Working as an Agency (Shared Client Pool)

An agency lets several advisors — each with their own paid Practice account — work out of one shared client pool. Instead of every client being tied to a single advisor, clients consent to the agency as a whole, and every advisor in the agency can work every shared client.

Accepting an Agency Invitation

When an advisor accepts an agency invitation, they join one shared CRM under the agency brand. The acceptance screen explains the key tradeoff before they continue:

• Everyone in the agency can see and work the shared client pool.
• The joining advisor keeps their own paid Practice account.
• Clients assigned to that advisor remain their working queue for dashboard activity and follow-ups.
• The agency relationship does not expose the advisor's personal banking workspace.

If the invited advisor is not signed in, they are sent to sign in first and then returned to the acceptance screen. They must sign in with the invited email address.

How the Shared Client Pool Works

• A client consents to the agency, not to one advisor. Every active advisor in the agency can read and update every shared client.
• A shared client can have a primary advisor — the relationship owner used for "My book" filters, alerts, and task routing. Agency views can also show unassigned clients.
• Contacts created before the agency existed keep their original advisor as the primary advisor when they enter the shared agency view. New contacts created inside the agency are shared across it.

Roles: Owner and Member

An agency has one owner and any number of members. Any active, paid advisor can create an agency and becomes its owner. The roles describe who administers the agency — they carry no ranking beyond that.

Assigning an Advisor to a Client

• When you add a client, an "Assigned advisor" dropdown appears once your agency has members. It defaults to you, can be set to another active member, or can be left unassigned for a shared intake queue.
• After a client exists, the "Primary advisor" control on the client record reassigns them among active members or clears the assignment.

Owner-Covered Billing

The agency owner can optionally pay for a member's Practice seat:

• The covered subscription is created on the owner's card.
• Default is self-pay — coverage is opt-in per member.
• Only the owner can start or stop coverage, and the owner cannot cover their own seat.
• The roster shows an "Owner covered" chip for members whose seat the owner is paying.

Pooled Client Seats

When pooled client seats are enabled for your agency, the agency owner can manage a shared pool of client Builder Pro seats from Settings → Agency. The pool is separate from each advisor's personal Practice seat pack:

• A pooled seat belongs to the agency, not to an individual advisor.
• Owners can assign a pooled seat to an eligible client, reassign it, or release it back to the pool.
• Assignable clients can be individual client users or client households, depending on how the client relationship is represented.
• The assignment history is audited, and the agency settings page shows who is using each seat.

If your agency shows zero included, assigned, and available pooled seats, that usually means the shared agency workspace exists but no live agency-owned client-seat subscription exists yet. Shared clients can still exist in the agency; the zero only describes the agency-owned Builder Pro seat capacity available for assignment from the pooled-seat card.

If your agency does not show a pooled-seat card, your agency is still using the standard advisor-carried client-seat model.

Agency Billing vs. Client Seat Pool

Agency billing has two separate jobs:

• Advisor Practice access keeps each advisor member on a paid Practice account. During rollout, this can be self-pay, owner-covered billing, or agency billing.
• Client seat pool covers Builder Pro access for shared agency clients. These seats belong to the agency only when the agency-owned pool is live.

That separation is why the Agency page can show members and shared clients while the client-seat pool still shows zero. The agency relationship controls shared client access. The client-seat pool controls paid Builder Pro seat capacity for those clients.

Primary Advisor vs. Seat Capacity

Primary advisor is a shared-CRM routing field. It controls who owns the relationship for My book filters, dashboard activity, follow-ups, and handoffs. It does not decide where client-seat capacity comes from.

When an agency-owned client-seat pool is live, pooled seats belong to the agency. A Practice Solo advisor can be the primary advisor for a client who uses an available agency pooled seat. The Solo advisor is not "borrowing" another advisor's personal Practice 10 seats; the client is using one seat from the agency pool.

When no agency-owned pool is live, client seats still come from the individual advisor billing model. In that case, a Practice Solo advisor has no included client seats from their own plan, even if they are the primary advisor in the shared CRM.

Alerts and Tasks

Alerts and follow-ups route by agency awareness: you see the clients you are primary on, plus any tasks assigned to you. Unassigned clients stay visible from agency-wide views until someone claims or assigns ownership. A task can be assigned to any active member of that client's agency.

What Stays Separate

Agency membership does not create a separate Agency pricing tier. Each advisor still has a Practice account, and owner-covered advisor billing remains separate from pooled client seats. Owner-covered billing pays for an advisor's Practice access; pooled client seats cover client Builder Pro access.

Related Reading

• What "Connected" Means — the two-consent model your shared clients sit on top of.
• Agency Invitations and Roster Changes
• Agency Team Members