Wealth management firms face challenges around data and integrated systems, which result in a lack of a consistent, controlled way to operate.
Most firms have at least one CRM, custodian portal, planning and proposal tool, and somewhere to keep documents. Many have more than one system serving the same function. Each handles a part of the business, but connecting them in a contextually seamless way remains an elusive goal. Advisors and their teams are left looking up data and filling gaps by hand. They re-key client details from screen to screen and document to document, creating more opportunities for errors and spending additional time chasing paperwork that comes back not in good order.
Today, we're launching a new brand identity and website that better reflect what Skience has become: one platform for modern wealth firms, built on the principle that data flows in once and seamlessly populates every capability an advisor uses. Every workflow is connected, from the first client conversation to a funded account. That connection also creates the foundation for bringing intelligence into the work itself.
You'll notice the new look is quieter than the old one. That's deliberate. The firms we work with care about getting things right, and we wanted a brand that looks like it does too. Below, four of us explain why we changed and where we're going.
Why a new brand, and why now?
Kripa Shetty, Co-founder and COO
Skience has spent more than two decades in the gaps between the systems wealth firms use. We started by connecting custodians, CRMs, and planning and proposal tools.
That work taught us more than how to connect things. We learned how each custodian’s requirements differ, which combinations of account type and registration get rejected, and what advisors and their clients need to see at each step. Over the years, that knowledge became the platform.
Our brand didn’t keep up. The last website described Skience as a technology hub, a consulting partner across several financial services sectors, and a list of separately named products. That was who we used to be. Today we’re one platform, built for wealth firms, with every workflow connected.
Why now? Advisors are being asked to do more for their clients, and they need the capacity to deliver. Disconnected tools consume time that should go towards advice and client relationships. By connecting the workflows behind their work, Skience helps firms create that capacity. That's where Skience starts.
How does Skience connect the work across a wealth firm?
Damon Gladman, Chief Product Officer
In practice, a client’s information gets entered once and used wherever it’s needed. Each step knows what happened before it. Advisors spend less time on paperwork, and clients stop answering the same question three times.
The platform has six capabilities:
- Client Onboarding and Account Opening brings proposal, suitability, planning, and custodian requirements into one guided flow, and catches the errors behind not-in-good-order rejections before anything is submitted.
- Advisor Transitions moves an advisor’s book to a new firm digitally. Clients consent through a multi-factor-authenticated form, and intake collects only the data an advisor is legally allowed to bring.
- Document Management keeps records in write-once storage that meets SEC Rule 17a-4, with legal holds when a firm needs them.
- Digital Interactions sends clients questionnaires in the firm’s own branding and feeds their answers into account opening, proposals, and the client record.
- Data Consolidation and Replication combines positions from custodians, insurance carriers, and fund companies into one household view, reconciled daily, where advisors already work.
- Surveillance lets principals and compliance teams set their own rules, review flagged activity, and keep a full audit trail.
Our clients have cut not-in-good-order rates by up to 95% and account-opening time by nearly two-thirds. Some now open and fund accounts in under four days.
Those results come from fifteen-plus years of custodian knowledge, built into every workflow. Integrations are easy to buy; that knowledge takes years to build. A form tool fills in the form. Skience knows whether the form will clear.
What are firms asking for?
Starla Hendricks, Chief Revenue Officer
Most firms I talk to have plenty of software and too little of it connected. Leadership wants to grow assets and add advisors. Advisors want more time with clients, and clients want to open an account without repeating themselves. Compliance needs oversight and records it can present to an examiner without having to reconstruct the audit trail. All of that is hard to deliver on a stack bought one piece at a time.
The question I hear most is which tools a firm can retire, and how to connect the rest. Lately there’s a second one: how do we get ready for intelligence without taking on risk? Skience answers both.
In a single year, the platform has opened more than 300,000 accounts for our clients. My job now is to get it in front of more broker-dealers, RIAs, and bank and insurance wealth businesses, and to show them they can make the move without disrupting the business they run today.
Where does intelligence fit?
Janak Mathuria, Chief Technology Officer
Intelligence is only as good as the workflow underneath it. A model can read a document, but if the data it needs lives in another system, or nobody can trace what it did, it’s a liability. That’s why Workflow Harmony had to come first. Connected workflows give intelligence clean data and a record of every step.
Next, we’re building intelligence into the workflow itself: reading documents, checking work before it’s submitted, and flagging what a person should look at. We’re also adding account transfers and funding, so the path from a client’s consent to a funded account stays on one platform.
We’re holding ourselves to one standard. Every automated step will run under the same permissions, audit trail, and retention rules as everything else on the platform, so a supervisor can always see what was done and why. Firms should be able to move faster without losing the record they’re accountable for.
What stays the same
Our mission hasn’t changed. We provide the technology and guidance that help financial services firms work better. Clients will see a new look, while continuing to work with the people who know their business and care about getting every account right.
Our direction is clearer: connecting the workflows wealth firms depend on today and building the foundation for more intelligent processes tomorrow.
One platform for modern wealth firms, built to bring their workflows together and give them a stronger foundation for what comes next.