Advisor Resources

What breakaway advisors experience when they start up with Betterment Jul 31, 2026, 9:00:00 AM A practical guide for breakaway advisors on how to launch the right way—and what to expect when you do. Going independent is one of the biggest professional decisions an advisor can make. The planning phase—after you've decided but before you've made the move—is where the foundation gets built. The platform you choose, the technology you set up, and the client transition process you design will shape your first year and beyond. For breakaway advisors facing hundreds of tech decisions with limited operational experience, the goal is to find a foundation that doesn't require you to stitch tools together—and a custodial partner invested in your success from day one. With Betterment Advisor Solutions, advisors don't just get infrastructure—they get a partner that brings dedicated service and support and built-in tax optimization to every client interaction, from the moment of onboarding through every growth phase ahead. We sat down with our Platform Solutions team to find out what it’s really like to transition to Betterment. What does the onboarding process look like when you first join Betterment Advisor Solutions, and how long does it take to get up and running? In my experience, we can have a new firm set up in about 15 minutes. Once an advisor signs up, and we review their ADV and filings, the account will be activated and they can log in. Setting up an account involves a few steps: The advisor uploads their business logo, gets their agreements in place, sets up billing preferences, and starts building their firm’s custom model portfolios (if desired). With a bit of planning, a firm-specific setup could happen in an hour. For advisors who have just completed registration and are racing to onboard their first clients, that speed is meaningful. You're not waiting weeks to get operational. How does Betterment support the client transition process, from account opening to ACATS transfers? The transition process is one of the things I'd highlight as a real differentiator with Betterment. Everything is digital. For many advisors, that alone is a departure from the paper-heavy processes they're used to. Account opening takes just a few minutes, and we have a paperless ACATS workflow that makes moving assets over pretty straightforward. The platform supports a wide range of ETFs, mutual funds, and stocks. Our team will help create a custom migration plan based on the portfolio strategies you plan to use for your client. What I think advisors really appreciate is what happens after the assets land. You choose a tax-aware migration strategy and set a gains allowance for each client, and the system transitions accounts accordingly. Smart tax lot selection is embedded in automated rebalancing transactions, so it avoids short-term capital gains and only triggers long-term gains up to the budget you’ve set. Before anything gets sent to the client, you get a full review. At that point, you can update settings, check the transfer details, and only then send the request over. You're always in control of what goes out, and it’s all completely digital and easy for the client to authorize with a few clicks. The same logic applies when you're updating a portfolio strategy on an existing goal. You can review and edit rebalancing settings the same way. What does day-to-day practice management look like on the platform once you're live with clients? Once you're live, day-to-day management all runs through Co-Pilot, which is essentially your command center for tracking client activity and anything that needs your attention, all in one place. The experience is fully digital and vertically-integrated, so you're not bouncing between systems. You can act on individual accounts or work in bulk with scaled tools, depending on what the day calls for. The biggest difference with Betterment is automation. When you're building a firm from scratch, often with a lean team, automation isn't just nice to have. It's what makes the economics of a new independent practice actually work. Say a client calls and wants to put $5,000 into their IRA. Instead of your team needing to log in and invest the cash by manually buying securities, the deposit is automatically invested according to the portfolio strategy and allocation you’ve selected for the client. Fee calculations, account rebalancing, the ongoing maintenance work—it's all handled. But the key is that it’s flexible. You can customize the automation, break things into manual processes when you want more control, or turn it off entirely. It's really the best of both worlds. How does automated rebalancing work, and how much time does it save advisors on portfolio maintenance? Automated rebalancing is one piece of a broader suite of tax-smart portfolio management tools that all work together behind the scenes. Betterment offers both reactive rebalancing (using deposits, withdrawals, and dividend reinvestments to minimize drift) and proactive rebalancing (based on drift triggers you can customize as needed). It even handles complex situations like concentrated stock positions or inherited portfolios. Multiply that across a full book of clients, and the time savings—plus the after-tax performance impact—are significant. For a firm without a large operations team, this is the infrastructure that lets you manage a full book of clients without proportional headcount. What does the tax-smart transition process look