How Birchwood Wealth Partners Achieved 100% Compliance Documentation and Reduced Onboarding to 3 Days
About Birchwood Wealth Partners
Birchwood Wealth Partners is an independent registered investment advisory (RIA) firm serving individuals, families, and small business owners in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. Founded in 2014, they manage over $150 million in client assets and specialize in retirement planning, investment management, and comprehensive financial planning.
The Challenge
Compliance Requirements Made Onboarding Painfully Slow
Financial advisory is one of the most heavily regulated industries, and Birchwood needed signatures on numerous disclosure documents, advisory agreements, and account applications for every new client. The compliance requirement for wet signatures meant in-person meetings or mailed documents.
New client onboarding typically took 2-3 weeks between initial meeting, document preparation, signature collection, and account setup. The firm needed complete audit trails for every document to satisfy regulatory requirements.
- Client onboarding took 2-3 weeks on average
- Multiple disclosure documents required for each client
- Compliance required detailed audit trails
- Out-of-state clients particularly difficult to onboard
- Document storage for regulatory retention was consuming space
The Solution
Compliant E-Signatures with Complete Audit Trails
Birchwood implemented Formfy to handle all client-facing documents with e-signatures that meet SEC and state regulatory requirements. Every signature includes timestamp, IP address, signing certificate, and complete activity audit trail.
Client intake forms gather financial information, investment objectives, and risk tolerance before the initial consultation. After the meeting, the entire document package — advisory agreement, disclosures, and account applications — goes out for e-signature immediately.
Features Used
The Results
Faster Onboarding, Perfect Compliance Documentation
The transformation has dramatically improved both efficiency and compliance confidence. New client onboarding now takes just 3 days from initial meeting to funded account, down from 2-3 weeks. Clients can sign all documents from home on their schedule.
The compliance team loves the detailed audit trails. Every document includes a signing certificate with timestamp, IP address, and signer authentication. When regulators request documentation, everything is organized and instantly accessible.
- Client onboarding reduced from 2-3 weeks to 3 days
- 100% compliance documentation with full audit trails
- All regulatory retention requirements satisfied digitally
- Clients can sign from anywhere on any device
- 85% improvement in client satisfaction scores
Our compliance team loves the detailed audit trails. Every signature is timestamped, every document view is logged, and we have complete signing certificates for regulatory requirements. When examiners ask for documentation, we can pull it instantly. Our clients appreciate signing from their couch instead of driving to our office.
Daniel Kirkwood
Principal & Chief Compliance Officer at Birchwood Wealth Partners
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