# The work behind the Statement of Advice Alex Gassner · 2026-08-25T09:52:00.000Z ![Paradino's The Work Behind the Statement of Advice](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/f58ax8th/production/585c7d0a69135368e8604eb6ad6d2e04952e4568-1920x1080.png?w=2000&auto=format) **Paradino’s Statement of Advice process has seven phases. There is a practical reason for each one.** If you’ve produced enough Statements of Advice, you know the document is rarely where the difficult work begins. Before anyone starts writing, decisions have already been made about the client information being relied on. The strategy has taken shape. Modelling and product research may already be complete. The practice also has its own way of presenting the advice. What happens upstream tends to find its way into the finished document, for better or worse. That shaped how we built Statement of Advice production in Paradino. Athena doesn’t move directly from a prompt to a finished document. The work passes through seven phases, giving the adviser clear points to see what is being used and intervene before the advice progresses. Generation comes later than people sometimes expect. [Watch the video on this page](https://paradino.ai/blog/statement-of-advice-process) ## Phase 1: Preparation ### Know what it’s built on The process starts with the material Athena will rely on. The practice template establishes the structure of the SoA. Approved strategy wording, fee information, risk profiles and product content can sit in the Practice Knowledge Base. Client-specific material stays with the client: fact finds, file notes, projections, comparisons, statements and quotes. Connected research or modelling services can also contribute when they are relevant to the advice. We have been particular about how that information is prepared. If a consolidated fact find is available, it makes more sense for Athena to use it than sift through a collection of exports containing overlapping versions of the same information. That groundwork has a practical benefit when the adviser reviews the document: the source of a figure or piece of wording is easier to establish. ## Phase 2: Brief ### Tell it what matters The brief narrows the focus to this piece of advice. An adviser can nominate documents for Athena to use, draw attention to something in the client’s circumstances or provide specific instructions about the work ahead. When source documents are nominated, Athena uses them as anchors. When they aren’t, it can search more broadly across the information held for the client. Both approaches matter. Sometimes the source is obvious: the relevant file note, an agreed comparison or a particular projection. For another client, it may be more useful to ask Athena to locate the material. The better the starting context, the less time an adviser spends correcting work that began in the wrong place. ## Phase 3: Planning ### Catch it before it travels Planning is the most detailed part of the process because this is where small issues are still easier to fix. Athena begins by building an Information Plan. The adviser can see the information it found, where it came from and anything it expected to find but couldn’t. If a product comparison is missing, the gap remains visible. Athena surfaces it for the adviser instead of quietly producing an answer that makes the plan look complete. In advice production, a gap you know about is more useful than an answer nobody can account for. ### Start with the information The Information Plan gives the adviser a chance to check the source material before Athena uses it elsewhere. A missing document can be added. A different source can be nominated. The adviser can also decide that a piece of information isn’t required for this advice. Once it has been dealt with, the work can move forward. ### Bring in the supporting work When the relevant services are connected, research or modelling can be brought into the same process. An adviser might compare cashflow scenarios before confirming the one that should support the advice. A different projection horizon can be tested. An alternative scenario can be created without replacing the original base case. The supporting work is there when the advice calls for it, with the selected result carried forward into the plan. ### Review the strategy before the pages exist Athena then develops a Strategy Plan from the confirmed information. The proposed strategies are visible with their rationale. The adviser can change a strategy, remove it or add something Athena has not proposed. Suppose an insurance waiting period should be 30 days rather than 60. It can be corrected in the plan while the surrounding strategies remain untouched. The adviser sees the revised position before approving it. Reviewing a strategy while it is still a strategy is a different job from finding the same issue after it has been repeated through a long document. ### Assemble the supporting detail Once the strategy is settled, Athena gathers the material needed to support it in the SoA. That might include approved practice wording, a risk profile, target asset allocation or relevant product information. When Athena cannot locate something expected, it remains visible for the adviser to address. There is another safeguard when the facts change late in the process. New information supplied before generation can cause Athena to revisit the plan instead of attaching new material to work based on an old position. When an input changes, Paradino considers what else that change affects. Only after those checks does the process reach generation. ## Phase 4: Generation ### Now it can write Athena now has a confirmed plan to work from. Specialised workers generate different sections of the selected template in parallel before the document is assembled. Each one works from the same confirmed plan and template structure. The parallel work helps with speed. More importantly, the key decisions have already been resolved upstream. Athena is not being asked to work out the advice while it writes the document. By the time generation starts, the adviser has already had several opportunities to inspect and confirm the work. ## Phase 5: Notifications ### Get on with your day There are points in the process when Athena needs a few minutes to work. Those minutes do not need to hold the adviser’s attention. Paradino shows what Athena is doing, then lets the adviser move elsewhere. Another client can be opened. Other work can continue. When the plan or document reaches a point where input is needed, Paradino brings the adviser back to it. The individual waits in advice production are often short. Across a day, they add up. A platform that knows when it needs your judgement should also know when it doesn’t need your company. ## Phase 6: Review and refinement ### Keep small changes small The generated Statement of Advice comes back to the adviser for review. If a figure needs to change, the adviser can ask Athena to change it. The same applies to a paragraph, table row or section that needs approved practice content. Athena identifies the relevant location, makes the targeted change and reports what was altered. One amendment does not trigger another full-document generation. ### The template remains the authority There are limits on what Athena can change conversationally. The template remains responsible for the document structure. Athena can refine the content during review, but it does not quietly redesign the SoA around a conversational instruction. If the structure needs to change, that belongs in the template. Advice documents benefit from knowing where flexibility ends. ### Remember what deserves to be remembered Athena can learn preferences from the way an adviser reviews documents. A practice might prefer dollar figures in bold or risks shown as bullet points. Those preferences are useful beyond the current client. A one-off amendment to a client’s fee belongs to a different category. It should stay with that client instead of becoming a rule Athena applies elsewhere. A useful assistant needs to recognise which edits are enduring preferences and which belong to one client. ### Help the client read the advice When the information lends itself to visual treatment, some tables can be turned into charts. An asset allocation or projection may be easier for a client to understand visually than as rows of figures. The adviser remains in control of the advice. Paradino helps present the work in a form that is easier to discuss with the client. ## Phase 7: Presentation ### Don’t start again Once the SoA is complete, Paradino can use it as the basis of a digital advice presentation. The adviser can refine the presentation before the client conversation without reconstructing the underlying advice from scratch. That continuity matters. Work completed properly at one stage should remain useful at the next. ### Final note **“It’s the little things”** reflects the care that consequential financial decisions deserve. Across these seven phases, that care appears in ordinary places: where information came from, what happens when something is missing, when a strategy is confirmed, how a late change is handled and which preferences should carry into the next client. No single behaviour tells the whole story. The experience is shaped by how reliably they work from one phase to the next. For advisers using AI in advice production, trust is earned in the small moments where the software behaves exactly as it should. ### See the full Statement of Advice process Follow each phase in the Paradino documentation, from preparing the client Workspace through to creating the advice presentation. [**Read the full guide**](https://docs.paradino.ai/statementsofadvice)