like from the advisor's perspective, and how do you communicate it to clients? From the advisor side, you're never doing this alone—you have a dedicated Platform Solutions manager guiding the transition, plus relationship management and customer support as backup. The tax-smart tooling itself is comprehensive, and included with the platform fee: tax-loss harvesting, asset location, smart tax lot selection, gains allowances, sell-only substitutes, and rebalancing, all working together. This isn't a bolt-on feature set—tax-efficient investing has been part of how Betterment was built from the beginning, which means advisors can deliver genuinely personalized, tax-aware advice at scale. On the client communication side, we've found that clients who receive clear, thoughtful comms ahead of a transition are rarely upset by the process. They actually appreciate it. We give advisors the resources to make that easy: onboarding videos, communication templates, and plenty of lead time to address questions before they come up. When clients see how carefully the transition has been planned, it builds trust right from the start. What level of human support is available to advisors, and how quickly can you reach someone when you need help? Going independent doesn't mean going it alone. On average, it takes about a minute to answer your call, and under one business hour to answer emails.* You have a dedicated Platform Solutions manager guiding the transition, plus relationship management and customer support as backup. How does the platform integrate with the tools advisors are already using, like their CRM, financial planning, and compliance software? Betterment is a vertically-integrated custodian. Our platform is built to fit into the workflows you already have rather than replace them. Our integrations automatically connect Betterment accounts to your existing CRM, financial planning software, and compliance tools, so client information, investment holdings, and account activity all show up in your dashboards without extra legwork. The great thing about the platform is that it has all you need to launch or transition your existing practice, with the ease and sophistication of Betterment’s technology as the foundation. What does the client-facing experience look like, and how do clients typically respond to the new experience during a transition? The client experience is honestly one of Betterment's biggest differentiators for advisors. Betterment was built as a consumer platform first, so the app and web experiences have always been at the forefront of what we do. Clients can also sign up, link their accounts, and start navigating on their own without needing to call anyone for help, which takes routine onboarding tasks off your team’s plate so they can focus on what clients are really paying for: advice. As for moving clients onto the platform, the main concerns are usually: how long will this take, and will my clients push back against the change? But we’ve found when advisors communicate clearly and confidently, clients tend to follow their lead. What does a compliant transition actually require? A compliant transition typically unfolds over 90 days—reviewing your employer agreement, forming your entity, getting registered, and building out the business infrastructure you need to operate. For a full step-by-step breakdown, see our guide. *Based on Betterment internal data October 2025 - March 2026.

Custom model portfolios for advisors: FAQ Jul 31, 2026, 8:00:00 AM Build your own custom model portfolios while leveraging all of Betterment’s sophisticated portfolio management features. What are custom model portfolios? The Betterment Advisor Solutions platform allows advisors to customize portfolios with ETFs, single stocks, and mutual funds, while maintaining access to Betterment’s suite of automated features including: automated rebalancing tax-loss harvesting asset location / tax coordinated portfolios tax-optimized sales for withdrawals How do I create custom model portfolios for my clients? To get started, log into your dashboard and navigate to Portfolios > Create a portfolio > Custom model portfolio. Follow the prompts in the module to create securities groups, determine risk levels for your portfolio, and more. What are the program requirements? There are no asset minimums or additional fees required to build custom model portfolios. I have more questions - who can I talk to and where can I learn more? Please fill out this form, and our team will follow up with you. Security Selection: What securities are supported? At this time, we support ETFs, mutual funds, and single stocks. What ETFs are supported? Almost all ETFs are supported, as long as there is sufficient liquidity and trading volume. How many different asset allocations can be included in one portfolio? For each custom model portfolio, firms can define anywhere from 1 to 25 asset allocations. Betterment Automated Features: What is Tax Loss Harvesting (TLH)? How does this feature work with custom model portfolios? Tax loss harvesting is the practice of selling a security that has experienced a loss—and then buying a similar asset to replace it. The switch does two things: it allows the investor to realize, or “harvest”, a valuable loss while keeping the portfolio balanced at the desired allocation. Capital losses can help lower your clients’ tax bill by offsetting gains and reducing ordinary taxable income up to $3000 per year. The custom model portfolios program allows