Perspectives
What wealth planning can learn from digitalised law firms.
Anyone entering a modern tax practice today rarely still sees the paper file as the heart of daily work. Digital client portals, automated capture of documents, central repositories and integrated specialist systems shape everyday professional life in Germany and Switzerland. According to a survey by the Swiss Bar Association and the Swiss LegalTech Association, 43 per cent of Swiss law firms have a digitalisation strategy. Among large firms, the figure is 100 per cent. 60 per cent of lawyers surveyed want to use legal tech much more strongly in the coming five years.
A similar shift is emerging in wealth planning. It proceeds more cautiously and often more selectively. The direction is nonetheless clear.
What practices have understood
Tax advisers and lawyers introduced digital tools because complexity, regulation and mandate volume forced new ways of working, not because technology was available.
What mattered less was the individual tool than the structure behind it. Client data, documents, deadlines and communication are no longer kept side by side, but brought together in systems. Interfaces avoid duplicate entry. Standardised processes increase reliability. Administrative shares shrink; substantive work gains room.
In Germany, DATEV is the obvious example. In Switzerland, the same trend appears in a different shape. Investment is rising in digital infrastructure, research and systems that make knowledge easier to find and use.
Good digitalisation does not begin with software. It begins with a clear decision on how work should be organised, and with the question of which responsibilities and approvals must be clarified before new tools arrive when AI and automation are added.
Where wealth planning stands today
That breadth has not yet been reached everywhere in wealth planning. Many processes are demanding, historically grown and heavily person-dependent. Excel remains the dominant tool in many organisations. Studies on family office operations and the UBS Global Family Office Report show on the one hand high satisfaction with data access, on the other concern about manual data aggregation.
Central systems become relevant at this point. Platforms such as Addepar, Masttro or QPLIX create shared data spaces, consolidate information and make work states traceable.
What wealth planning advisers should take from this
The central question is not which platform promises the most. It is where time is lost in daily work, where quality suffers or where knowledge is not reliably available.
In many organisations, media breaks arise between CRM, custody statements, tax documents, meeting notes and presentations. Information is transferred several times, merged manually and interpreted depending on context. That costs time and increases error susceptibility.
The first step is rarely the biggest project. Most often it is the most precise one.
WAISON supports financial organisations where structure must become effective.