“Credit card acceptance is not the problem. The problem is the functionality of the system that you’re using to bill on credit cards,” Moore says. “If that system has too much functionality or improper work flows that were not built for financial advisors, most likely it will trigger custody and compliance concerns.”

Advisors should be able to avoid custody issues if they don’t have access to the clients’ account information by having the clients enter their own information into the payments platform, Haugh says. Some individual state regulators are particularly conservative when it comes to fee debiting.

“We don’t give any power to the advisor; all the power is in the hands of the client,” says Moore. “The client sets up the payment; they can cancel the payment if needed. The client has to approve it if you edit the amount of the payment. In most other payment systems, that is in the hands of the business.”

Right now, AdvicePay seems to have the field to itself, although many financial planners use general purpose electronic processors like Square, PayPal and QuickBooks. But financial planners use those platforms at their peril because they violate those systems’ acceptable use policies, AdvicePay says.

AdvicePay was started in March 2016 and launched its first product in January 2018. In January of this year it launched an enterprise version to accommodate large broker-dealers and RIA firms with multiple advisors.

It quickly scored a coup when Cetera announced that it would offer its nearly 8,000 financial advisors AdvicePay’s technology platform for client payment processing.

“I think the Cetera announcement surprised some people that big firms were doing fee-for-service planning work,” Moore says. “I think the success we have seen with AdvicePay already is a leading indicator of where the industry is going, which is advice-centric. And it is going there a lot faster than people realize. But you’re not going to offer the service if you can’t get paid, and we facilitate that.”

Custody avoidance isn’t the only thing AdvicePay offers.

Its e-signature feature allows client payment agreements to be signed within AdvicePay, ensuring that the handling of all documentation, billing amounts and payment information avoids making the advisor a custodian.

“Legally, you have to have a financial planning agreement to get signed as part of every engagement, Moore says. Using AdvicePay, financial advisors can get their agreements signed electronically. “It’s a simple single work flow,” he says.