For independent 403(b) reps
Your client's name appears 8 times in one packet. Type it once.
One screen. The packet fills itself — 279 places across 27 pages — goes out for signature, comes back signed, and ends up filed with your custodian and your broker-dealer, with the client record, the New Account Form and the trade ticket already created. Nobody in your office types a client twice.
The packet
38 pages. Not one of them fillable.
This is what opening a single 403(b)(7) account costs you today, before you have done anything a client would recognise as advice.
The same facts, over and over
Why nothing you have tried has fixed this
None of these PDFs are fillable. They are flat scans and print-ready files — there is nothing to type into. So every rep in this niche either handwrites the packet or prints it, fills it and scans it back. The tools that claim to help want a person to draw a box over every blank, one form at a time, and want it done again when the custodian reissues the form. Signed & Filed takes your forms exactly as they come.
And then it happens again
After signature, someone re-keys the same client into the broker-dealer's rep portal as a client record, a New Account Form and a trade ticket — and separately gets the application to the custodian. Usually that someone is your assistant, and it is the second hour of the job. Three tasks, not one: fill the paperwork, get it signed, then retype all of it into systems that will not talk to each other.
What it does
Fill once. Signed. Filed.
Fill once
One screen, 18 sections. Every label shows how many places that one answer fills and which documents they are in. Your usual answers are already set as defaults, and every one of them is editable. Tick a district form and the packet adds it and renumbers itself.
Send for signature
The whole packet merges into one PDF and goes out for e-signature with every signature and date tab already in the right place — so adding or dropping a district form can never put a signature in the wrong spot. Your client signs, then you do.
It files itself
The signed packet goes to your custodian, and your broker-dealer gets the client record, the New Account Form and the trade ticket, with the packet and the driver's licence attached. It happens on its own, and you get a record of every step.
The proof
Numbers you can check yourself
The first one takes you thirty seconds to verify against a packet on your own desk.
| In one 403(b)(7) account | Today |
|---|---|
| Pages in the packet | 38 |
| Times the client's name is asked for | 8 |
| Times the SSN is asked for | 3 |
| Fields you fill in, on one screen | 190 |
| Places those answers land | 279 |
| Individual marks made for you, counting every checkbox | 501 |
| Pages in the merged, signature-ready packet | 27 (31 with all district forms) |
| Signature and date tabs placed for you | 12 (18 with district forms) |
| Records created for you after signing | 4 |
| Times anyone in your office retypes the client | 0 |
One dropdown fills 27 checkboxes on the account-type question alone. Choosing a target-date fund writes the ticker in one cell and the full fund name in another, because the form asks for both.
After the signature
The hour nobody else takes off your desk
Every other tool hands you a signed PDF and stops. That is where the second hour begins, and it is the hour your assistant spends. Signed & Filed does it instead.
The custodian gets the application
The signed application is pulled out of the packet with its completion certificate and submitted, without anyone splitting a PDF by hand.
Your broker-dealer gets the client
The client record is created with the name block, address, phones, SSN, date of birth, employment and income sources already filled in.
The New Account Form is raised and submitted
Built from your own template and pointed at the new client, in the state a trade needs it to be in.
The trade is entered and both documents attached
Commission worked out from the investment amount, the fund taken from what you chose on the form, and the trade left as a draft for you to review and release. The signed packet and the driver's licence go on as separate files.
What makes that safe rather than nerve-wracking
Every value is read back after it is entered. If something did not take, the run stops and tells you, rather than quietly filing something wrong.
If anything is interrupted, picking it back up carries on from where it stopped. It will not create the same client twice.
A picture of each action is kept, so you can show exactly what was done, when, and what it looked like.
When your firm's portal asks you to confirm it is really you, it waits for you — it never hammers away at a login or buries you in codes.
It is prepared, not placed. Nothing goes to market without you pressing the button.
When your firm changes its portal or your custodian reissues a form, that is our job, not yours. Usually you never notice.
Security & supervision
Your broker-dealer's process, unchanged
Signed & Filed does not route around your firm. It fills your firm's own forms and files into your firm's own systems, as you, and writes down what it did. Nothing about how you are supervised changes.
Where your clients' data lives
- •Your own isolated environment. Your clients are never pooled with another advisor's.
- •Encrypted at rest with keys dedicated to you, and a second layer of protection on anything carrying an SSN.
- •Answers are deleted once the packet goes out for signature. The SSN is deleted as soon as filing is done.
- •Anything that looks like an SSN or a date of birth is stripped out of our records before they are written.
