In traditional advisory practice, manual techniques like scheduling in-person meetings and juggling paperwork are the norm. However, financial advisors face missed opportunities with age-old, manual tasks.

Every client requires personal attention, but with manual methods, this means long hours spent gathering information and preparing financial reports to cater to each one. The time spent on these tasks takes away from the advisor’s ability to focus on what matters most - delivering strategic financial advice.

Moreover, relying on physical signatures, ID verification, and in-person document exchanges creates logistical hassles. When advisors and clients handle important documents and agreements in paper form, the risk of losing them increases. Advisors find it difficult to serve a growing client base with overbearing manual work. This ultimately hampers their practice.

Recognizing these pains, the client company envisioned and developed an online advisory web app with a few staple features to help advisors manage their practice virtually. But, due to unforeseen circumstances, the client needed help completing the development with critical integrations for digital ID verification, e-signatures, online video consultations, document encryption, invoicing, reporting, and analytics.

With numerous incomplete integrations, they turned to Capital Numbers for our expertise to move the project forward. Our challenge was to pick up the project where it left off and add crucial integrations to bring the platform to life, thoroughly preparing it to serve modern-day financial advisory needs.

Because the project was only halfway complete, our first task was to carefully analyze the pre-existing code and refactor various areas to enable new integrations without disrupting the pre-built system. So, using React and TypeScript, we refactored the frontend code while using Ruby on Rails (RoR), PostgreSQL, and Redis we overhauled the backend.

The code refactoring process required precision, ensuring that each line of code meshed seamlessly with both old and new components. To add scalability, we embraced microservices, enabling a decoupled architecture where each integration could evolve autonomously, driving seamless growth across the platform.

Once the primary code refactoring and microservices development were done, we began embedding new integrations one by one. First, DocuSign enabled the secure digital signing of documents, replacing the delays of physical signatures in the financial advisory process. Second, Singpass and iAM Smart helped automate identity verification. Both are national identity verification solutions that enable advisory firms to authenticate their clients’ identities online, ensuring compliance without the logistical headaches and back-and-forths of physical verification.

Ensuring top-tier encryption for both Singpass and iAM Smart integrations was also paramount. So, we harnessed the power of AES-256-GCM encryption for iAM Smart integration, delivering ironclad security for third-party transactions. For Singpass, we employed SHA256 encoding, ensuring unmatched user security at every step of the advisory process.

Third, Twilio helped create safe and secure meeting rooms where advisors and clients could connect for video consultations and document exchanges. Fourth, Xero took financial invoicing to the next level by automating the process, significantly cutting down on manual billing and accounting. Fifth, SendGrid and Outlook ensured that crucial messages were emailed on time, allowing advisors to stay focused on their clients, knowing that all critical messages were stored seamlessly in the background.

What was left midway through is now a full-fledged financial advisory solution with power-packed integrations - thanks to Capital Numbers. This transformed solution, enabling real-time financial advisory that was previously unimaginable, ushers in a new era of instant advisor-client consultations, fostering greater trust.

Here’s more on what the app offers: