Oct 20, 2026
When did you last follow the work?
Most financial planning practices have some form of documented processes. Some have beautifully mapped workflows, detailed standard operating procedures, impressive compliance manuals and enough checklists to keep a stationery supplier comfortably in business for years. The documents are approved, neatly filed and available to everyone, usually somewhere on SharePoint or in a shared drive. Management is satisfied that the processes are in place, compliance is happy that the documentation exists, and everyone gets on with their day.
Now, here is a question that may make a few people uncomfortable. When last did anyone actually check whether the team works according to those processes?
I don’t mean asking the practice manager whether the processes are being followed, or reminding everyone at a team meeting that they should use the latest procedures. I mean sitting down with the people doing the work and asking them to show you how a client is onboarded, how a review is prepared, how an instruction is processed or how an outstanding matter is followed through to completion.
You may be surprised by what you discover.
One administrator has developed a quicker way of handling certain instructions because the documented process involves several unnecessary steps. Another keeps a separate spreadsheet because the CRM doesn’t provide the information needed to manage outstanding work. A paraplanner has created a personal checklist to make sure the required documents are received, while an adviser prefers to deal with particular client matters directly because that is how things have always been done. Meanwhile, the practice manager has quietly added a few checks of their own after discovering that certain things tend to fall through the cracks.
And somehow, despite everyone supposedly following the same process, the business now has five different versions of it.
The interesting part is that each person can probably explain why their version works better. Some of those explanations will be perfectly reasonable. Others may reveal habits that should have been challenged years ago. You might even discover that the official process is the least practical of the lot.
This is where things become uncomfortable for business owners and managers, particularly when significant time and money have already been invested in developing the documented procedures. There is an understandable temptation to conclude that the team is simply not following instructions, which leads to the familiar cycle of reminders, training sessions, updated procedures and increasingly frustrated conversations about accountability.
Sometimes accountability is exactly what needs attention. People cannot simply disregard agreed processes because they prefer doing things their own way, particularly where compliance, client outcomes or internal controls are involved. But before deciding that the team is the problem, it is worth considering whether the process itself has kept up with the business.
A process document is a record of how work is intended to happen. The actual process is what your people do every day to get the work done.
Ideally, the two should be closely aligned, but that alignment doesn’t happen automatically, and it certainly doesn’t remain intact simply because a document was approved three years ago.
Businesses change. Teams grow, people leave, technology gets replaced, compliance requirements evolve and client expectations shift. Small adjustments are made to accommodate immediate needs, often without anyone deliberately deciding to change the process. Over time, these adjustments become habits, the habits become accepted practice, and the original document slowly becomes a historical record of how the business used to operate.
The trouble is that management may still be relying on that document as evidence that the business has a consistent operating model.
Consider what happens when something goes wrong. A client complains about a delayed instruction, information is missing from a file, or an internal review identifies a compliance gap. The manager refers to the documented process and confirms that the correct steps were clearly set out. The employee explains that the team has not worked that way for months, perhaps even years, because the procedure doesn’t reflect the current workflow.
Both may be telling the truth, which is precisely why the situation deserves more attention than another reminder to follow the process.
There is also a less obvious consequence of allowing the documented and actual processes to drift apart. The business gradually loses visibility over how work is really being done. Management may believe that a particular control is consistently performed, while the team has found a workaround that bypasses it. A report may suggest that work is progressing normally, while several people are managing outstanding tasks through private notes and spreadsheets.
Responsibilities that appear clearly allocated on paper may have shifted informally between team members, leaving nobody entirely sure who owns the final outcome.
Everything may continue running reasonably well, especially when experienced and committed people are involved. In fact, those people are often the reason the business doesn’t notice the problem sooner. They know the shortcuts, remember the exceptions, recognise potential mistakes and compensate for the parts of the process that no longer work properly.
Until someone goes on leave, resigns, makes a mistake or simply reaches the point where they cannot keep compensating.
Then the business discovers that its carefully documented process was relying rather heavily on human memory, goodwill and the occasional act of operational heroism.
So what should a practice actually do about it?
I would start by putting the process documents aside for a moment and following the work. Choose a few important activities and ask the people responsible to demonstrate how they handle them from beginning to end. Include the handovers between advisers, paraplanners, administration, operations and compliance, and pay particular attention to where people leave the formal workflow to make something happen.
Ask why those workarounds exist, whether they create genuine efficiencies or introduce unnecessary risks, and what would happen if the person performing the task were unavailable. Look at how the systems are being used, where information is recorded, who makes decisions and how outstanding matters are tracked. Then compare what you have observed with the documented process.
This exercise is not intended to catch people doing something wrong. It is an opportunity to understand the operational challenges they encounter and determine whether the business is giving them the structure, systems and guidance they need to do their work properly.
Of course, that doesn’t mean every workaround should be accepted or that every employee preference deserves its own process. Some practices need greater discipline, clearer accountability and more consistent application of agreed procedures. Others need to simplify overly complicated workflows, remove duplicated steps or make better use of the systems they already pay for. Quite often, the solution involves a combination of these things.
The important part is understanding which problem you actually have before spending money and time trying to fix it.
And perhaps that is the operational reality check here. If you want to know how your business operates, don’t start by reading the process document. Start by watching the process.
At Karenu Consulting, this is exactly the type of work we help financial planning practices with. We review how work actually moves through the business, identify operational challenges, examine the use of existing systems and processes, and work with the people involved to develop practical improvements that can be implemented and maintained. Sometimes that means redesigning a workflow, sometimes it means clarifying responsibilities or strengthening controls, and sometimes it means discovering that the business already has the right tools but hasn’t been using them effectively.
If you have invested in processes, procedures and systems but still experience inconsistent execution, duplicated work, unclear responsibilities or repeated operational frustrations, perhaps it is time for an independent look at what is actually happening in your practice.
Because your process document may be beautifully written, professionally formatted and approved by everyone who needed to sign it.
But if it doesn’t reflect what happens on a busy Tuesday afternoon, you may have an excellent document and a rather different business.