Facts checked on October 6, 2026. Rules differ for SEC-registered advisers, state-registered advisers and broker-dealers, so confirm which ones apply to your firm.
The annual review is the one meeting most clients expect every year, and it is easy to run on autopilot. The usual slides appear, the portfolio fills most of the hour, and important household news can get squeezed into the final minutes.
A better review rests on three questions. What has your firm already told clients about how often it reviews their accounts? What has happened in the household since the last meeting? And what will each side do once the meeting is over? This guide turns those questions into a preparation routine, an agenda and a written follow-up.
It is general information, not legal, tax or compliance advice. OJay Media Marketing builds client-acquisition systems for advisors, so we have a commercial interest in how firms keep and deepen their client relationships.
Start with what your disclosures describe
Before you write an agenda, read what your firm has already told clients. Part 2A of Form ADV asks advisers, in Item 13, whether they periodically review client accounts or financial plans. If they do, the brochure has to describe the frequency and nature of the review and the titles of the people who conduct it. Item 13 also asks what prompts a review between scheduled ones, and what regular account reports the firm provides.
The relationship summary asks a similar question in plainer words. The instructions for Form CRS require firms to explain whether they monitor retail investors’ investments, including the frequency and any material limitations. Your annual review should look like what those two documents describe. If the brochure names the lead advisor and an annual schedule, a meeting that someone else runs every eighteen months is a gap to raise with your reviewer.
The SEC has explained why the schedule matters. Its 2019 interpretation of the standard of conduct for investment advisers describes a duty to provide advice and monitoring at a frequency that is in the best interest of the client, taking into account the scope of the agreed relationship. A footnote adds that an adviser and client may agree on how often monitoring happens, with full and fair disclosure and informed consent, and it treats that agreed frequency as a material fact about the relationship.
Takeaway: We suggest planning the year’s reviews around the schedule your brochure and relationship summary already describe.
Prepare before the client arrives
Most of the useful work happens in the week before the meeting. Pull last year’s notes and the action items that came out of them, and check which ones were finished. Gather the current account summary, the beneficiaries on file, and the contact details and investment objectives in your records. Flag any client who has reached, or is about to reach, an age that comes with a tax deadline.
Then ask the client what has happened since you last met. A few questions sent with the invitation work better than a cold open across the desk, because people remember a job change or a new grandchild more easily at home. Ask what changed before the meeting, not in its last five minutes. Keep the list short enough to answer in a few minutes, and never ask for account numbers or identity documents by email.
The invitation itself can be a short letter or email. Our guide to letters to clients covers the wording, and the meeting confirmation in our advisor email templates handles the reminder. The checklist below collects questions worth including.
Tick each question once it is in your invitation. Progress is saved in this browser when supported; nothing is sent. Never ask clients to email account numbers or identity documents.
- Has anything changed at work, such as a new job, a promotion or a planned retirement date?
- Have you moved, or changed your phone number or email address?
- Has the family changed, through a marriage, divorce, birth or death?
- Do you expect a large expense in the next year or two, such as a home, a car or tuition?
- Have you signed or changed a will, trust or power of attorney?
- Do you hold any new accounts or insurance policies with other firms?
- Who should we contact if we ever cannot reach you?
- What would you most like to talk about in this meeting?
An agenda that starts with the household
Order matters more than it seems. When a meeting opens with performance, the conversation tends to stay there. Opening with the household and its goals puts the numbers in context, and it gives the client the floor while everyone is still fresh. This order works for most reviews:
- Purpose. What the meeting will cover, and what you hope to settle by the end.
- Household changes. Work, health, family and home, starting with the answers to your questions.
- Goals and timelines. Which goals moved, which are new, and which no longer matter.
- The plan and the portfolio. Progress against the plan, and whether the strategy and account type still fit.
- Tax-year and estate items. Required distributions, contributions, beneficiaries and documents.
- Records. Contact details, objectives and the person to call if you cannot reach the client.
- Next steps. Who does what, by when, and when you will next speak.
The fourth item deserves a careful look. The same SEC interpretation explains that, in an ongoing relationship, the duty to monitor generally extends to evaluating whether a client’s account or program type continues to be in the client’s best interest. Use the yearly review to ask whether the account type still fits. Put the question on the agenda so it does not depend on memory.
Update the records while the client is in the room
Contact details and investment objectives drift out of date quietly. The review is the easiest moment to confirm them, because the client is there and can correct anything on the spot. Read back the address, phone number, email, employment status and objectives on file, and fix what is wrong before the meeting ends.
