How switching broker-dealers led to a tech rethink: Show Me Your Stack

Welcome to “Show Me Your Stack,” a series from Financial Planning in which we interview those who deliver financial advice to learn what tools they rely on to make it happen. Rising client expectations are driving the need for more powerful tech tools, and we’re digging deep to find out why advisors prefer certain solutions.

For Ryan Salah, a change to a new broker-dealer meant a chance to reevaluate his RIA’s technology stack.

Salah is a partner and financial advisor at Capital Financial Partners in Towson, Maryland, which has $235 million in assets under management (AUM), five total employees and three advisors. As the firm has been around since 1981, it has seen a lot of changes, he said.

“As the industry has evolved and client needs have changed, we’re always evaluating how we can do things better, more efficiently, easier for clients,” he said. “I try to stay on top of what’s available. We’re always thinking about this stuff, almost daily, almost ad nauseum. How can we make things better?”

One of the more recent changes Capital Financial Partners made involved moving to its new broker-dealer, Kestra Financial.

READ MORE: How to land bigger clients with deliberate tech: Show Me Your Stack

That change presented an opportunity to reevaluate Capital Financial’s wider technology needs. As a result, the firm recently added tax planning software from Holistiplan.

“We’re still getting our feet wet with this,” said Salah. “The summary of someone’s tax returns is just scratching the surface for this tool.”

READ MORE: How a solo advisor taps tech for top efficiency: Show Me Your Stack

There is one area where he’s still waiting for approval from Kestra before moving forward: AI note-takers.

“We know they’re not going to be the first ones to approve specifically the note-taker applications, but now that there’s probably at least 10 broker-dealers that have approved it, if not more, we hear it’s coming,” said Salah. “We’re not using any note-takers in particular, but we are aware of them. They have approached us, and we’ve talked to one in particular, and it sounds like one or two are going to be approved. We’re just waiting on the word.”

Scroll down the slideshow to see what Salah feels are some of the most important pieces of Capital Financial Partners’ tech stack.