Slant and FinTurk debut new forms tools

An advisory firm's client onboarding and financial planning process is only as efficient as the data-gathering tools that it uses. As soon as a prospect becomes a client, the advisor needs to start collecting data on the client's household and financial situation, as well as getting paperwork out to the advisor's custodian for opening new accounts and transferring funds. The faster the advisor and client can get through this process, the faster the advisor can start doing the things like financial planning and portfolio management that they do to create value and earn their revenue.

There have been several different versions of this data gathering process over the years as RIAs' technology infrastructure has evolved. Version 1.0 of the process usually looked something like a paper checklist and questionnaire, mailed to the client or handed to them at their first meeting, which they would work through and mail or bring back to the advisor – with a timespan that would typically be measured in weeks – and once everything arrived the advisory team would subsequently need to go through it by hand, check for completeness, and transcribe the client's information into whatever computer systems the advisor used.

Version 2.0 moved at least part of the data gathering process online, and typically involved static forms and/or fillable PDFs, along with document portals such as in eMoney for clients to upload documents. This eliminated some of the speed and reliability issues of snail-mailing or hand-delivering paper documents, and thus could reduce the data gathering timeline from weeks to a few days. But once the client information arrived in the advisor's document portal, it was much the same as if it had come in a big envelope full of documents: they would need to look through all the files and questionnaires one by one, check to make sure that everything was there that needed to be, and manually key information like account values and Social Security numbers into their software tools. Meanwhile, much of that information would need to get re-transcribed into the account paperwork needed to open and fund the client's custodial accounts, with typos or missing information often leading to NIGOs that prolonged the process even further.

Many firms have now reached Version 3.0 of client data gathering, which is about ensuring that the data that's provided by the client can move automatically into where it needs to go, whether that's the advisors' CRM or financial planning software or the custodian's account opening forms. It's also about validating the data to make sure that the client provided everything they were asked for and eliminate the back-and-forth needed to fill in the gaps. All of which requires both a dynamic form that can recognize the data that the client has entered, as well as reliable connections to the other software that the advisor uses – most importantly their CRM (since that's where most client data tends to live), but also their financial planning software, portfolio management software, digital account opening, and any other tools that the advisor uses for onboarding.

This Version 3.0 of data gathering has been possible in some form for years now, either through standalone tools like PreciseFP (in which advisors can build the data-gathering forms they need and connect to their other software tools, many of which PreciseFP integrates with via API), or by building static forms using tools like Google Forms or JotForm and building automations via Zapier. However, it's seemed odd that advisors have been forced to either rely on a standalone data gathering tool (which, with PreciseFP costing $89/month, is almost if not more than the same price as the CRM software itself) or to patch together non-integrated form builders via Zapier. Given how much of the data gathered via forms goes on to live in other places like the CRM, it would stand to reason that the data gathering process itself should also live in the CRM.

Which is why it's notable that this month, two of the recent generation of 'AI-native' CRMs, Slant and FinTurk, both announced new tools to assist advisors with data gathering and client account opening, both of which leverage the CRM's function as a data hub to eliminate the need for third-party tools built on top of that data.

Slant's new forms tool allows advisors to build customized forms for emailing to the client – from standard client intake questionnaires to risk tolerance assessments to annual review preparation to invitations to client events – with the client's responses automatically flowing into Slant's CRM. The forms can also trigger automations or tasks when submitted. Meanwhile, FinTurk's new FormFiller tool handles forms from the other direction, taking information that's already in the CRM and using it to automatically populate forms like account applications, rollover requests, and SLOAs to send on to the custodian. These new tools reduce the need for users to buy a separate form-building tool like PreciseFP or a form-filling tool like Laser App.

What's also notable from an advisor perspective is that while both Slant and FinTurk position themselves as AI-native CRMs, these new tools only rely on a minimal amount of AI to function – e.g., Slant's forms can be edited via typing requests in a chat interface, though it could have just as easily left out AI altogether and used a traditional drag-and-drop interface; while FinTurk's FormFiller uses AI to map data fields on a form to the corresponding CRM data, which allows it to support a wider range of different forms, but it could have also opted to map each field manually and support a smaller number of forms. In other words, while AI might enhance both functions, it wasn't strictly necessary for either – instead, this is more of a case of the new, startup CRMs taking the initiative to recognize functions that their users want (and were annoyed with needing to pay for in a standalone solution) and turning them into built-in features.

Which is in keeping with the broader overall story in CRM, which has historically had relatively low advisor satisfaction scores in our Kitces Research on Advisor Technology relative to its nearly-universal adoption. There were signs that the category was poised for some amount of disruption from new entrants that could better meet advisors' needs in areas like workflow automation and better leveraging the client information they have on hand, and the emergence of new providers like Slant and FinTurk – which are rolling out new features that not only differentiate them from competing CRMs, but also eliminate the need to buy other standalone tools like PreciseFP – may be the start of a bigger shift in the CRM category.

And in the bigger picture, these new features from Slant and FinTurk show how the age of AI doesn't necessarily lessen the importance of CRM. Indeed, if CRMs can continue to build tools – with or without AI – that leverage the data that they already hold (and the integrations with other software that they build) to either eliminate manual processes or reduce the need to buy standalone software, they can assume an even bigger role in the middle of the advisor tech stack by helping advisors make better use of the client data on their hands. All that was needed were providers to come along that understood what advisors really wanted out of their CRM in the first place.

This article first appeared on the Nerd’s Eye View at Kitces.com at https://kitc.es/advisortech-sep2026, and has been reprinted here with permission

Ben Henry-Moreland

Ben Henry-Moreland is a Senior Financial Planning Nerd at Kitces.com, where he specializes in writing and speaking on financial planning topics including tax, practice management, and technology. He also co-authors the monthly Kitces #AdvisorTech column. Drawing from his experience as a financial planner and a solo advisory firm owner, Ben is passionate about fulfilling the site’s mission of making financial advicers better and more successful.

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Michael Kitces

Michael Kitces is Head of Planning Strategy at Focus Partners Wealth, which provides an evidence-based approach to private wealth management for near- and current retirees, and Focus Partners Advisor Solutions, a turnkey wealth management services provider supporting thousands of independent financial advisors through the scaling phase of growth.

In addition, he is a co-founder of the XY Planning Network, AdvicePay, fpPathfinder, and New Planner Recruiting, the former Practitioner Editor of the Journal of Financial Planning, the host of the Financial Advisor Success podcast, and the publisher of the popular financial planning industry blog Nerd’s Eye View through his website Kitces.com, dedicated to advancing knowledge in financial planning. In 2010, Michael was recognized with one of the FPA’s “Heart of Financial Planning” awards for his dedication and work in advancing the profession.

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