Connected vs Seated: The Complete Guide

The Three Connection States

Every contact in your CRM sits in one of three states, shown as a badge on the client profile:

Connected and Seated aren't mutually exclusive — most active clients are both. Not Connected is the starting state and applies to contacts you haven't yet brought into Policy Stack, including imported leads and prospects who never signed up. Each state also has a Pending sub-state when an invitation is in flight (described below).

The Core Distinction

Pending Model

Connection requests and seat invitations don't take effect the moment you send them. Both sit in a Pending state until the client accepts (or declines) from their own account. Pending invitations show in your dashboard with an expiration date — you can resend, revoke, or set a custom expiration when you send.

A client who hasn't been invited at all shows as Not Connected in your CRM — the third state alongside Connected and Seated. That's the state for contacts you imported or added manually but haven't reached out to yet: they have no Policy Stack account linked to your practice, no pending invite, and no relationship beyond your private notes. Sending an invitation moves them to Pending; their accepting it moves them to Connected (or Connected + Seated if you also assigned a seat).

Two Independent Consents

This is the most important mental model. Connecting an account and sharing data are two separate decisions the client makes:

1. Connection consent — "Yes, I'll link my Policy Stack account to your practice." This alone gives you nothing beyond the link itself.
2. Data-sharing consent — "Yes, you can see my policies / deployments / goals / documents." Scoped category by category. The client can grant all, some, or none.

A client may accept the connection and decline data-sharing (so you can see them in your client list but see no data). Or accept the connection without enabling data-sharing today, then enable it later. Or never enable it. Both consents are revocable independently from the client's Settings → Advisor Access page.

Connected: Free Data Sharing (When the Client Allows It)

A Connected client has linked their Policy Stack account to your practice. Whether you actually see their data depends on the second consent — data-sharing — which they control category by category:

• Seated clients — accepting the seat gives you edit access, including documents.
• Connected clients — the client decides what you can see, including policies, loans, and documents.

New connections default to read/write access. The client can downgrade to read-only or choose no data access from their dashboard or Settings → Advisor Access.

Either party can disconnect at any time. Disconnecting and revoking a seat are separate actions — see "Can a Client Be Both?" below.

Seated: Advisor-Paid Access

When you give a client a seat, you cover the cost of their Builder Pro subscription. The client gets full Builder Pro — unlimited policies, AI Insights, document extraction, five live strategic tools, and access to additional tools as they launch — at zero cost to them.

• You're billed as part of your advisor plan (included up to your tier's seat allowance, then $16/seat/mo overflow on Practice 10 and above)
• The client's account runs at Builder Pro level for as long as the seat is active
• If the seat ends, the client keeps Builder Pro during a 7-day transition window before continuing on Starter unless self-pay or another seat takes over — see Seat Expiration and What the Client Sees
• The client does not see a Policy Stack charge on their card while seated

Can a Client Be Both?

Yes — and it's the most common configuration. A typical flow:

1. You invite the client. They accept the connection.
2. They opt into data-sharing for the categories they're comfortable with.
3. You assign them a seat (or you invite them directly to a seat in one step).

Each piece is independent. If you later revoke the seat, the connection remains and they drop to Starter (or their own paid plan). If they disconnect, your visibility ends but the seat — and their Builder Pro access — can continue.

How Practices Use Each State

• Connected only: the client already pays for Builder Pro, or prefers to manage their own subscription. Your practice has no billing responsibility.
• Connected and seated: Builder Pro is part of how the practice serves the client, and billing stays with the practice.
• Seated, then disconnected: the client's access continues while the seat is active, and your visibility ends.

Each state describes who pays and who can see what. Which fits a client is the practice's decision.

Who Can Do What

Advisors in an agency share one client pool; see Working as an Agency.

Team seats, which cover your staff, are separate from client seats. See Team Seats vs. Client Seats vs. Agency Billing.

What Your Clients See

The client sees a banner in their account indicating which advisor they're connected to and (if seated) that their Builder Pro access is covered by you. They never see your billing details, your other clients, or anything outside their own account.

See The Client Perspective for the full client-side walkthrough.

Policy Stack is a tracking and visualization tool. It does not provide financial advice, recommendations, or opinions on what you should do with your banking system.

Policy Stack is independent of and is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by Infinite Banking Concepts, LLC or the Nelson Nash Institute.