Estimated reading time: 24 minutes

For wealth management firms, a CRM is more than a place to store client information. It supports the daily work that keeps an advisory practice running: scheduling meetings, managing prospects, coordinating client onboarding, documenting interactions, completing annual reviews, and maintaining oversight of business activities.

As advisory firms grow, the limitations of their existing systems can become more apparent. Workflows may be difficult to maintain, client notes can become cluttered, reporting may require manual effort, and important follow-ups can fall through the cracks.

For firms using Redtail CRM, Salesforce Financial Services Cloud (FSC) offers another approach: a configurable platform that can connect client relationship management with operational workflows, reporting, marketing, and other business systems.

But is Salesforce the right fit for every advisory firm? And what should firms evaluate before making a change?

The answer depends on how your team works, which processes you want to improve, and how much flexibility you need from your technology.

1. Calendar and Client Activity Management

Advisors and support staff need a reliable way to manage appointments, coordinate follow-ups, and understand their upcoming client commitments.

When evaluating Salesforce against Redtail, calendar functionality should be assessed in the context of the firm’s existing scheduling practices.

Key considerations include:

• Calendar integration: How does Salesforce connect with Microsoft Outlook or Google Calendar? Which events synchronize, and in which direction?
• Ease of use: Can advisors quickly review upcoming meetings and access relevant client information?
• Client context: Can users connect meetings to the appropriate client, household, prospect, or opportunity?
• Team coordination: Can administrative staff help coordinate appointments and manage follow-up activities?
• Activity visibility: Can users see relevant meetings, emails, and tasks alongside the associated client record?

Salesforce supports Outlook integration and calendar synchronization through its available integration tools. Depending on the configuration, users can also access Salesforce records and manage activities from within Outlook.

The important question is not simply whether a calendar looks cleaner than Redtail’s. It is whether the interface and integration make everyday scheduling easier for the people who use it.

For a meaningful comparison, firms should test common scenarios, including scheduling a client review, updating an appointment, assigning a follow-up task, and ensuring the relevant activity appears on the correct record.

2. Reporting and Business Visibility

Reporting is particularly important for firms that want to understand how their advisors spend their time, how consistently they engage clients, and where opportunities may be getting overlooked.

Salesforce provides configurable reports and dashboards that can help firms monitor client relationships, prospect activity, workflow progress, and operational performance.

Depending on the data model and configuration, reports can be organized around criteria such as:

• Client tier or household segment
• Advisor or relationship manager
• Client age or date of birth
• Upcoming birthdays and review dates
• Prospect stage and opportunity status
• Meeting type and activity date
• Client category, tags, or custom fields
• Completed and overdue follow-up activities

For example, a wealth management firm might want a dashboard showing the number of annual reviews completed each quarter, broken down by advisor and client tier.

Another report might identify prospects who have completed a discovery meeting but have not progressed to the next stage of the pipeline.

These views can help management understand whether the firm’s service model aligns with its business priorities.

However, report quality depends on data quality. If meeting types are recorded inconsistently or client tiers are missing, reports will not provide a reliable picture of the business.

The goal is to turn CRM data into actionable operational insight, rather than simply generate more reports.

3. Workflows

For many advisory firms, workflow management is one of the most important factors when evaluating a CRM.

Processes vary considerably across departments. Advisors may follow a structured financial planning process, while operations staff coordinate onboarding, compliance documentation, account updates, and recurring client service requests.

Salesforce offers several tools that can support these activities, including Flow, Cases, and Action Plans.

Salesforce Flow

Flow is Salesforce’s automation tool for managing business processes. It can guide users through defined steps, update records, assign work, send notifications, and automate actions based on specified conditions.

Examples include:

• Initiating a client onboarding process when a new relationship is created
• Assigning tasks when a prospect reaches a particular stage
• Notifying staff when client information needs to be updated
• Triggering reminders for upcoming annual reviews
• Routing service requests to the appropriate team

Flows can be designed around a firm’s requirements, although complex automation should be planned, tested, and maintained carefully.

Cases

Cases can provide a structured way to manage client service requests or internal operational issues.

A firm might use Cases to track requests such as an address change, beneficiary update, document request, or account maintenance issue.

Depending on the configuration, each case can have an owner, status, priority, related client record, and associated activities.

This provides greater visibility into who is responsible for a request, where it stands, and whether additional action is required.

Action Plans

Action Plans are particularly relevant when a process involves a repeatable sequence of tasks.