firms to designate a primary, secondary, and IRA secondary ETF ticker for each asset class to be used for TLH. How does Tax Coordination work? Tax Coordination is designed for investors who are saving for retirement in more than one type of account, including taxable accounts, traditional IRAs, or Roth IRAs generally with the same time horizon. Once you set it up, Betterment will look across all of the accounts grouped under retirement and automatically reorganize which assets are held in which accounts. Of these three types of accounts, each are taxed differently: (1) taxable accounts, (2) traditional IRAs or 401(k)s, and (3) Roth IRAs or 401(k)s. With Tax-Coordination, the assets are then arranged (unequally) across all coordinated accounts to help maximize the after-tax performance of the overall portfolio. We do this in a way that keeps the overall allocation the same while boosting after-tax returns. We've outlined the potential benefits of Tax Coordination and some reasons you may not want to use it here. For more information on our estimates and Tax Coordination generally, see full disclosure here. How does Betterment rebalance client portfolios? How does automated rebalancing work? More information about Betterment's automated rebalancing feature is available here. What capital market assumptions are used for balance and spending power projections? Firms can input their own capital market assumptions, or Betterment's team can provide assumptions.

How to set up the Milemarker integration Jul 23, 2026, 1:46:16 PM Overview Milemarker is the data infrastructure platform for wealth management firms. It connects the systems advisors already use, including custodians, CRMs, and planning tools, and unifies that data into the dashboards, reporting, and automated workflows that run the business. With the Betterment integration enabled, your firm’s Betterment account data flows into Milemarker automatically, with no manual exports, alongside the rest of your custodial and platform data. The result is a single, complete view of your book of business. The information sent to Milemarker includes: Account information Positions Transactions Tax lots Enabling the integration You can set up this integration for your firm by taking the following steps: Log in to your advisor dashboard and navigate to Settings > Integrations. Select Milemarker from the list and click Connect to Milemarker. You will see confirmation that the integration has been enabled. Data will be sent to Milemarker within one business day. No additional setup is required on the Milemarker side. Once Betterment begins sending your firm’s files, Milemarker automatically brings your account, position, transaction, and tax lot data into your firm’s Milemarker environment, where it appears in your dashboards and reporting. If your firm is not yet using Milemarker, or you’d like to confirm your data is flowing, reach out to your Milemarker Partner Success contact or email connect@milemarker.co and the team will help you get set up.

The financial advisor’s Claude AI playbook Jul 21, 2026, 2:49:51 PM A practical guide for financial advisors: which workflows to encode as AI skills, where the failure modes hide, and how skill libraries compound into real value. An analysis: In the first piece in this series, I argued that AI middleware is being commoditized while durable value lives one layer down, in regulated execution. The natural next question is how to actually build on that frame. This piece is for the firms ready to answer it. Not a how-to-install. A thinking guide: Which workflows to encode, what good output looks like, where the failure modes hide, and how the work compounds as a strategic asset rather than a tooling expense. Less code, more practice design. AI for financial advisors is a workflow design problem Stop thinking like a buyer. Most advisors evaluate AI as a buying decision: Which platform, what features, what price. That’s the right frame for a CRM, but the wrong one for an AI operating layer. The right frame is practice design. What work in your firm is repeatable, document-heavy, pattern-driven, knowledge-dependent? What do you do every week with the same shape but different inputs? What do you delegate poorly because there’s no one to delegate to? Skills are not features. They are encoded versions of the firm’s existing processes. The advisors who get the most out of this aren’t the ones who buy the most plugins. They’re the ones who can describe their workflows clearly enough to encode them. Five categories of advisor work that map to this Category What it means Synthesis Pulling information from many sources into one coherent picture. Pre-meeting briefs, quarterly review packets, onboarding fact-finders. Anywhere the answer exists across systems but no one has time to assemble it. Drafting First-pass written work that a human refines. Client emails, plan summaries, investment proposals, meeting follow-ups. The skill produces version one; the advisor produces version two. Pattern recognition Surfacing things that need attention without telling the advisor what to do. Portfolio drift, tax-loss candidates, plan gaps, clients who haven’t been contacted in N days. The skill flags; the advisor decides. Routing and triage Daily prioritization. Which clients need a call. Which tasks should escalate. Which prospects deserve attention. Memory Turning the firm’s accumulated experience into something queryable. What is our position on annuities? What did Mrs. Lee’s last