A fact finder is a structured questionnaire used to collect a client’s personal, financial and tax information before an advisor can build a plan or open an account. Firms have used paper versions of these forms for decades, but manual collection creates re-keying errors and stalls onboarding. PreciseFP replaces the paper process with a digital fact finder that clients complete themselves and that feeds directly into the firm’s other systems.
How Fact Finders Work in PreciseFP
A fact finder in PreciseFP is a template, not a static form. Templates exist for different scenarios: a full financial profile for a new planning client, a shorter version for an investment-only account or a targeted review for an existing household. You select the template that matches the situation and send it to the client through a link rather than an email attachment or a printed packet.
Your client completes the fact finder on their own device, at their own pace. Progress saves automatically, so they can start the form on a phone, close it and pick back up later on a laptop without losing entered data.
You can also pre-fill fields using data already on file in the firm’s CRM or financial planning software. This comes in handy when you’re sending a periodic review rather than a first-time intake: the client sees their existing information and only needs to confirm it or flag changes, instead of re-entering everything from scratch. Once the client submits, you’ll still need to push or reconcile the updated fields into the firm’s CRM and planning tools, since PreciseFP holds the collected data but doesn’t replace those systems.
You can also track completion status. If a client hasn’t finished within a set window, PreciseFP sends an automatic reminder, so you don’t have to follow up by phone or email yourself.
PreciseFP Value: How We Simplify Fact Finding
PreciseFP handles the sending, tracking and reconciling that used to sit on you.
With PreciseFP, you can:
- Choose a template: Pick a pre-built fact finder for onboarding, reviews or investment-only accounts instead of building one from scratch
- Pre-fill known data: Populate fields from the CRM or planning software so clients only confirm or update
- Save and resume: Let clients complete the form across sessions and devices without losing data
- Send automatic reminders: Prompt clients who haven’t completed a form after a set number of days
- Track status: See which clients have submitted and which are still pending
- Collect signatures: Gather required signatures within the same workflow as the fact finder itself
FAQs About Fact Finder
What is a fact finder used for in financial planning?
A fact finder collects the personal, financial and tax details an advisor needs before building a financial plan or opening an account. It replaces informal notes or a paper intake packet with a structured, repeatable form.
Is a fact finder the same as a CRM record?
A fact finder is the form a client fills out; a CRM record is where that information is stored and maintained afterward. Data collected in a fact finder typically needs to be synced or pushed into the CRM rather than living there natively.
Can a client finish a fact finder over multiple sessions?
Yes, PreciseFP saves a client’s progress automatically, so they can stop partway through and resume later on the same or a different device. You don’t need to resend the form if a client doesn’t finish in one sitting.
Who sends the fact finder to the client, the advisor or back office staff?
Either can send it, but back office staff commonly handle sending fact finders as part of onboarding or annual review workflows. Advisors typically get involved once the completed data needs review or a plan is being built.