By Chris Baigent-Reed, Founder, Jigsaw Tree
How long does your client onboarding take?
The answer can vary. My team often hear; “Three days, maybe four if we’re busy.” Then we map their actual process and the truth is twice their estimate!
What you think takes three days actually takes seven, when you count every email, every login, every handoff, every wait state. Your client onboarding is a three-day process interrupted by four days of waiting for platforms to confirm things, chasing missing documents, navigating system limitations, and coordinating between team members working in different systems. This isn’t unique to onboarding. It’s everywhere in your business!
Would you guess that annual reviews take 90 minutes? Often, they actually consume 4-5 hours when you count the data extraction, system navigation, document assembly, and coordination. That report generation you’ve budgeted 30 minutes for? Try two hours once you include all the system logins, data reconciliation, and formatting.
The £240,000 Question
Time tracking studies consistently show that financial advisers spend 40-60% of their time on administrative tasks that could be automated or outsourced. For a £60,000 adviser, that represents £24,000-£36,000 in annual cost doing work that shouldn’t require a qualified professional.
For a ten-adviser firm, that’s £240,000-£360,000 annually on administration disguised as advice work. Over five years that equates to £1.2M to £1.8M in pure waste. You cannot improve what you cannot see. You cannot fix what you haven’t measured.
We’re too busy” is a symptom, not a diagnosis
Most principals tell us their team is working flat out. No capacity for new clients.
But when we ask what they’re maxed out doing, the answers range from. “Client work,” to “Just… everything.” In our experience mapping processes across hundreds of advisory firms over the past decade, we typically find that adviser “busyness” breaks down something like this:
- 20-25% genuine high-value client advice
- 15-20% necessary compliance and file work
- 40-60% administrative tasks that could be automated or outsourced
- 10-15% navigating between disconnected systems
- 5-10% chasing information that should flow automatically
That middle category, 40-60% of time, is where transformation happens.
Before You Buy Technology, Map Your Reality
New CRMs, AI tools, client portals, workflow automation prompt investment of tens of thousands in implementation. And then… nothing really changes. Why? Because they’ve just automated a bad process.
Without understanding where time actually goes, which steps add value, where handoffs create delays, and which activities consume hours but deliver minimal client benefit, you’re likely to:
- Buy technology that automates the wrong things
- Make yourself very efficient at doing work you shouldn’t be doing at all
- Create new silos while trying to solve old ones
- Spend money on features you’ll never use while missing the integration depth you desperately need
What makes Jigsaw Tree different
Over a decade, we’ve built something rare in the financial advice consultancy space: a team that genuinely understands both the operational complexity of advisory businesses and the technical depth of the systems that run them.
Our consultants don’t follow generic change management frameworks. They’re seasoned professionals who’ve worked inside advisory firms, implemented dozens of technology transitions, and mapped thousands of processes. They know intelliflo, Curo, and Plannr inside out, from years of hands-on configuration, troubleshooting, and optimisation work. They have also saved clients countless hours on income reconciliation with our outsourced service, which has been swallowing time for advice for far too many years.
More importantly, they know how to listen.
As Heather Cooper-Harris, Technical Manager at Wise Investment Group, put it:
“Jigsaw Tree have been great at leading us through looking at our existing processes, recording what we currently do and then revisiting them to see what needs to change to make them clearer and easier for us all. They have been the constant level-headed person throughout the whole process and are able to pick the wheat from the chaff in what we do.”
That phrase; “constant level-headed person” captures what our clients value most. Transformation projects are sometimes emotional! There’s uncertainty, disruption, competing opinions, and the very real fear of breaking something that currently works. Our team brings calm, clarity, and commercial pragmatism to cut through the noise and focus relentlessly on outcomes that matter.
The Jigsaw Tree diagnostic: What we actually do
Our process mapping service documents your complete operation:
✓ Every step in your client journey from first contact through years of ongoing service
✓ Every handoff between people and where delays or errors typically occur
✓ Every login to different systems and how much time system navigation actually consumes
✓ Every manual step that could potentially be automated
✓ Where you’re waiting on external systems, platforms, or providers
✓ Which activities consume time but deliver minimal value
We’re ruthlessly honest. We’re looking for the gap between what you think happens and what actually happens. The result? A clear, visual map that shows you where capacity is being consumed, where value is being created (or destroyed), where technology investment will actually help, where process redesign is needed before any technology purchase, and where outsourcing makes strategic sense.
Real results: From operational bottleneck to systematic scale
When Conor O’Sullivan of O’Sullivan Financial Planning realised his growing team couldn’t scale using “the way things worked, when it was just me,”. Conor partnered with Jigsaw Tree to architect something transformational, taking Conor’s individual way of working and turning it into documented, repeatable processes that the whole team could follow consistently.
Through collaborative process mapping and expert system configuration, we transformed individual expertise into systematic workflows that freed Conor from being the operational bottleneck. The result: a unified team operating with automated consistency, where growth strengthens the system instead of straining the founder.
Similarly, Prydis Wealth transformed from informal working practices to systematically efficient operations by strategically mapping their processes to focus on ‘what good looked like’ rather than ‘what they had always done.’ We systematically mapped existing workflows, redesigned them to best practice standards, and provided detailed analysis of time and cost implications per process and role.
As James Priday, Managing Director at Prydis Wealth, explained: “We can now see how changing our working practices is giving us consistency and efficiency throughout the business.”
The pattern is consistent: firms that map their reality first, then redesign operations
The projects we deliver
Operational excellence – process mapping and operational diagnostics
Complete documentation of your current state, how work actually flows, where delays occur, where waste accumulates. This becomes your baseline and your business case for change.
Outsourced services and ongoing support
Strategic outsourcing that lets your team focus on advice while we handle operational excellence; admin services, data management, income reconciliation and ongoing support that operates as an extension of your business.
Tech transformation – technology strategy and implementation support
We help you select the right technology architecture and stay with you to implement it properly. We configure systems to best practice standards, deliver comprehensive training, and provide floor-walking support when you go live.
The window is closing
The advisory industry is undergoing a fundamental transformation. AI capabilities that didn’t exist 18 months ago are reshaping what’s possible. Firms that were capacity-constrained are doubling in size with the same core teams.
The winners aren’t just buying technology. They’re redesigning operations first.
Over the next 24 months, the gap will widen. The firms that transformed their operations will serve more clients, at better margins, with happier teams. The firms that waited will be wondering why growth got so expensive and why their best people are leaving for competitors with modern infrastructure.
Start with what you can see
Before you invest another pound in technology, invest in understanding where your time actually goes. The invisible waste in your firm is costing you more than you think, not just in money, but in growth capacity, team satisfaction, and competitive position.
You need a team that brings both the technical expertise to implement properly and the operational wisdom to keep you focused on what matters. You need the constant level-headed person who can pick the wheat from the chaff.
