We record what a process is now, how often it happens, and what it costs the firm when it fails, and we do that before any intervention is designed. Without a baseline there is no proof that anything improved and no honest way to report on the work.
How we work
We hold every engagement to eight published standards.
Every engagement is delivered against these. They are on this page so you can hold us to them, and so you can send them to your compliance consultant without asking us for a copy.
How to read this page
If a standard here is ever missed, it is on us to say so before you notice it.
The standards
Eight commitments, published up front.
Each one opens to the commitment behind it. Any single standard can be sent on its own to whoever needs to read it.
A recommendation produced without watching the work is a guess. If the assessment finds that the constraint is not operational, which sometimes it is not, we say so in writing and you can stop there holding the findings.
An SOP in a central manual is an SOP nobody opens, so the documentation sits inside the system where the task is performed. Documentation is not finished until someone can find it six months later without asking us.
Every build includes training and a written handoff package, and the sessions are recorded so the next hire gets the same training as the first. The test we hold ourselves to is whether the people who run the process day to day can run it in a week we are unavailable.
We remove a failure point before we add a system, and we would rather deliver the boring answer that holds than the elegant one that needs us to stay for it to keep running.
A system that works technically and reverts in practice is a failure, and when that happens we record it as one and go back. We check at fourteen days and again at ninety, against the baseline taken in the assessment.
Data classification precedes architecture, and nothing touching client information is assumed permissible until it has been checked. Where vendor approval or supervisory review is required, that happens before anything is configured.
A system that threatens the person who has been holding the firm together will not survive contact with them, and that is a design problem rather than a personality problem. Every engagement answers how that person finds out, what they gain, and what they stop having to carry.
The method
We fix the process, automate it, then document it.
The order matters more than the list. Automating a process nobody has fixed yet only makes it fail faster and in more places.
01
Optimize
We fix the process before anything is built on top of it. Automating a broken process only makes it fail faster and in more places.
02
Automate
The steps that run the same way every time move onto software that runs them, and the steps that need judgement stay with a person.
03
Scale
What is left is documented and owned by your staff, so the firm can take on more households without adding headcount to do it.
Questions
What principals ask before they start.
How long does this take?
The assessment is two to four weeks and it is fixed in scope and fee before it starts. A build runs six to sixteen weeks depending on what the assessment finds, and it is scoped and quoted in writing before any of it begins. Managed operations is monthly and ongoing, with a twelve month minimum.
What do you need from my team?
A few hours each from the people who actually run the processes, during the assessment, because watching the work is the only way to record it accurately. After that there are review points at the design and the walkthrough, and training as each piece of the build lands. We work around the service calendar.
Do we have to change software?
Usually not, and the smallest intervention that works is the one we take. We configure what you already license before adding anything, and we would rather remove a failure point than add a system. Where a platform genuinely cannot carry the job we will show you the specific place it fails, and a migration is the most expensive project an advisory firm can take on, so it is the last option on the table.
How does this work inside our broker dealer’s rules?
Every design assumes a supervisory regime, and data classification happens before architecture. Nothing touching client information is assumed permissible, and where vendor approval or a supervisory review is required we work through it with your compliance people before anything is configured.
Who can see our client data?
Only whoever is assigned to your engagement, working from a named account at the narrowest permission the work needs, inside your own systems. You can revoke any of it yourself at any time without telling us first, and the full control set is published on this site.
What happens when the build is finished?
Your staff run it, because the procedures are written and the training has already happened as part of the build. Most firms move on to managed operations so the systems stay current as the firm changes. They belong to you either way.
Where does AI fit into this?
It is one of the tools and it is not the offer. Where a task can be done reliably by a model inside your compliance perimeter, such as classifying an inbound document or drafting a summary for a person to review and approve, we will build it that way and document how it is supervised. Where it cannot be relied on we do not use it, and nothing goes into a workflow that your compliance people have not agreed to.
How do you decide what to build?
You decide, and we make sure the decision is an informed one. There is more than one way to fix most operational problems, so the design comes to you as two or three routes rather than a single answer, each with what it costs, what it changes for your staff, how long it takes, and where it is weak. We say which one we would take and why. The firm knows things about its own priorities that we do not, and a design chosen by the people who have to live with it is the one that actually gets adopted.
Does this change what the firm is worth?
It is one of the reasons firms do it. A buyer is pricing how much of the business leaves when the owner does, so a firm running on documented systems and written procedures is a different proposition to one where the process lives in a few people’s heads. The systems, the SOPs, and the training material are all diligence material, and they are what lets a buyer see that an operator could run the firm without you. We are not valuation advisers and your investment banker should tell you what it is worth, but firms planning an exit are usually the ones who move fastest on this work.
Is any of this investment, tax, or compliance advice?
No. We build and run operational systems. When a question belongs to your compliance people or your counsel we send it there and say so in writing.
The difference
We build what we recommend, then stay to run it.
Read both tracks left to right. The difference is what happens after the thinking is done.
A typical engagement
- Assessment
- Recommendation
- They leave. You implement it, or you do not.
Arclength
- Operations assessment
- Build
- Managed operations, ongoing on a monthly retainer
Fair questions
Two objections, answered up front.
Why not hire an operations person?
Eventually you probably should, and the systems should be built before you do. The role usually gets filled before anyone has written down what it covers, so the process moves out of your head and into theirs. You have the same problem with a different name on it. If the systems and the documentation exist first, the person you hire walks into a defined job and you are no longer dependent on what any one person remembers.
Why not use the onboarding our CRM vendor includes?
Vendor onboarding configures the vendor’s product and that part of it is usually done well. It stops at the edge of the product, which means it does not reach the custodial platform, the document system, or the handoffs between them, and that is where most of the hours actually go.
Next
The assessment is the only way an engagement starts.
It is scoped to the firm, and what it produces is yours to act on with or without us.