- •Sign-in is locked to your email address. There is no public sign-up, and nobody else can reach your account.
What your compliance officer gets
- •A record of every action taken on your behalf, with a picture of each one.
- •A plain explanation of which systems are touched and which are not.
- •A vendor questionnaire answered by us, in writing, and a named person to call. Your firm's oversight obligation is easier to satisfy when the vendor turns up, so we turn up.
- •Where a form offers fewer options than your client's situation needs, it says so on screen rather than guessing on your behalf.
- •What they will not get: any claim that Signed & Filed makes a recommendation. It is a paperwork tool. Every answer is yours, every default is your own prior answer, and every one is editable.
Who builds it
A software shop, not a startup
We have been building software since 2016, and working in financial services for much of that — with independent representatives and the firms around them, where the paperwork is unforgiving and the compliance question always comes first.
Why this exists
We sat with a working rep and watched him fill the same 38 pages by hand, then type the same client into a portal all over again, then chase the custodian. It was an afternoon per account, every account, and none of it was the job he trained for.
So Signed & Filed is not a form builder that happens to point at 403(b). The defaults in the form are a real advisor's real answers. The documents are the ones he actually files. It was built against the paperwork, not against a spec.
What being small gets you
- •You talk to the person who builds it. No support queue, no tier one, no ticket number.
- •When your firm changes something, it is our problem, and usually fixed the same day.
- •We will get on a call with your compliance officer ourselves, and answer their questionnaire in writing.
- •We only take on advisors we can actually serve. If your stack is a poor fit we will say so on the first call.
Fit
Built for this. Adapted for yours.
Signed & Filed was built end to end on one stack, so if that is your stack you are running in days. On a different broker-dealer or custodian it is the same product with your forms and your systems behind it — scoped and priced for your firm.
Running today, out of the box
- ✓Independent 403(b) / 457 reps in the K–12 school-district market
- ✓Individual participant accounts, target-date or single-fund
- ✓Districts whose TPA needs a Salary Reduction Agreement in the same packet
- ✓Offices where an assistant currently does the re-keying — that is the work this removes
Systems it already fills and files into
On a different stack
- •Your forms, whatever state they are in. We take them as they come — no one has to prepare them first.
- •Your broker-dealer and your custodian. Connecting a new one is real work, so it is scoped and quoted rather than guessed at.
- •Joint and entity accounts, and anything else your book needs, as part of that scope.
- •Tell us on the call what you are on. If several of you are on the same firm, it gets built sooner and costs each of you less.
Questions
What reps actually ask
Will my compliance department let me use this?
It does not route around your firm. It fills your firm's own forms and files into your firm's own systems, as you, leaving a record of every action. Your supervision process is unchanged.
We also think your firm should know we exist. Your BD carries the vendor-oversight obligation, not you, so telling them is part of onboarding rather than something to avoid — and we would rather answer your OSJ or compliance contact's questions ourselves than have you translate. Tools that hide from a firm's vendor list are the ones that get switched off mid-season.
What happens to my clients' SSNs?
They sit in your own isolated environment, encrypted, with a second layer of protection on anything carrying an SSN. Answers are deleted once the packet goes for signature, and the SSN is deleted as soon as filing is done. Our records are stripped of anything that looks like an SSN or a date of birth before they are written.
What happens when the forms change?
We handle it. Your custodian reissuing a form is our problem, not yours, and turnaround is hours rather than a release cycle. In most cases the first you hear of it is us telling you it is already done.
Does it work with my broker-dealer?
If you are on Purshe Kaplan Sterling with Aspire or PCS, you are running in days. Anyone else, it is the same product pointed at your firm's forms and systems — real work, so we scope it and quote it on the call rather than pretend otherwise. Reps on the same firm can share that, which makes it quicker and cheaper for each of you.
Who fixes it when something changes at my firm?
We do, and we find out before you do. Keeping it working is what the monthly fee is for, and it is the reason this is a service rather than software you are left to operate.
Is this giving advice?
No. It is a paperwork tool with no opinion about anything. The defaults it pre-loads are your own prior answers, loaded for your convenience, and every one is editable before you send. The trade is prepared for you to review and release, never placed on its own.
Next step
Fifteen minutes, and we will both know
Tell us what you are on. If it is a stack we already fill and file into, we set you up done-for-you and you are running in days. If it is a different firm, you will get a straight answer on what it takes and what it costs.
No newsletter, no drip sequence, no demo you have to sit through. If we cannot help you we will say so in the reply.