Having written procedures helps advisors reduce risk on a number of dimensions, allowing them to focus on their core competencies, such as asset management, client acquisition and research. However, the percentage from each channel that report documenting certain procedures can vary. For instance, while compliance manuals and client agreements register strong responses from all three channels, they are of greater importance to the RIA channel, with at least 90% response rates for both. W/R respondents state that business plans are the most consistently recorded documents, with an 84% response rate. For independent broker dealers the top responses belonged to errors and omissions insurance and compliance manuals, followed closely by client agreements and business plans. One area with notable variability is training/educational manuals; nearly half of the W/R advisors report having training documents, but for IBDs and RIAs the responses tally only 27% and 18%, respectively.
