firms have actually integrated it firm-wide

~18%

operating margin at smaller firms — a historic low

31% to 4%

onboarding error rates after digital pre-checks

Built to work with the stack you already run

RedtailWealthboxSalesforceeMoneyRightCapitalSchwab Advisor Services

Sound familiar?

I finish a great client review, then lose 40 minutes to notes, CRM updates, the follow-up email, the tasks, and the archive.
My book is growing, but hiring is the one thing my ~18% margin can't absorb.
My tools don't talk to each other, so I re-key the same client into the CRM, the planning software, and the custodian portal.
Before every review I spend 20 minutes reconstructing "what did we decide last time?" from five different systems.
Every text and email is a recordkeeping liability I have to capture by hand.

Where AI fits

Meeting prep that's ready when you sit down

Stop reconstructing each client from scratch before every review.

A grounded search over your own client file — CRM history, planning outputs, notes, IPS, correspondence — assembles last commitments, open tasks, life events, and portfolio changes into a one-page brief, with citations, in seconds.

Walk in prepared
Less hunting, more advising
Every line clicks back to its source

Watch for: The brief is a starting point, not gospel — verify against the source note. · Citations exist so you check, instead of trusting a summary blind. · It reads your file; it doesn't replace your judgment.

Best for: Lead advisors with a full review calendar and a fragmented tech stack.

A firm guide your team can actually ask

Turn "how do we handle a backdoor Roth here?" into a cited answer instead of a wait.

Grounded search over your planning guides, prior cases, and compliance-approved guidance returns answers with citations to the source — so an associate stops queuing questions for you.

Faster internal answers
A consistent firm approach
The owner's knowledge, on call

Watch for: Answers are advisory only, for staff — never client-facing. · The responsible advisor signs off on any client recommendation. · Approved guidance in means trustworthy answers out — keep it current.

Best for: Multi-person firms where the owner is the bottleneck for "how do we do this?"

Account opening that catches the error before the custodian does

Stop re-keying client data into custodian forms and chasing rejected paperwork.

AI reads client documents, pre-fills custodian and account-opening forms, and validates required fields and signatures before anything is submitted.

Fewer rejected forms
No triple data entry
Onboarding that doesn't stall

Watch for: An associate reviews every extracted and flagged field before filing. · Exception review, never blind automation. · A wrong field on a custodian form isn't something to absorb.

Best for: Operations associates and paraplanners drowning in onboarding paperwork.

Statement, tax, and estate-doc intake — straight into the plan

Stop hand-keying held-away statements, 1099s, and trust documents into your planning software.

AI pulls data from statements, tax forms, and estate documents, classifies it, and routes the figures into your planning tool and CRM so your paraplanner verifies instead of types.

Less manual keying
Cleaner planning inputs
Faster turnaround on a new client's full picture

Watch for: The paraplanner verifies every figure before it feeds a plan. · A wrong number in a financial plan isn't a typo you can absorb. · Extraction handles the typing; a human owns the accuracy.

Best for: Firms doing comprehensive planning across multiple held-away accounts.

Client service replies, drafted in your firm's voice

Stop hand-writing every "send my statement / change my address / what's my RMD" reply.

AI triages the inbox and drafts policy-grounded replies and recap emails from the client's record. Routine requests get a draft; urgent concerns and prospect inquiries get routed with full context — you edit and send.

Faster responses
Consistent service
The routine handled, the important surfaced

Watch for: No drafted email reaches a client without your review. · Anything touching advice, money movement, or a complaint goes to a human. · If an AI error would land in your inbox, keep a checkpoint above it.

Best for: Solo and small firms where service email is quietly eating the day.

The whole post-meeting ritual — notes, tasks, recap, archive

Turn 40 minutes of after-meeting admin into a few minutes of review.

A multi-step agent runs the post-meeting workflow end to end — draft notes, create CRM tasks, draft the recap, stage the archive — and pauses for your approval before anything syncs or sends.

Reclaim behind-the-scenes hours
Nothing falls through the cracks
Archiving becomes a byproduct, not a chore

Watch for: You approve notes, tasks, and email before anything sends or syncs. · Every approved output is wired into your real books-and-records archive. · The AI tool is not your system of record.

Best for: Lead advisors who lose their evenings to write-ups.

Safe to start vs. proceed with guardrails

Safe to start now

Grounded meeting-prep briefs over your own client file, where you verify against the source.
Internal firm-knowledge search for staff — advisory only, never client-facing.
Drafting service replies and recap emails for your review before they send.
Inbox triage and routing — surfacing what's urgent, routing advice and money-movement to a human.
First-draft newsletters and market commentary from approved talking points, held for compliance review.
Post-meeting note and task drafting, with you approving before anything syncs.

