Estate-attorney referral capture
Margaret Hartwell, recently widowed, asks her late husband's probate attorney Robert Cooper of Cooper & Lutz LLP: "Do you know anyone who can help me with this?" Robert forwards the "Get a complimentary plan" form on meridianwealth.com on her behalf. Interface365 captures the lead with full source attribution to the estate-attorney referral. The form gathers household assets, goals, and current custody arrangements so Elena can walk into the discovery conversation prepared.
Source ("Estate / probate attorney referral") is configured under Settings → Sources, so the referral-type attribution is automatic. The specific firm (Cooper & Lutz LLP) gets captured as a Source Organization in Step 2 once Elena learns from Margaret that Robert Cooper forwarded the form on her behalf — at which point reciprocity tracking begins for that firm. There is no SEC-disclosable solicitor agreement here (no cash flows; this is a relationship-driven referral) — Cooper & Lutz earns industry-conference dinner invitations + visibility into Meridian's quarterly referrer digest. Inbound inquiries route by territory + asset tier (New England HNW lands on Elena automatically).Discovery call & lead enrichment
Elena calls Margaret the same afternoon. Soft 45-minute fact-find — never mention compliance terminology, just listen for life-stage signals. The lead status flows New → Contacted → Discovery scheduled.
Lead conversion — one click, four entities
With discovery booked and the lead score climbing from 72 → 92, Elena clicks Convert. Interface365 creates a Contact (Margaret) + Account (the Hartwell household) + Source Organization (Cooper & Lutz LLP) + Deal (the engagement opportunity). Family stakeholder contacts will be added in Step 4.
Deal enrichment — family relationship map, custom fields, tags
HNW households are never one decision-maker. There's the primary client (Margaret), the adult children who'll inherit (Sarah + Daniel — also future clients), the trusted advisor who made the introduction (Robert Cooper), and the trustee holding the keys to a sleeve of assets (Uncle Tom). Elena adds them all with explicit roles so future communications route to the right person each time.
Expected first custody transfer: early-to-mid March (~5 weeks post-engagement letter)
Fact-find meeting, files, and the notes that capture the human signal
Elena, Priya, and Margaret meet at Meridian's Boston office for 90 minutes. The IPS draft, statements, KYC compliance work, and internal advisor notes all live on the deal record — nothing in side-channel emails, shared drives, or "I'll remember it" memory.
Source Organization · Trusted Advisor for reciprocity tracking — 6th referral from Cooper & Lutz YTD ($12.4M household wealth referred YTD across 6 referrals; 4 already engaged, 1 in pipeline, 1 declined fit). Quarterly referrer digest auto-includes Cooper & Lutz.Tasks & follow-ups — never let a paperwork thread drop
Tasks attach to the deal with priority, due dates, and assignees. In wealth management the difference between "engaged Day 1" and "custody funded Day 35" is a clean task list — Cooper & Lutz coordination, ACAT pre-clearance, IPS draft, plan-presentation prep, all running in parallel.
Pipeline progression & stagnant-deal alerts
As the engagement advances, Elena drags it through 8 stages: Lead → Discovery → Plan Drafted → Plan Presented → Engagement Letter Sent → Engaged → Custody Transfer → Closed Won. Wealth-management onboarding is a 5-week race against the competing-RIA call — Interface365 flags any deal stuck 14+ days post-Discovery, 10+ days post-Plan Presented, or 7+ days post-Engagement Letter. Stagnant prospects in this window get poached by Vanguard PAS, Schwab Private Wealth, or local competitors. Margaret's deal is at "Plan Drafted" — Priya has 2 days left to deliver IPS v1.
IPS template library — 9 base allocations, lifecycle-managed
Meridian's IPS (Investment Policy Statement) template library — 9 base allocations covering the most common HNW client profiles (Conservative Income, Balanced Drawdown, Moderate Growth, Aggressive Growth, Tax-Sensitive, ESG-Focused, NextGen Accumulation, Concentrated-Position-Diversification, Trust + Estate Integrated). Each template carries: target asset allocation, glide-path rules, drawdown methodology, rebalancing thresholds, ESG screen flag, fee schedule. Lifecycle states: Active / Draft / Retired.