For example, a firm could create an Action Plan template for an annual financial review that includes:

1. Schedule the client meeting.
2. Request and collect updated financial information.
3. Review the client’s current situation.
4. Prepare meeting materials.
5. Conduct and document the review.
6. Assign follow-up actions.
7. Confirm completion of outstanding items.

The same approach can be applied to onboarding, prospect discovery, account opening, and other recurring processes.

Salesforce’s Action Plans documentation explains how templates can standardize repeatable tasks, assign responsibilities, establish deadlines, and support reporting.

The key distinction is that not every process needs the same tool. Action Plans are useful for repeatable task sequences, Flow supports automation and guided processes, and Cases can organize service requests. The right design depends on the work being managed.

For firms frustrated by rigid workflows in their current CRM, the opportunity is to build processes that reflect how the business actually operates, rather than forcing every department into the same template.

4. Tasks, Activities, and Accountability

Tasks and activities help teams manage the work that happens between client meetings.

When comparing CRM platforms, firms should look beyond the ability to create a task. They should evaluate how easily users can update activities, reassign responsibilities, record progress, and identify outstanding work.

Important considerations include:

• Assigning tasks to individuals or teams
• Relating activities to clients, households, prospects, and opportunities
• Tracking due dates, priorities, and completion status
• Viewing overdue and upcoming tasks
• Recording outcomes and follow-up notes
• Reporting on activity volume and completion rates

Salesforce can support these requirements through its task management capabilities, configurable record pages, automation, and reporting.

However, an important distinction concerns historical records.

If a firm wants to keep a task open indefinitely while editing its details over time, it should determine which changes need to be retained for compliance purposes. Standard task functionality should not automatically be assumed to provide a complete, immutable history of every edit, deletion, or change to a task.

Depending on the requirement, Salesforce field history tracking, custom audit records, automation, or an external compliant recordkeeping solution may be necessary.

The design should specify which changes must be captured, who can modify records, how long information must be retained, and whether the history must be tamper-resistant.

For regulated firms, this is a governance requirement, not simply a user-interface preference.

5. Client Notes and Communication History

A client’s record can accumulate information from many sources: meeting notes, emails, phone calls, text messages, service requests, and internal discussions.

Without a clear structure, important details can become difficult to locate.

Salesforce allows firms to organize client information through related records, activity timelines, notes, custom fields, and configurable record pages.

A firm might distinguish between:

• Annual review and financial planning notes
• General client meeting notes
• Internal service and operations notes
• Prospect discovery notes
• Email and calendar activities
• Client service requests
• Documents and compliance records

Access permissions and page layouts can also be designed to make relevant information easier to find for each user group.

However, organizing information in Salesforce is not the same as establishing a compliant archive. The firm must separately evaluate how emails, texts, attachments, and other communications are captured, retained, searched, and produced for regulatory review.

A well-designed CRM should help users find the information they need without creating an unnecessarily cluttered client record.

6. Marketing and Client Communications

Many wealth management firms already use specialized marketing platforms, such as FMG Suite, for newsletters, drip campaigns, event invitations, and other client communications.

Salesforce can support marketing activities through its campaign management capabilities and, depending on the products selected, additional marketing automation tools.

Potential use cases include:

• Tracking prospects who have registered for an event
• Segmenting clients by tier, relationship type, or other criteria
• Coordinating event invitations and follow-ups
• Monitoring campaign membership and responses
• Creating targeted communication journeys
• Connecting marketing engagement with prospect and client records

The appropriate setup depends on the firm’s marketing requirements and existing technology stack.

For some firms, Salesforce Campaigns combined with an integration to an existing marketing platform may be sufficient. Others may benefit from a dedicated Salesforce marketing automation product.

Before replacing an existing tool, firms should determine which system will manage audience preferences, consent, unsubscribes, campaign execution, and communication history.

The objective is not necessarily to move every marketing function into the CRM. It is to ensure marketing activity and relationship management work together without unnecessary duplication.

7. Prospect and Opportunity Management

A consistent prospect management process helps advisory firms maintain visibility into potential new relationships and identify where follow-up is needed.

Salesforce supports lead and opportunity management, allowing firms to define pipeline stages, assign ownership, record interactions, and track progress toward a business outcome.

For example, a firm might establish stages such as:

1. New prospect
2. Initial contact
3. Discovery meeting scheduled
4. Discovery completed
5. Proposal or financial plan in progress
6. Decision pending
7. Converted or closed

These stages should reflect the firm’s actual acquisition process rather than a generic sales pipeline.

Additional automation can help prompt follow-ups, identify opportunities that have not progressed, and notify team members when important actions are overdue.

