FinTech

Docupace is a leading provider of comprehensive solutions for digitization and automation of front-to-back office wealth management operations for registered investment advisers (RIAs), broker-dealers, banks, trust companies, insurance companies and financial advisors. 

The company offers a broad range of digital technology services: 

  • Flexible Workflow Automation: Automating firmwide compliance and business process rules with pre-built and customized workflows. 
  • Document Management: Managing documents confidently in an SEC and FINRA-compliant cloud environment. 
  • Advisor Transitions: Empowering incoming financial advisors to transition their book of business in just 30 days rather than the standard 6 months. 
  • Electronic Document Delivery: Simplifying Reg BI (Form CRS) compliance and improving user experience with electronic disclosure workflows. 
  • Branded Digital Experiences: Rapidly creating intelligent data entry and transactional workflows with a low-code development platform. 
  • Client Onboarding: Processing all lines of business with a streamlined account opening & maintenance process. 

 

Transforming Paper-Based Workflows into an Cloud-based, Digital Platform  

Since its inception in 2002, Docupace has been on a mission to eliminate paperwork. Paper-based processes cause inflated errors and delays. With powerful paperless workflows, the company provides a fully digital operations platform that simplifies how wealth management firms process and digitize data. 

By integrating the secure, cloud-based Docupace Platform, the Docupace team provides a suite of digital solutions that help RIAs, broker-dealers, and their advisors to streamline client onboarding, document management, advisor transitions, and other critical workflows while maintaining SEC and FINRA compliance. 

The company's digital back office solutions are designed to help businesses to:

1. Elevate the Advisor Experience  

Make it easy and save time for financial advisors to onboard clients, open new accounts, and receive commissions, and more with a completely digital process. 

2. Transform How the Business Operates  

Work smarter and eliminate costly errors by implementing best practices around automated workflows that are developed with the latest technology and compliance standards.  

3. Reduce Compliance Risks and Costs 

Reduce risks and compliance complexities, while realizing growth in profits by streamlining compliance workflows and business rules. 

Skilled, Experienced and Accomplished Leadership 

David Knoch is the CEO of Docupace. He is an accomplished leader and financial services executive with over 20 years of rich experience in the financial advice industry. David served as President of 1st Global, a premier research and consulting to CPA firms, where he was the architect of award-winning culture and drove revenues to nearly US$200 million. His tenure ended with the US$180 million in sales of the firm to an industry peer in 2019. 

David has also provided expert testimony before Congress. He has been featured in The Wall Street Journal and was voted one of the 25 Most Influential People in the investment advisory industry two years in a row, for 2018 and 2019. Besides, David has served as the Chair of the Financial Services Institute (FSI) Board of Directors and the North Texas Chapter of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO). 

 

Streamlining Front-to-Back Office Workflows 

For most clients and even many financial advisors, Docupace is a technology company. Based in California, US, the company empowers the automatic transfer of businesses' data/information through some of the most complex, and often antiquated, back-office processes in the country. 

David and General Counsel Kevin Armstrong have long histories of advocating for rules that safeguard consumers from harm and clear the way for more to gain access. Through trade groups and personal/professional networks, Docupace actively seeks to join the conversations that matter and strike up other ones that need to begin. 

 

Securing Financial Environment with Disruptive Technologies 

David believes that disruptive technologies are changing everything. There isn’t any business that cannot benefit from being more secure, more automated and more predictable. However, the challenge is steering these new capabilities to where they can have the most impact. When implemented correctly, the impact is simple – more people have access to higher quality financial advice at a lower cost. 

 

Managing Client Onboarding for Financial Advisory Firms 

Docupace serves as the backbone of every modern back-office operation, providing a "hub and spoke" opportunity for financial advisory firms to connect systems through single-sign-on integrations and more. The company is ready to deploy integrations with every major custodian, CRM, portfolio management system and more. 

Many commonly-used terms refer to digital client onboarding processes with few manual intermediate steps, but it is slightly misleading. "If we were to draw a diagram of the client onboarding process; it wouldn't look like a straight line. It would probably resemble a bicycle wheel, with various software tools – proposal engines, compliance software, CRMs, risk analysis tools, etc. – feeding into a central database, and then feeding out again to the custodian or clearing firms," David explained.  

Docupace's long-term strategic vision is to sit at the center — at the hub — of the wheel. The company wants to help data from each of the systems necessary to onboard a new client get where it needs to go seamlessly via deep integrations. 

With single sign-on technology and various existing integrations with custodians, clearing firms, and software tools, Docupace already makes it possible for advisors and back-office employees to lower the amount of time spent on client onboarding. In the future, the company expects the number of spokes to grow and the capabilities of its platform to multiply. 

 

Expediting Clients' Productivity and Profitability 

David stresses that one of the most exciting elements of the Docupace story is its longevity. While much of the fintech space sits in the startup camp, Docupace has been around since 2002. That means the company has experience navigating its business and clients' businesses through economic booms and busts.   

 

Achievements That Glorifies Success 

Earlier, in 2020, Docupace was purchased by FTV Capital, a sector-focused growth equity investment firm that provided a significant growth equity investment. This investment enables Docupace to expand its product and service offerings to its broker-dealers, RIAs and insurance firm customers, along with the financial advisors affiliated with these businesses.  

The investment and leadership FTV Capital brings to Docupace will help it stimulate its client-centric initiatives, expand its capabilities and support, and advance product development and thought leadership to automate the ways front and back-offices operate, communicate, and generate new business. 

In 2020, Docupace was selected as a finalist in the WealthManagement.com 2020 Industry Awards (the "Wealthies") within the Document Management Category for its Regulation Best Interest (Reg BI) solution. The Industry Awards honor outstanding achievements by companies, organizations, and individuals that support financial advisor success. 

 

The Future of Wealth Management 

According to David, the biggest challenge Docupace faces today is not the capabilities of its platform or the meaningful impact it has on its clients' business. It is capturing attention amid so many "shiny objects" technologies out there. He asserts that less than 1-in-4 financial advisors right now provide clients with a digital onboarding/account opening experience and less than half leverage eSignature capabilities that have existed for some time. 

However, David sees that the scenario is changing now. More and more wealth management firms are stepping back and inspecting processes and the entire end-to-end advisor/client experience. Docupace already knows what they are going to find – that they can get the biggest bang for their buck by establishing enterprise-wide processes, integrating systems to reduce redundancies and better training employees/advisors to leverage the fintech tools.