Plan presentation + engagement letter — IPS, Monte Carlo, fee schedule
Elena and Priya walk Margaret + Sarah through the plan in person at Meridian's Boston office. Then the engagement letter goes out the same afternoon — IPS v1, fee schedule, ADV-2A, ADV-2B (Elena's brochure), Form CRS — bundled in DocuSign. Margaret e-signs that evening (Feb 5). Stage flips to Engaged.
| # | Plan component | Allocation / target | Custody | Fee tier | Year-1 fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Schwab brokerage → Fidelity Institutional ($4.2M) ACAT after state estate-tax clearance · 35/55/10 Balanced Drawdown · monthly drawdown $15K | 35/55/10 | Fidelity Inst. | 0.85% blended | $35,700 |
| 2 | Mother's-bank trust → Fidelity Institutional ($1.8M) Uncle Tom Easley releases · new beneficiary designation · 35/55/10 mirror | 35/55/10 | Fidelity Inst. | 0.85% blended | $15,300 |
| 3 | Apple concentrated position ($400K) $280K unrealized gain · 24-month diversification glide via TLH · CPA-coordinated | CPD glide | Fidelity Inst. | 0.85% blended | $3,400 |
| 4 | Cash + I-bonds ($900K) $700K credit-union cash + $200K I-bonds (TreasuryDirect) · sweep to Fidelity money-market · cash drag managed | Cash mgmt | Mixed | 0.85% blended | $7,650 |
| 5 | Two annuities ($1.2M) — household coordination only Surrender-charge-trapped 18 mos · "wait, then re-deploy" line · billed as part of household coordination fee (not a custody fee) | Held — coord | Issuing carrier | 0.85% blended | $10,200 |
| 6 | Estate & NextGen integration scope Annual review w/ Cooper & Lutz · trust review · NextGen consultations for Sarah + Daniel | In scope | N/A | included | included |
Custody-transfer compliance squeeze — the 5-week fight that saves the relationship
Engagement letter signed Day 1. ACAT submitted Day 5. ACAT REJECTED Day 12 — Schwab account is jointly titled with the deceased husband, requires either an IRS Form 706 closing letter (9–12 month wait!) or state-level estate-tax clearance. Day 28 Vanguard PAS calls Margaret directly with a 0.30% pitch. Most RIAs lose 30–40% of HNW prospects in this window. Meridian's structured custody-transfer war room — Cooper & Lutz coordination, reaffirmation calls, weekly status updates — saves the relationship.
First custody transfer received — Closed Won 🏆
Day 35. Elena sees the Fidelity Institutional confirmation: "$4,200,000.00 received in account [Hartwell Family Revocable Trust] — Meridian Wealth Partners RIA". Elena ticks "First Custody Transfer Received" — deal flips to Closed Won. Probability 100%. AUM clock starts. Revenue accrual begins from this minute. NOT engagement letter signed (Day 1). NOT IPS approved (Feb 5). The wire confirmation is the only thing that turns AUM into recurring fee.
Webhooks fire — Slack, Orion, Salesforce-FSC mirror
The instant the deal flips to Won, Interface365 fires deal.won webhooks to every subscribed endpoint. Slack celebrates. Orion (the billing system) creates the household billing schedule + Q1 ledger entry. Salesforce-FSC mirrors the full household map for compliance audit-trail purposes (Interface365 stays the relationship + pipeline source of truth; FSC is the regulator-facing system of record).
// POST https://hooks.orion.com/aum-event // X-I365-Signature: sha256=... { "event": "deal.won", "timestamp": "2026-03-12T14:22:08Z", "data": { "deal_id": "d_hf26eng0184", "name": "Hartwell Family — Wealth Mgmt Engagement", "household_id": "ORION-HH-HF-26-0184", "custody_received": 4200000, "custody_pending": 1800000, "custody_held": 2500000, "fee_schedule": "1.0/0.90/0.75 tiered, breaks $1M/$5M", "year_one_fee_envelope": 72250, "q1_fee_accrual": 8925, "lead_advisor_id": "u_elena_marsh", "paraplanner_id": "u_priya_iyer", "source_organization": "Cooper & Lutz LLP", "nextgen_prospects": ["Sarah Hartwell-Chen", "Daniel Hartwell"], "adv_2a_delivered_at": "2026-02-05", "form_crs_delivered_at": "2026-02-05", "engagement_letter_signed_at": "2026-02-05", "first_custody_received_at": "2026-03-12T14:22:08Z" } }
$4.2M just landed in custody at Fidelity Institutional. Lead advisor: Elena Marsh, CFP. Paraplanner: Priya Iyer.