plan say about Roth conversions? Ask-the-firm as a real internal product. These five share clean inputs, reviewable outputs, and a recognizable “good enough” bar. Workflows that don’t fall cleanly into one of these usually aren’t good first skills. What AI workflows work for financial advisors—and what fails Skills that work have clean structured inputs, reviewable outputs, and a review loop where corrections fold back into the skill file. Skills that fail depend on judgment the model can’t make, have no review step, or pull from stale data. Language matters more than it looks. A tax skill should not say “Recommend a Roth conversion.” It should say “Identify facts that may warrant advisor review, summarize assumptions, list open questions, and draft a client-facing explanation for professional review.” A portfolio skill should not say “Execute a rebalance.” It should say “Identify drift, tax considerations, restrictions, cash needs, and questions for the advisor; then prepare a review packet.” That distinction is the line between intelligence and execution. A day in the life Imagine an advisor at a five-person RIA, two months into running a basic Claude stack. Morning: The daily briefing skill has already run. Three meetings today—for each, client context, recent emails, last quarter’s review notes, current portfolio state, two planning observations, a draft agenda. The advisor scans, edits, notes the second client just had a liquidity event. The agenda updates. Late morning: The meeting runs. Afterward, the meeting-notes skill turns rough notes into action items, a draft follow-up email, and three flagged items for the next planning review. The advisor reviews, removes one misread item, sends the email. Afternoon: A Roth-conversion question. The tax-review skill produces facts, assumptions, open questions, and drafts a client-facing explanation that’s marked for professional review. The advisor refines and routes to the firm’s tax specialist before anything goes to the client. Nothing here is unfamiliar advisor work. What’s different is cycle time, consistency across advisors, and the firm’s own knowledge—encoded in skill files—doing the heavy lifting on the repeatable parts. The maturity curve Stage What it looks like 1 Single-use One advisor, one workflow. Learning what good output looks like. 2 Team Same skill, deployed across all advisors. House style lives in a file. 3 Connected Skills call other skills. Output of one becomes input to the next. 4 Agentic Multi-step automation with human review at each gate. 5 Firm-as-product Skill library as part of the firm’s value prop. Most firms should plan to spend the first six months in Stages 1 and 2. Trying to build Stage 4 before Stage 1 produces fragile automation nobody trusts. Two prerequisites: data and governance The plugins don’t enforce either. They’re your work. Data. A skill is only as good as the data it can see. A meeting-prep skill pulling from a half-empty CRM produces half-empty briefs. The work of getting your data into a state skills can rely on is bigger than the work of building the skills. CRM hygiene, document organization, authoritative sources—unglamorous but prerequisite. The good news: This work has value even if the AI strategy never materializes. Governance. A skill file can tell the model to escalate. It can’t make that happen at runtime. Approval gates, audit logs, separation of duties, and reviewer sign-off have to be built around the model, not inside the prompt. A firm deploying these without checkpoints is taking on real liability. The compliance officer’s job doesn’t get easier, but it does evolve. Skills are intellectual property A SKILL.md file is a process document with teeth. Read end to end, a firm’s skill library is a fingerprint of how that firm operates. There are two main implications. Skill libraries grow—each correction is permanent; improvements depend on firm discipline rather than vendor roadmap. And skill libraries become acquisition assets: A mature library means a portable operating model. Faster ramp for new advisors. Cleaner integration of acquired firms. Higher capacity per advisor. It changes the firm’s value as an operating business. A minimum viable advisor-AI stack Component Purpose Claude financial-services plugins Baseline finance and workflow skills Wealth-management skills Reviews, plans, reports, proposals, rebalancing, TLH Microsoft 365 integration or Google Workspace Workflows inside Excel, Word, Outlook, PowerPoint or the Google equivalent CRM connector Client records, tasks, notes, service model Email / calendar connector Meeting context and follow-up workflow Document connector Tax docs, statements, plans, agreements, prior notes Portfolio / custodial data feed Holdings, balances, tax lots, account models Firm-specific skills Investment philosophy, tax process, tone, templates Approval workflow Human review before client-facing or regulated action Audit log Source data, prompts, outputs, edits, approvals It’s not an afternoon project, but it’s also no longer a multi-year build. The takeaway The advisor who treats AI as a tooling decision will get tooling: useful, fungible, increasingly cheap. The advisor who treats AI as a practice-design exercise will get an operating system: slower to build, harder to copy, integrated with how the firm actually serves clients. The first article argued the intelligence layer is becoming a foundation-model utility. This one is about how to build inside that reality. More to come.

