onboarding Setting up your advisor profile

You can assign advisors different user roles with different levels of access. These roles are not mutually exclusive; the same advisor profile can be assigned multiple roles.

 Firm Admin advisor

These advisors can access and control firm-level data and settings across all advisors and clients. A firm admin has access to the following tabs on the advisor dashboard: Reports, Billing, and Settings. Firm admins can adjust certain account settings, including firm name, address, and bank account. Admin advisors can also create custom portfolios, firm fee schedules, and can adjust access for other advisors.

Every firm must select an admin user, but it can also have multiple. A firm admin must contact Betterment's Support Team to grant an advisor firm admin access. 

 Primary advisor

When you onboard a new client, you are automatically set as the primary advisor. A primary advisor has full, discretionary access to make portfolio-management decisions and can also take administrative action on behalf of their clients. 

The primary advisor's information will be visible in the client dashboard. Primary advisors will also receive copies of transactional emails sent to their clients (such as statement notifications or tax forms). Only the primary advisor is shown as the client's "advisor" on their firm's official fee statement. 

 Secondary advisor

A primary advisor can elect to add a secondary advisor for a household. Secondary advisors can search for, view, impersonate, and utilize advisor controls for a given household and its members. There is no limit to how many secondary advisors a household can have. Secondary advisors do not accrue fees on household billing reports and will not receive transactional emails that are sent to clients.

Ops access

Ops users are automatically set up with the same permission level as secondary advisors and can take actions on behalf of all clients at a firm.

A firm admin must contact Betterment's Support Team to grant an advisor Ops access.

Compliance access

A compliance advisor has access to the Compliance section of the dashboard. This gives them read-only access to all of the firm’s households and clients. They can also view all signed client agreements at the firm level.

A firm admin must contact Betterment's Support Team to grant an advisor compliance access.