Why small issues create policy change in financial planning

At Melo, we’ve seen it more times than we can count:

Something goes wrong, once.

• A meeting invite isn’t sent to a client.
• An email went out with last year’s report attached.
• Wrong fund switched for a client with the same name.

Minimal harm done. But it rattled someone at the firm.

So what happens?

A new step gets added to the process.
Another check. Another form. Another piece of admin that everyone has to do, every time, forever.

All because five years ago, one thing slipped through the cracks. And now the whole firm is paying the price, daily.

Let’s make it real.

Four years ago, a firm sent out a review pack to the wrong client… same name, different person.

The client called to say they’d received someone else’s paperwork. They were actually OK about the whole thing and a £500 good will gesture to both affected clients closed it off.

To stop this happening again, a new step was added to the process:

“Annual review front-sheet to be completed and put on file, then client details double checked by a second team member before the pack was sent.”

Sounds harmless right? A good idea even?

But now every annual review, for every client, is taking an extra 10 minutes.
at 1000 annual reviews a year = 167 extra hours of team time.

At £40/hour, that’s £6,680 every year.

Over four years, you’ve spent £26,720 in wages, protecting against a mistake that never happened again.

This is not a good trade.

Here’s the principle:

Don’t build processes to fix exceptional cases.

Build them to optimise for flow, clarity and consistency.

If an issue happens repeatedly, fine.

If it’s high risk, fine.

But if it’s a freak one-off that cost £1,000 and a bruised ego?
Let it go.

Because every extra check you add has a compounding cost:

• Slower service
• Increased admin burden
• Less headspace for your team
• Worse still, over time, no one will remember why the extra step even exists. It just becomes part of “the way we do things.”

And now your team’s working at 80% efficiency, fixing problems that haven’t existed since 2019.

Our advice?

Audit your processes regularly.
Ask: “What is this process for?”
And “Is the problem still worth solving?”

If the answer is no, cut it.

You’ll get leaner, faster and your team will thank you for removing pointless friction from their day.

Want a business that runs faster and feels lighter?

I’m ready to Get in Touch