Cutting through the chaos to help advisers take back control of their tech | Nick Ryan and David Mills, Pilot Financial Systems

Frustrated by clunky, disconnected systems, advisers Nick Ryan and David Mills decided to build the solution they wished they’d always had. With the creation of Pilot Financial Systems, they’re on a mission to save time, boost compliance, and open up access to advice for more clients, all while keeping independence front and centre. They have set themselves a challenging set of goals but are clearly thriving, so we caught up with them on our popular weekly podcast, IFA Talk, to discuss technology, time and taking back control.

If you work in financial advice, chances are you’ve had one of those days of juggling multiple systems that don’t talk to each other, rekeying the same data again and again, and wondering how on earth you’re supposed to spend more time with clients when admin keeps piling up.

It’s a frustration Nick Ryan and David Mills know all too well. Both practising advisers they’ve lived through the pain of clunky, fragmented tech and decided to do something about it. The result is Pilot Financial Systems, a practice management tool built from the “coal face” of advice.

Nick, Pilot’s CEO, explains: “I am a financial advisor and have been for 22 years, as well as being a business owner for about 15 years of that. I started a business from nothing, basically a laptop in a garage, looking after about 120 clients. Then about three years ago, Dave and I reached the end of our tether with our frustrations around technology issues, so we got together now, here we are with Pilot.”

David, Pilot’s Chairman, says the motivation came from years of dealing with systems that simply weren’t built for advisers: “Predominantly, I think a lot of the technology out there has been produced by technology companies that aren’t actually practising advisors, so they don’t understand the pain points we have. Tech companies are either slow to take up on the changing needs of the industry and advisers, or they just don’t do it the way we need it.”

What’s gone wrong with advice tech?

For David, the problem boils down to two things: systems not built with advisers in mind, and a lack of integration between different tools. This leads to duplication, GDPR headaches, and slow, cumbersome processes.

“You get clients needing to change something as simple as an address, and then you need to ask yourself, have you changed that in all of the seven systems you’re using? It’s just a very slow and cumbersome process unnecessarily.”

And that inefficiency doesn’t just frustrate advisers, it limits who they can serve. “It is a great concern to me that you have these people unable to access financial advice because of the cost and time involved. In my ideal world, I’d like to see that anyone in the UK, regardless of their level of assets, has some access to advice via a financial advisory firm.”

The cost of wasted time

Nick’s own research into his firm’s processes found that around 70% of adviser time was spent on tasks that could, and should, be handled by technology. “Realistically, you should get a case down to roughly a third of the amount of time it took previously when you use Pilot. One of our testers ran a case through, and it took 22 minutes. I couldn’t do that currently on the existing tech that I had.”

The time saved isn’t just about efficiency; it directly links to tackling the advice gap. “If we can run three or four small cases through in the morning, the cost of that advice drops drastically, and the access for those clients is much, much better.”

David adds that compliance is a key part of the picture: “No point doing cases quicker if you’re not meeting requirements too, right?”

Independence and avoiding bias

One of Pilot’s big selling points is its ownership structure. Nick and David have deliberately kept it independent, free from product provider influence.

David explains: “If we were part-owned by a company, perhaps there would be less scope for us to retain that complete independence. We want to avoid any potential bias, so whether you’re restricted or independent, you have the ability to research the whole market, without any potential implication that anything’s being excluded or put to the top of a search.”

That doesn’t mean they’re working in isolation, far from it. Pilot collaborates widely with providers to gather product data, costs, features, target market analysis and more. The difference is that they’re not charging providers to appear on their system. “We want to approach it from the other angle. We want to make it so that an advisor using our system knows we’re not influenced in any way in terms of the product we’re distributing via Pilot.”

Closing the advice gap

Both Nick and David are clearly passionate about making advice accessible to more people, especially those with smaller investment sums who often fall outside a firm’s commercial viability.

Nick says: “Efficiency breeds cost savings that will allow those firms to deal with more clients, that otherwise would not be commercially viable for an IFA firm to deal with.”

David agrees that while it’s not a magic wand, the economics are simple: “If we make things quicker, easier and cheaper to do, more people have access to it , and that can only be a good thing for everybody.”

Looking five years ahead

When asked what they’d like to see change in the next five years, David says: “Ultimately, having a lower barrier to entry for clients… to basically allow firms to take on more clients at a lower entry point.”

For Nick, it’s about freeing up time for what really matters: “My value to the clients is either the advice process, or being the person they ring up and ask when they’ve got some concerns, so I can help them plan a way around.”

It’s a reminder that good financial advice isn’t just about products or processes, it’s about relationships, reassurance, and being there when clients need you.

Conclusion

In a profession where time is often the scarcest resource, solutions like Pilot could be a game-changer. By tackling inefficiency at its source, keeping independence front and centre, and focusing on expanding access to advice, Nick and David aren’t just building software; they’re trying to reshape how advice is delivered.

If that means more people getting the advice they need, and advisers spending less time fighting their tech, that can only be good news.

Keep your eyes peeled for the full podcast episode on our website, which is coming soon: https://ifamagazine.com/podcasts/.

Nick Ryan (Left) and David Mills (Right), Founders of Pilot Financial Systems.