Reporting can then reveal how many prospects are in each stage, how long they remain there, and which activities contribute to successful conversion.

For advisory firms with multiple advisors, client tiers, and different acquisition processes, the benefit is a more consistent view of the pipeline and clearer accountability for next steps.

8. Email, Text Messaging, and Compliance Archiving

For financial services firms, communication capture deserves separate consideration from ordinary CRM functionality.

Email and text message retention may be subject to regulatory requirements, firm policies, and supervisory obligations. A CRM integration alone does not establish that these requirements have been met.

Can Salesforce capture Outlook emails?

Salesforce supports Outlook integration and Einstein Activity Capture, which can connect email and calendar activity with relevant Salesforce records.

Depending on the product, configuration, and licensing, messages and events can be synchronized or captured and associated with records such as contacts, leads, accounts, and opportunities.

Some configurations also support storing captured email messages as Salesforce records that can be accessed by reports and automation. Other configurations may handle captured activity differently.

See Salesforce’s Einstein Activity Capture documentation for details.

The important distinction is that email integration, CRM activity capture, and compliant email archiving are not interchangeable.

Before implementation, a firm should confirm whether the proposed configuration captures all required inbound and outbound communications, how messages and attachments are stored, which records are reportable, and how retention and retrieval requirements are met.

What about text messages and other communications?

Text messaging may require a separate integration or specialized archiving platform. The same is true of communications originating in other applications.

Firms evaluating a move from Redtail should document their current archiving requirements before selecting a replacement solution.

Questions to consider include:

• Which communication channels must be captured?
• Must messages be captured automatically, without user intervention?
• How are messages linked to the correct client or household?
• Can authorized personnel search and retrieve communications for supervision or an audit?
• What retention, deletion, legal hold, and export requirements apply?
• How are changes to records and access permissions audited?

The appropriate solution depends on the firm’s regulatory obligations and technology environment. Firms should validate their proposed architecture with their compliance team and the relevant archiving provider before implementation.

9. Measuring Client Engagement and Advisor Activity

CRM data can also help firms understand how their teams allocate time across different client segments and service activities.

Consider a firm that wants to measure:

• The number of annual reviews completed each quarter
• Discovery meetings held with prospective clients
• Meetings completed by advisor
• Engagement levels across client tiers
• Outstanding client follow-ups
• The percentage of clients receiving their planned annual review

Salesforce reports and dashboards can support these measurements when the underlying activities are recorded consistently.

For example, the firm could establish standardized activity types for annual reviews, discovery meetings, financial planning sessions, and client service interactions.

Each activity could then be related to the appropriate client or prospect record and include relevant information such as the assigned advisor, date, outcome, and client tier.

A dashboard could display the number of discovery meetings completed by advisor during a selected period, alongside the number of annual reviews completed for each client segment.

Additional automation could flag overdue reviews or identify clients who have not received the expected level of engagement.

The key is to define the metrics before building the dashboard. Firms should decide what counts as a completed meeting, which client segments matter, and how activities will be recorded so that the resulting reports are meaningful.

This turns CRM reporting into a practical tool for capacity planning, service consistency, and business development.

What Should Wealth Management Firms Evaluate Before Moving from Redtail?

Salesforce and Redtail should be compared against the firm’s actual requirements, not simply against a list of available features.

A structured evaluation should consider five areas.

Usability: Can advisors and administrative staff complete their everyday tasks efficiently? Is the interface intuitive for each role?

Configurability: Can the firm adapt workflows, client records, reports, and dashboards as its processes evolve?

Integration: Can the CRM work with the firm’s existing calendar, email, financial planning, custodial, marketing, and compliance systems?

Governance: Can the firm meet its requirements for communication archiving, access controls, record retention, and auditability?

Total cost and ongoing maintenance: What licenses, implementation services, integrations, data migration, training, and administration will be required?

Salesforce offers extensive configuration options, but flexibility also introduces implementation and maintenance responsibilities. A well-designed solution should balance customization with simplicity and avoid creating unnecessary complexity.

For firms evaluating a transition, the most useful next step is to identify the processes that create the greatest operational friction and test how those processes would work in the proposed environment.

Build a CRM Around the Way Your Advisory Firm Works

Moving from Redtail to Salesforce Financial Services Cloud is not simply a matter of transferring contacts and activities. It is an opportunity to evaluate how client information, workflows, communications, and reporting come together across the firm.

The best approach starts with the people and processes that rely on the CRM every day. By identifying operational bottlenecks, defining reporting requirements, and validating integration and compliance needs, advisory firms can make a more informed decision about their future CRM environment.

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