Why breakaway advisors are looking past legacy custodians as launch partners Jul 15, 2026, 10:30:17 AM A practical comparison of Betterment Advisor Solutions, Schwab, and Fidelity to help RIAs evaluate custody partners for their independent firms. Going independent is hard work, and so is choosing the technology stack that runs your new firm. Your first instinct may be to start with the same custodian your previous firm used. But that can be a mistake, especially for lean, growing RIAs. Going independent is a key moment where you can carefully select the technology that is the best fit to help your firm grow. This guide compares three RIA custodians that breakaway advisors often consider: Betterment Advisor Solutions Schwab Fidelity We look at how each platform is designed, who they tend to work best for, and the questions worth asking before you commit. The custodian you used at your old firm may not be the right fit for your new one Inside a wirehouse or large independent broker-dealer, the custody platform you used was probably chosen for you, and various teams handled onboarding, compliance, portfolio management, and billing in the background. When you go independent, those teams and infrastructure are no longer there. The platform itself has to absorb much of that administrative work for you. When you go independent, keep in mind these two important details: You are personally responsible for everything: compliance, fiduciary support, and back-office work. You likely want your custodian to integrate with the rest of your wealth management practice, not run on a separate island. How legacy providers are designed and who they work best for Legacy providers like Schwab and Fidelity have both served the RIA market for decades and support a wide range of advisors. But with their longevity comes complexity. Both have elaborate, layered systems to navigate when deciding if they’ll fit your needs. And overall, the advisor and client tech experience isn’t the most modern option. When you compare custodians, Schwab and Fidelity work differently from a bundled platform like Betterment. (See the full Betterment Advisor Solutions vs. Fidelity and Schwab breakdown.) Neither Schwab nor Fidelity offers an all-in-one custodial platform under a single transparent platform fee. Advisors usually piece together separate solutions for portfolio management, tax optimization, billing, planning, defined contribution plan management, and reporting. Even then, none of it may be automatable. The takeaway: Breakaway RIAs at Schwab or Fidelity can build a full custodial tech stack for their firm—just with more vendors, contracts, and integration work to manage. Who legacy platforms tend to work best for Legacy providers like Schwab and Fidelity tend to be a better fit for: Advisors who have a need for manual-first portfolio management. Practices comfortable coordinating across separate recordkeepers and TPAs. Advisors who want access to Fidelity's or Schwab's proprietary investment lineups and research. For breakaway advisors, the size and complexity of legacy providers may be overwhelming compared to a more streamlined, automated provider. How Betterment Advisor Solutions is built differently Betterment Advisor Solutions was designed for independent RIAs, with an operating model that’s distinct from the legacy providers. Five areas set Betterment Advisor Solutions apart from legacy custodians for breakaway advisors: Client onboarding With fully digital onboarding at Betterment, it takes zero paperwork and two minutes to open an account. You can open as many different accounts as you need and clients will sign off on all new accounts in one step. When it comes to money movement, whether you use ACH, ACATs, direct rollover, or wire transfers, account funding is easy. Simply connect bank accounts to initiate ACH transfers. Portfolio management at scale Betterment's platform automates custom drift-based rebalancing and tax-aware trading across client accounts, whether advisors want to select from Betterment's ever-growing marketplace of leading model portfolios or build their own from scratch. For a