The hard part of this move is not the export. It is the difference in how the two systems think. SmartOffice works in contact records; Redtail CRM works in contact records. Get that mapping wrong and every report built on it afterwards is wrong too. This page covers the field map, what does not survive, what it costs, and the reconciliation step that decides whether anyone trusts Redtail CRM in month two.
The two systems, side by side
| SmartOffice | Redtail CRM | |
|---|---|---|
| Primary record | Contact | Contact |
| Grouping | Household and policy relationships | Family or account grouping on the contact |
| Activity history | Activities and notes on the contact | Notes, activities and a separate workflow object |
| Documents | Attached to the contact | Attached to the contact, or in Redtail Imaging |
| Getting data out | CSV export, with vendor assistance for policy data. | CSV export per module, or a vendor-assisted extract for full history. |
| Who administers it | Ops staff. | None. An operations associate can run it. |
| Pricing | Custom quoted. | $39 to $59 per user per month billed annually. |
What breaks
- Grouping changes: Household and policy relationships becomes Family or account grouping on the contact. Somebody has to define what a group means in the target before load.
- Activity history moves with partial fidelity. SmartOffice stores it as activities and notes on the contact; Redtail CRM expects notes, activities and a separate workflow object.
- Automations, reports, dashboards and permissions never transfer. Budget them as build work.
- Every connected system has to be repointed and retested: the DMS, billing, e-signature and the shared inbox.
Known hazards on each side
Leaving SmartOffice:
- Policy and commission data has no home in most advisor CRMs, so decide early where it goes.
- Long-lived records carry duplicate contacts created before dedupe rules existed.
- Attachment volume is usually larger than firms expect.
Arriving in Redtail CRM:
- Status, Servicing Advisor and Writing Advisor are used inconsistently between firms, so they get remapped rather than copied.
- Recurring activity criteria do not translate cleanly to other systems, and future occurrences generally cannot be recreated.
- Imaging attachments are a separate extract from the contact data.
The field map
| Concept | In SmartOffice | In Redtail CRM | What to watch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Primary record | Contact | Contact | Same shape. Mostly a mechanical load. |
| Grouping | Household and policy relationships | Family or account grouping on the contact | The target groups records differently, so grouping is created rather than copied. |
| Activity history | Activities and notes on the contact | Notes, activities and a separate workflow object | Expect partial fidelity. Types, timestamps and authorship survive; structure often does not. |
| Documents | Attached to the contact | Attached to the contact, or in Redtail Imaging | Usually a separate extract and load from the record data. |
| Owner and assignment | Assigned user or advisor fields | Assigned user or team fields | Map departed staff explicitly. Records assigned to nobody disappear from every view. |
| Custom fields | Firm-specific fields added over time | Created to match, or consciously dropped | The audit here is the work. Undocumented fields that reports depend on are the usual surprise. |
Cost and timeline
| Phase | Typical range |
|---|---|
| Data audit and cleanup | $3,000 to $25,000 |
| Migration execution | $5,000 to $50,000 |
| Target configuration | Two to six weeks |
| Ongoing administration | Absorbed by existing operations staff |
The five phases
- Audit SmartOffice. Count records per object, find duplicates and orphans, and decide what does not come with you. Get that decision signed off before mapping.
- Map against real records. Use the table above as the starting point, then walk fifty live records field by field.
- Dry run into a Redtail CRM sandbox. Load the full set, not a sample. Sample loads hide the failures that only appear at volume.
- Cut over on a quiet window. Freeze writes in SmartOffice, load, repoint every integration, unfreeze. Keep SmartOffice read-only for at least a quarter.
- Reconcile. Compare Redtail CRM to SmartOffice record by record and field by field, and produce a variance report.
The full version of this plan, with the failure evidence behind it, is in the CRM migration playbook.
The compliance clause
The Advisers Act books-and-records rule (17 CFR 275.204-2) survives the migration. A household that lands without its history is a records gap, not a cosmetic issue. Keep the field map, the variance report and the mapping sign-offs with the records, because the decisions you made in phase two are part of the record too.
Where Caddi fits
Caddi does the mechanical half and then keeps doing it. Show it the task once and it reads SmartOffice, applies your field map, loads Redtail CRM, and then compares both sides record by record and hands back a variance report you can act on. Because it runs over APIs across your stack, the same agent covers the parts a migration tool ignores: documents filed to the right contact with the right metadata, and the post-cutover hygiene that otherwise becomes someone's Monday.
Caddi automation for these systems: Redtail CRM.
Related migrations
- Redtail CRM to Salesforce
- Redtail CRM to Salesforce Financial Services Cloud
- Redtail CRM to Wealthbox
- Salesforce Financial Services Cloud to Redtail CRM
- Salesforce to Redtail CRM
- Wealthbox to Redtail CRM
Migration without the manual pass
Move and reconcile SmartOffice into Redtail CRM
Caddi reads SmartOffice, applies your field map, loads Redtail CRM, then compares both sides record by record and reports the variances.
Frequently asked questions
How do you migrate from SmartOffice to Redtail CRM?
Audit the SmartOffice data first, then map fields against fifty real records rather than against the schema, dry run the full set into a Redtail CRM sandbox, cut over on a quiet window with writes frozen, and reconcile record by record afterwards. CSV export, with vendor assistance for policy data. Redtail CRM then needs the records loaded in dependency order, with documents as a separate pass.
What does not transfer from SmartOffice to Redtail CRM?
Grouping changes: Household and policy relationships becomes Family or account grouping on the contact. Somebody has to define what a group means in the target before load. Activity history moves with partial fidelity. SmartOffice stores it as activities and notes on the contact; Redtail CRM expects notes, activities and a separate workflow object. Automations, reports, dashboards and permissions never transfer. Budget them as build work.
How long does a SmartOffice to Redtail CRM migration take?
Six to twelve weeks is realistic for a clean mid-size move, and three to six months where Redtail CRM is being implemented at the same time. Firms with years of history in SmartOffice should budget several weeks of cleanup before any data moves.
Who administers Redtail CRM afterwards?
None. An operations associate can run it. That is one of the reasons this move is lighter than a platform migration.
What are the compliance implications for advisory firms?
The Advisers Act books-and-records rule (17 CFR 275.204-2) survives the migration. A gap in client history is a finding, so keep the field map, the variance report and the sign-offs where an examiner can find them.