Planning Pros is a New Zealand financial advisory firm navigating strict regulatory demands across client applications, claims, month-end checks, and reporting. Manual work made it harder to keep every file complete and every handoff consistent across a remote team.
Using Process Street for compliance workflow automation, Planning Pros cuts compliance time and reports reducing client onboarding by roughly 80%, saving more than $20,000 annually, and shrinking year-end compliance reporting from days to five minutes. The customer story shows how required steps, automations, audit trails, and asynchronous handoffs can turn financial compliance into repeatable execution.
The challenge: Exacting compliance across a remote team
Planning Pros operates in a non-prescriptive regulatory environment where thorough documentation is essential. Manual onboarding was labor-intensive and vulnerable to small errors, while coordinating work across time zones added another layer of complexity.
“When you operate in an industry where compliance is non-negotiable, having a robust system in place is crucial,” said Nicki Kane, owner, financial adviser, and director at Planning Pros. “Before Process Street, the risk of overlooking minor but critical compliance steps was a source of constant concern.”
A game-changing compliance workflow
Nicki found Process Street while searching for a way to automate and safeguard business operations. “It quickly became apparent that it was more than just a digital checklist; it was the missing piece in our compliance puzzle.”
Planning Pros implemented Process Street across recurring processes. “Previously, we spent copious hours ensuring every compliance checkbox was ticked. With Process Street, these processes are automated, reducing our manual workload dramatically, but most importantly making sure that every file is finalized to the same high standard every single time, regardless of who does it.”
Required fields keep a workflow from closing while important information is incomplete. Each file follows the same controlled path, regardless of who handles it.
What are your favorite Process Street features?
“Gamifying is always my friend. The automations and integrations: if I can do one thing and three other things happen as a result, that’s a cool outcome. That’s my happy place. I really love all of the features. I love the way that if I want to do something, I can. I don’t remember the last time I had to do a workaround with Process Street. I don’t need a workaround. Process Street just works.”
Nicki Kane
Owner, Financial Advisor, Business Coach
Planning Pros
Empowering a small, distributed team
The team works remotely, including a virtual assistant based in the Philippines, so asynchronous coordination is essential. “Process Street allows us to collaborate efficiently, irrespective of time zones. This flexibility is vital for our small team operations.”
Nicki also values being able to keep active work aligned with current requirements. “The system’s consistent reliability and ease of updating workflows ensures we’re always on top of changes in regulations. It also means that we have the option to automatically update any in-progress workflows to reflect changing processes or regulation requirements.”
Support for evolving requirements
Nicki praised both the platform and the support behind it. “The support team, particularly Brenda, has been exceptional from day one. Updates are pushed live with ease, allowing us to maintain compliance without losing momentum.”
How Planning Pros uses Process Street
- Client onboarding and application processing
- Claims management and processing
- Month-end compliance and financial checklists
- Regulatory compliance tracking and reporting
Benefits reported by Planning Pros
- Drastically reduced client onboarding time
- Annual savings of more than $20,000 through automated processes
- Stronger regulatory compliance and lower operational risk
- More consistent processes across remote and asynchronous teams
New client onboarding: A more reliable transition
Onboarding new clients in a heavily regulated environment carried high stakes, and manual work increased the chance of an incomplete file. “We were at the mercy of error-prone workflows,” Nicki recalled. “Now, with Process Street, all necessary compliance steps are automatically integrated into our onboarding procedure, minimizing our margin of error.”
Work that had taken several hours across multiple days could now be completed in a few hours. “We’ve cut onboarding time hugely, which allows me to invest more time into client acquisition and then having higher quality discussions with them,” Nicki said.
Automation and connected records
Automations send client forms and reminders consistently. “We estimate these automations alone save us around $20,000 annually, a significant sum for a boutique advisory firm,” Nicki said.
Planning Pros also connects Process Street with Google Sheets to track critical client data without duplicate entry. That reduces avoidable compliance risk and gives the team more time for higher-value work.
The results: 80% less time and $20,000+ saved
Planning Pros reports that Process Street became a strategic operating system for meeting compliance requirements while reducing manual workload and cost. The measured impact includes:
- Client onboarding cut from days to hours, roughly an 80% reduction
- Annual savings exceeding $20,000 through automation
- Year-end compliance reporting reduced from full days to five minutes
- Claims processing cut by 30 minutes per claim, saving 30% in contractor costs
- Zero compliance violations with complete audit trails
“By the time we close off our workflow, there is literally nothing that is not done.”
In financial advice, a missed step can carry serious consequences. Planning Pros uses a controlled workflow to give the team confidence that required work and evidence are complete before a file closes.
As Nicki puts it: “By the time we close off our workflow, there is literally nothing that is not done.”
Process Street is a single Compliance Operations Platform with Docs and Ops capability areas plus built-in AI. For financial advisory teams, governed procedures, required steps, approvals, evidence, and execution can stay connected in one product. Teams evaluating options can compare current compliance workflow tools for recurring, audit-sensitive operations.
Turn compliance requirements into workflows that run the same way every time.