A discovery meeting starts with your intake when Penny is your financial answering service.

She tells the client not to move any money and not to share a code or a password with anyone who calls them, and she reaches the advisor while the client is still on the line: a transfer during office hours, the on-call contact after. For an unfamiliar login or transaction, she directs the caller to contact the custodian immediately at the number on their statement or its official site, without waiting for the advisor. She texts you the name and number marked possible fraud and does not ask for account numbers. Redaction of a volunteered number requires Business compliance mode. A request to sell, wire, or change a beneficiary gets the same treatment from a different angle: an urgent message to the advisor, and no instruction accepted from her side. You edit each of these rules in plain English.

Outlook or Google Calendar, because that is where the advisors’ meetings live, and Calendly if the firm books first meetings through it. HubSpot or Salesforce takes the prospect with the intake fields and the referral source attached. Your firm can configure Zapier or a signed webhook to carry the record to its CRM. Penny writes the meeting during the call, so the advisor sees “rollover, traditional 401(k), still in plan” on the appointment rather than a name and a time.

Penny starts at $29 a month on Starter with annual billing. Pro at $99 adds the on-call schedule and text confirmations, and Business at $249 adds compliance mode with redaction and retention controls. Paid plans include monthly minutes; usage above the allowance is billed at the plan’s per-minute rate. The answering service cost guide compares plans, included minutes, and usage charges.

Your firm keeps its review obligations. Penny makes no statement about performance, suitability, or fees, does not describe a product, and does not tell a caller what to do with an account. When a caller asks whether now is a good time to buy, she says that is the advisor’s question and books the meeting. The transcript of every call is in the log, so the CCO can confirm it rather than take it on faith.

She does not take the instruction, and she says so: the advisor confirms any instruction with the client directly. She sends the advisor an urgent message with the client’s name and number and the fact that a sell request was made, without the positions or the amounts, and during office hours she transfers the call if your rules allow it. The client hears a person who knows what to do next, and no trade instruction sits on a voicemail.

No. She never asks for an account number, and she does not answer account questions of any kind. She confirms who is calling, notes what they need, and flags it for the advisor. If the caller is worried about a wire they did not send, the fraud rule applies and the advisor is reached now.

She captures that the call is about a rollover, the plan type if the caller knows it, whether anything has been paid out or a check has been issued, and whether the caller works with an advisor now. She books the discovery meeting and puts a note on the confirmation to bring the latest plan statement. She does not say whether to roll it over, where to, or when.

Yes. Tell her which advisor takes first meetings, and she books prospects there. A current client is booked on their own advisor’s calendar, and a caller who asks for an advisor by name gets that calendar. Reschedules on a later call go back to the same calendar.

They create records, and the log is built to be kept as one. Every call is stored with the date, the intake fields, the rule that fired, and the transcript. You set retention to match your books-and-records schedule, and compliance mode on the Business plan redacts an account number or a Social Security number a caller volunteers. Call summaries can go to the compliance inbox as well as to the advisor.

She says the advisor is the right person for that question, asks whether the caller is a client or would like a first meeting, and books accordingly. She does not offer a view, a forecast, or a reassurance about returns. The question is noted on the appointment so the advisor opens with it.