Broker-dealers work to a written schedule for this. Exchange Act Rule 17a-3 requires a firm to furnish each natural-person customer a copy of the account record, or an alternate document, at intervals no greater than thirty-six months, for accounts where it has had to make a suitability determination in that period. FINRA Rule 4512 asks members to make reasonable efforts to obtain the name and contact information of a trusted contact person, and to update it where appropriate when those records are updated.
FINRA’s rule describes reaching that person to address possible financial exploitation, or to confirm a customer’s current contact information, health status, or the identity of a legal guardian, executor, trustee or holder of a power of attorney. Firms that are not FINRA members are not bound by that rule, but the habit is still useful. Ask about the trusted contact at every review, not only at onboarding. Our client onboarding guide covers how to collect it the first time.
Give tax-year and estate items a standing slot
Some topics return every year and are easy to drop when a meeting runs long, so give them a fixed place on the agenda. Required minimum distributions are the clearest example. The IRS explains in its required minimum distribution FAQs that owners of traditional IRAs and many retirement plan accounts generally must start taking withdrawals when they reach age 73. The same page describes when a participant in a workplace plan can delay distributions from that plan.
Contribution limits change as well. The IRS posts each year’s figures on its page of cost-of-living adjustments for retirement plan limits, so check that page rather than reusing last year’s slide. Beneficiary designations belong in the same slot. Ask to see the forms themselves, because a designation on file can differ from what the client remembers or from what a newer will or trust describes.
Bring in the client’s tax preparer or estate attorney when a question needs them, and say so in the meeting rather than guessing. Write down who owns each tax or estate follow-up before everyone leaves.
After the meeting: the summary and the file
A few days after the meeting, send a written summary. Keep it short: what you discussed, what you agreed, who handles each next step and by when, and the date of the next conversation. A summary turns the meeting into something the client can act on, and it gives your team a working list for the weeks that follow.
That summary is also a business record. Advisers Act Rule 204-2 requires advisers to keep originals of written communications received, and copies of written communications sent, relating to any recommendation made or proposed and any advice given or proposed, among other subjects. For broker-dealers, FINRA Rule 3110 requires supervisory procedures for the review of incoming and outgoing written correspondence. File the summary where the next person to review the account will look.
Takeaway: We suggest sending every review summary through the firm’s archived email or CRM, so the client’s copy and the file copy are the same document.
How the work moves from invitation to file
The figure below is an editorial workflow suggestion, not a regulatory requirement. Each step names who hands what to whom.
- Invite
Advisor to client: proposed dates and the pre-meeting questions.
- Prepare
Service team to advisor: last year’s notes, open items and the records on file.
- Meet
Advisor and client: household first, then plan, portfolio, records and decisions.
- Summarize
Advisor to client: a written summary of decisions, owners and dates.
- Follow through
Service team to file: tasks in the CRM, records updated, summary saved.
When a client skips the review
A few households put off the review every year. Keep a record of each invitation and each reply, and offer a shorter call or a video meeting instead. If a client would rather hear from you less often, raise it with your reviewer, because the SEC interpretation treats the agreed frequency of monitoring as a material fact that needs full and fair disclosure and informed consent.
When the practice and the brochure drift apart, change one of them so they match again. The interpretation also notes that advisers may consider whether written policies and procedures on monitoring would be appropriate under the compliance program rule. Our client retention guide covers the wider service calendar the review sits inside.
A few common questions
Should the annual review happen in person or by video?
Either can work, as long as the client can see the documents you are discussing. Ask which format the client prefers, and keep the same agenda and the same written summary for both.
How long should an annual review take?
No rule sets a length. Book enough time to cover every agenda item without rushing the decisions at the end, and move a complex topic to its own follow-up meeting.
Who from the firm should attend?
The person your brochure names as conducting reviews should lead the meeting. A service team member who takes notes and owns the follow-up tasks makes the written summary much quicker to send.
Related reading
- Client retention for financial advisors
- Financial advisor letters to clients
- Financial advisor email templates
- Client onboarding for financial advisors
- CRM for financial advisors
If you are also thinking about how new clients find your firm in the first place, we explain the OJay Media Marketing process separately.
OJay Media Marketing is a marketing agency for wealth advisors. This page is general information for advisory firms. It is not investment, legal, tax or compliance advice. Have your reviewer approve your own materials before you use them.
