The Hidden Cost of Account Opening Rework (And Why It’s Time to Fix It)

Opening new retirement accounts should be straightforward. A client expresses interest. An advisor gathers the required information. Compliance signs off. The funds move. The account is opened.

In practice, it rarely happens that cleanly.

Most retirement and wealth management firms are still wrestling with identity verification and documentation workflows that break down at the worst possible moment. A client uploads a blurry driver’s license. A signature is flagged as mismatched. A name change or address update cannot be confirmed.

And when that happens, the entire process stalls. Advisors spend time chasing missing documents. Operations teams re-check identity multiple times. Clients get frustrated. Delays erode trust.

This is rework. And while it can feel like “just part of the job,” it is not harmless or inevitable. It has a measurable cost.

Roughly 10 to 12 percent of account openings require manual re-verification. For a firm opening 500 accounts a month, that means 50 to 75 cases get kicked back to an advisor. With the average FA earning about $122 per hour, even a single 30-minute rework session adds up. At ~$61 per revisit and ~60 revisits a month, firms lose more than $45,000 a year to rework alone.

And that number does not capture the larger business impact.

Let’s break down what rework really costs, why it keeps happening, and how leading retirement firms are solving it with real-time identity and authorization.

Where Rework Starts

Rework typically happens at one of a few predictable points in the workflow:

Identity verification fails or times out
The client’s ID image is unclear. The photo of the signer does not match the ID. The system cannot authenticate the document type. Without a trusted identity signal, the account cannot move forward.

Signatures cannot be validated
This becomes especially common with remote or hybrid advisory models, where signers are not physically present. If the signature cannot be proven, compliance must step in.

Required documents are missing or incorrect
Name mismatches, outdated address records, missing legal documents for beneficiaries and trustees. These are the small errors that create big delays.

Each of these issues results in the same outcome. Someone needs to stop what they are doing and fix it. That someone is usually a highly trained advisor or servicing specialist.

The Cost We Can See

Rework takes time. It slows onboarding. It impacts SLAs and advisor productivity.

Now multiply that by thousands of account applications across a year. Multiply again by the blended cost of advisor and operational labor. Then add the time spent reviewing signature mismatches, tracking down beneficiaries, re-collecting W-9s, re-validating addresses, or correcting trustee documentation.

The financial impact compounds quickly.

The Cost We Do Not See

Beyond time and labor, rework creates strategic drag in three places that matter most:

Client Experience
When a client expects a smooth digital onboarding flow, but instead experiences three follow-up requests and multiple delays, confidence takes a hit. Even if the account eventually funds, the tone of the relationship shifts.

Advisor Efficiency and Capacity
Rework is not just expensive. It is distracting. Every minute spent chasing documentation is a minute not spent advising clients, planning portfolios, or building relationships. Advisory time is a finite resource. Rework wastes it.

Compliance and Audit Exposure
When identity checks and signatures are collected through fragmented systems, compliance must piece together a trail that is often incomplete or inconsistent. That adds operational burden and increases audit risk.

Rework is not just a workflow problem. It is a trust, efficiency, and compliance problem.

How Leading Firms Are Solving The Rework Problem

Retirement and wealth organizations are moving to a single identity and authorization layer that supports the entire lifecycle of the account, including:

• New account onboarding
• Beneficiary and trustee updates
• Name and address changes
• Money-out requests and distributions
• Fraud investigations and compliance reviews

By combining real-time identity verification, human-in-the-loop validation, credentialed signatures, and sophisticated fraud intelligence with audit-ready authorization trails, firms are:

• Reducing onboarding failure rates
• Shortening time-to-funded
• Protecting high-value client trust
• Improving advisor capacity and productivity
• Strengthening ERISA and compliance controls
  

The result is not just fewer errors. It is fewer follow-ups, fewer transfers, fewer lost hours, and fewer frustrated clients.

The Bottom Line

Rework feels small because it shows up in minutes, not line items.But those minutes add up. And in a retirement business defined by trust, efficiency, and long-term relationships, the cost is too high to accept as a given.

Investing in identity and authorization modernization is not about adding new software. It is about eliminating friction that should not exist. It is about giving advisors their time back. It is about fostering the kind of smooth, confident client experience that deepens loyalty and accelerates growth.

Rework is not inevitable. It is solvable.

Ready to remove rework from your onboarding workflow? Let’s talk about how leading retirement providers are modernizing identity and authorization across every account lifecycle workflow >