Year-1 fee envelope $72K @ 0.85% blended on $8.5M household; ~$4.3M still pending custody ($1.8M mother's-bank trust + $2.5M held assets billed under household coordination).
NextGen pipeline: Sarah + Daniel both flagged. Source: Cooper & Lutz LLP (6th referral YTD).
Q1 fee accrual starts today — $8,925 first qtr. Survived a Vanguard PAS counter-pitch on Day 28 + a 5-week joint-title custody fight. Nice work team.
X-I365-Signature: sha256=... header so receivers can verify authenticity. Failed deliveries auto-retry with exponential backoff. The Settings → Webhooks → Delivery logs page shows every fire with status code, response, and retry count.Active stewardship + the NextGen expansion change-order
Wealth-management engagements don't end at "Closed Won" — that's where the stewardship really begins. The Active Book lives in its own view (quarterly fee accrual · stewardship reviews · re-balancing · annual review). Auto-tasks fire on stewardship milestones. And at the annual review, the inevitable conversation that grows the book: "Mom, can Elena also manage my retirement accounts? I'm switching hospitals next year and want to consolidate." NextGen expansion is the highest-margin work in wealth.
Oct 22, week 32 of stewardship. Margaret's annual review with Elena. Sarah Hartwell-Chen joins on Zoom from Cleveland. After Margaret's review wraps, Sarah asks: "Can Meridian also manage my retirement accounts? I've got a $620K Roth at Vanguard and a $340K 401k from Cleveland Clinic that I want to consolidate before I switch hospitals next year." Daniel Hartwell mentions his wife's RSUs ($340K vesting next year) and asks for a separate consultation in Q2 2027.
Elena writes up the NextGen expansion proposal the same week: Sarah's $620K Vanguard Roth + $340K Cleveland Clinic 401k = +$960K added AUM. Sarah-specific IPS using the NextGen Accumulation template (75/20/5 — different risk + horizon than Margaret's drawdown profile). Estate-planning deep-dive added to scope: full trust review, beneficiary updates on Margaret's $1.8M inherited trust, full coordination with Cooper & Lutz on revised will + trust amendments. Sarah signs Sarah-specific engagement letter Nov 12 via DocuSign. ACAT for Vanguard Roth + Cleveland Clinic 401k completes by Dec 19. Tagged ● NextGen expansion executed.
Family AUM grows from $8.5M → $9.46M. The new $960K sleeve sits in the top fee tier (above $5M) at 0.75%, so annual recurring fee grows $72,250 → $79,450 (+9.97%) = $7,200 lift. 3-yr LTV grows from ~$220K to ~$280K. Elena's 45% advisor-grid take on the lift: +$3,240 supplemental. Priya's paraplanner bump 1.5%: +$108 supplemental on the new sleeve. Daniel's wife's RSUs are queued for a separate engagement when they vest in Q2 2027 (~$340K — possible additional sleeve at the next vesting). NextGen expansion is the highest-margin work in wealth management — the relationship + onboarding cost is already paid; new AUM accrues at the full advisor grid with zero acquisition expense, and the family stays integrated under one IPS framework across two generations. Without the annual-review structure + active-book record, Sarah's casual question becomes "I'll think about it" and a competing RIA picks up Vanguard's PAS pitch on her Roth six months later. Instead: scope captured Oct 22, IPS drafted Oct 29, engagement letter signed Nov 12, ACAT funded Dec 19. The Hartwell relationship was rescued from a custody-transfer fight in Step 10 and grew nearly 10% inside the same calendar year.
Book of business — Friday morning, week 49 (early December)
It's a Friday morning in early December — week 49 of the calendar year, three weeks after Sarah's NextGen consolidation engagement letter signed (Nov 12) and two weeks before her ACAT funds (Dec 19). Meridian has 168 active households, $2.36B AUM in custody, 14 quarterly reviews on the calendar this week, and 96% household retention. The Hartwell account + NextGen expansion land on the same dashboard as the rest of the book.
What Meridian set up before any of this worked
Rewind to last summer's CRM rollout. Every screen you just walked through — the source dropdown on the inquiry form, the family-relationship role taxonomy, the 8-stage New Client Engagement pipeline, the 6-stage Active Book Stewardship pipeline, the IPS template library, the source-org tracking — was configured once by Meridian's compliance officer (James O'Connor) + ops over six weeks. Then it reused itself through 168 active households and 22 new engagements YTD.
Entity relationship map
How every entity in this walkthrough connects
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