breakaway firm without a dedicated trading desk, that automation can free up time for client relationships and growth. Built-in tax optimization Tax management is part of the core platform, not a separate add-on. Betterment's tax tools include: Automated tax-loss harvesting across taxable accounts. Tax-smart portfolio transitions that let advisors move legacy positions to target models with a tax budget they control. Automated asset location across multiple account types. Optimized tax-lot selection to help reduce tax drag on sales. Each of these is described on Betterment's tax management page. Simplified back-office operations Betterment Advisor Solutions combines custody with essential practice management software. This all-in-one approach simplifies your administrative tasks such as onboarding, account setup, billing, reporting, and compliance. We also integrate with industry-leading platforms across software categories to help ensure your practice runs smoothly (see all integrations). Dedicated advisor support and service How a platform handles support is one of the most concrete differences between providers. Betterment advisors get a dedicated Relationship Manager for strategic guidance, a Platform Solutions Team for onboarding and bulk transitions, and a responsive Support Team for day-to-day questions. Schwab and Fidelity both offer extensive support, though the structure is fragmented. Schwab offers a 1-800 phone number for questions, and new breakaway advisors can work with a Business Development Officer for support. Additionally, Schwab Advisor ProDirect™ is a fee-based subscription with dedicated consultants, transition phases, and networking for $50M–$300M firms. Initially, Fidelity provides advisors 1-800 numbers to call and directs advisors to log in to their accounts for assigned contacts. Additionally, they offer Advisor Concierge for advisors who meet certain business criteria—a higher-touch tier with a dedicated single point of contact, training support, and referral-network inclusion. Neither model is inherently wrong—large practices often have the staff and process to navigate a multi-team structure. But a lean breakaway firm may benefit from a single accountable point of contact rather than triangulating between multiple teams or calling 1-800 numbers. Plus, Betterment provides flexible 401(k) service models The final dimension for breakaway advisors is how the 401(k) platform adapts to your firm rather than the other way around. Betterment supports two service models on 401(k) plans: Advisors can serve as the 3(38) or 3(21) investment advisor and use Betterment to host a customized fund lineup. Learn more. Or let Betterment serve as the 3(38) investment manager with managed ETF portfolios, a flexible portfolio option, or a mutual fund lineup. That means you can keep your existing investment process or offload it—on a plan-by-plan basis. Beyond the 401(k), Betterment Advisor Solutions is positioned as an all-in-one platform across wealth and retirement, where advisors can use platform tools to convert plan participants into wealth management clients. For a breakaway firm focused on organic growth, that pipeline can matter. Schwab and Fidelity, by design, are typically organized into distinct business lines, each with its own systems, contacts, and processes. For firms with the staff to navigate that structure, it works. For lean independent shops, it can add friction. Why Betterment Advisor Solutions? Betterment Advisor Solutions is built for independent RIAs, prioritizing the flexibility to automate, an integrated techstack, and an accountable partner in a single offering. Betterment combines custody, automated portfolio management, tax optimization, simplified back office, billing, dedicated support, digital client onboarding, and a unified wealth-plus-retirement dashboard in one platform. Ready to go independent? Explore Betterment Advisor Solutions. Betterment primarily earns revenue through management fees (AUM-based or flat monthly fees), compensation from program banks on cash, securities lending activities, and payment for order flow. Learn more.