Proceed with guardrails

Anything touching nonpublic personal information — requires enterprise, zero-retention models, no training on your data, and access controls scoped before go-live (Reg S-P, fiduciary duty).
Any output that reaches a client — never autonomous; human review is the rule, and the approved copy must land in your Rule 204-2 archive.
Marketing and performance claims — every advertisement must be substantiated, archived, and reviewed under the Marketing Rule; AI claims themselves now require their own compliance review.
Document extraction that feeds a plan or a custodian form — exception review on every flagged field, because a wrong number isn't a typo here.
Prospect outreach — reviewed and approved, never autonomous solicitation that could trip the Marketing Rule.
Off-channel communications — anything AI touches has to feed the books-and-records system, not bypass it.

Why do it with us

Hire a consultant	High hourly rates and a long discovery phase before anything ships	When they leave, the knowledge leaves with them
Hire an AI engineer	A fixed salary a ~18% margin can't easily absorb	They still need you for context, compliance guardrails, and governance
DIY on nights and weekends	Months of evenings lost evaluating ten vendors	Where most firms stall — experimenting, not integrated
systemlevel.ai — done with you, from $499/mo	One senior expert maps, ranks by value and risk, and builds it with your team	Security and compliance scoped before go-live; you approve everything

Independent, non-vendor: Kitces' time studies establish the ~2:1 behind-the-scenes-to-client-facing ratio, and show top advisors win by shifting a few hours a week out of the back office.
Vendor-reported, treat as best-case: AI note-takers say advisors compress the ~40-minute post-meeting ritual into 3–4 minutes.
Vendor-reported, Schwab-sourced: digital pre-checks have cut onboarding error rates from 31% to 4%, and a not-in-good-order form can cost about twice a clean one.
Our honest claim: the durable win isn't a magic number of hours — it's that AI plus a human checkpoint compresses the per-meeting admin ritual from ~40 minutes toward a few minutes of review. That's capacity you can add without a new hire.

Questions you’re probably asking

I can't put client data into an AI tool — that's a fiduciary and Reg S-P problem.: You're right, and it's the most important objection. Feeding client data into a public consumer LLM can violate SEC, FINRA, and privacy rules — so we don't. We scope security before anything goes live: enterprise, zero-retention models with proper NPI handling, no training on your client data, and access controls — and client data never routes through a public consumer tool. You approve the data-handling design before we build a thing.
AI will hallucinate, and a bad number could end up in front of a client or a regulator.: That's exactly why every Vellum output is a draft for human approval, never an autonomous action. The industry's own rule — no AI-generated email, summary, or report reaches a client without review — is the floor, not the ceiling. We design the checkpoint into the workflow, and we watch for automation bias so review stays real, not a rubber stamp.
The SEC is examining AI use and "AI-washing" — won't this just create new exam risk?: A fair concern: AI use in marketing and compliance is on the current exam priorities, and AI claims now require their own compliance review. Our answer is to scope with compliance in the room, document the AI policy, and wire every human-approved output into your books-and-records archive. Done this way, AI moves from exam risk to an auditable, governed workflow your compliance officer can defend.
I don't know where to start, and I don't have time to evaluate ten vendors.: That's the entire premise of Vellum. One senior expert maps your firm, ranks candidate workflows by value and risk, and tells you the specific model and vendor for your stack — starting at $499/mo. From wondering to working AI, without the months of nights and weekends.
My team won't adopt it, and we don't have the in-house expertise.: That's why this is done with you, not handed over. The flagship plan includes bi-weekly working sessions, implementation guidance through deployment, and team training with prompt libraries — so the people doing the work are part of building it, and it sticks.
Won't AI replace advisors and commoditize my value?: That fear is receding — only about 8% of advisors now see generative AI as a threat, down from roughly a fifth. The point is the opposite: AI handles the behind-the-scenes two hours so you can spend more of the one hour where your fiduciary value actually lives — with the client.

Pricing

Operator — $499/mo

Monthly strategy, your first workflows mapped and scoped, vendor and model recommendations for the CRM, planning, and custodian tools you already run, a stack assessment, and email support.

Best for: The owner-operator who wants a clear, safe place to start.

Partner — $999/mo · Flagship

Everything in Operator, plus bi-weekly working sessions, implementation guidance through deployment, architecture and integration review across CRM, planning, e-sign, and custodian, team training with prompt libraries, and a direct line for unblocking.

Best for: The firm ready to go from experimenting to integrated, whose margin can't absorb a new hire but whose capacity ceiling is real.