The 401(k) security briefing your plan sponsors need Jul 2, 2026, 12:34:37 PM AI-enabled fraud is targeting retirement plans. Here's how advisors can help sponsors. Retirement plans are a high-value, low-vigilance target: big balances, infrequent logins, and multiple service provider touchpoints. AI has made the fraud landscape meaningfully worse in the last 18 months. This is the security briefing your plan sponsor clients probably haven't gotten yet. Why 401(k) plans are uniquely exposed Retirement assets sit at the intersection of everything fraudsters look for: They're often a participant's second-largest asset after their home, logins are infrequent enough that losses can go unnoticed for weeks, and money moves through a chain—advisor, sponsor, recordkeeper, TPA. Fraudsters may use publicly available information to target participants, plan sponsors, and advisors. Here are 7 steps you can take to help protect your clients' security. The 2026 threat landscape The human verification layer that we’ve relied on for so long is no longer reliable. As AI capabilities increase, fraudsters are finding ways to target retirement plans. One type of attack involves voice-based phone calls, where a fraudster convincingly imitates a person's voice using AI, a technique known as a deepfake. Fraudsters are also using deepfake video and increasingly targeted social engineering, where attackers research their victims in advance to make impersonation attempts more convincing. Worryingly, deepfake identity fraud is on track to surge nearly 500% over the course of 2026. What regulators now expect The Department of Labor has issued cybersecurity guidance for ERISA plans that sets a clear bar for what plan sponsors should look for from providers. Key requirements include a documented security program, controls that match today's threat environment—multi-factor authentication (MFA), active monitoring, encryption—diligence on third-party vendors, and an incident response plan that's actually been tested, not just written down and filed away. You can learn more about the DOL guidance and how Betterment addresses it here. Your plan sponsor clients may not know this guidance exists. That's an opening: Cyber diligence is now part of what it means to select a prudent provider, and advisors who can walk sponsors through that checklist are delivering real value. Practical protection for participants Most retirement-plan fraud doesn't come from databases getting breached. It comes from people getting tricked—a convincing phone call, a fake login page, a weeks-long relationship that turns out to be a scam. The basics go a long way: Turn on MFA—app-based, not just SMS. Use a password manager. Add a trusted contact to the account. Check the account balance and activity once a quarter. None of these are complicated, but few participants have done all four. If a participant's email gets compromised, here's the playbook to walk them through: Lock down access. Help them reset credentials to their email account, the plan portal, and any other financial institutions. Force a logout of all active sessions. Re-enroll MFA from a different device. If the attacker had access to the phone or computer the client normally uses, that device may still be compromised—and any new MFA factors enrolled on it could be captured too. Use a phone, tablet, or computer the attacker hasn't touched. Brand-new isn't required; just different. Audit the last 30–90 days. Look at distributions, loans, beneficiary designations, and address changes. Watch for rollover requests. They're the most common follow-on to an account takeover — flag anything that comes in shortly after. Document everything and notify the recordkeeper and the plan sponsor. The paper trail matters. How sponsor-level controls work A key control in managing a retirement plan is the application of access controls to ensure that high-risk activities are restricted to authorized parties. Roles such as advisors or plan sponsors may be established with some plan administration capabilities; however, transactions such as distributions, signer changes, plan amendments, and payroll-related changes require authentication directly from the plan sponsor. A forwarded email, even one that looks completely legitimate, does not authenticate a transaction. The reason the line is drawn there is to make social engineering hard. Fraudsters try to impersonate advisors, plan sponsors, and service providers. How to use this in your practice Security is a natural way to reopen a conversation with plan sponsors who haven't reviewed their provider in a while. The entry point isn't "you should switch providers"—it's "when was the last time anyone walked you through the cyber-diligence side of your plan?" Betterment's Trust Portal and the 401(k) security brochure give sponsors something concrete to work from. Both are available through your Client Success Manager or at trust.betterment.com. Ready to bring a sponsor into the conversation? If you already have an account with Betterment Advisor Solutions, use the Request a Proposal button in your advisor dashboard—it reaches the right team within one business day. If you or a plan sponsor that you support would like to access documentation to support due diligence activities, the Betterment trust portal can be used to access independent SOC audit reports, key policies, and other supporting documentation. If you're exploring offering a 401(k) with Betterment for the first time, learn more here.