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CRM migration

Wealthbox to Redtail CRM Migration

What actually moves, what has to be rebuilt, and how to prove the result matches. Wealthbox is The modern advisor CRM that has taken the independent RIA seat; Redtail CRM is The most widely used CRM in the advisor channel, strongest through broker-dealers.

The hard part of this move is not the export. It is the difference in how the two systems think. Wealthbox 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

WealthboxRedtail CRM
Primary recordContactContact
GroupingHousehold, as a first-class recordFamily or account grouping on the contact
Activity historyNotes, tasks, events and email history on the contactNotes, activities and a separate workflow object
DocumentsFiles on the contact or householdAttached to the contact, or in Redtail Imaging
Getting data outCSV export, a documented API, and a migration team that maps the source for you.CSV export per module, or a vendor-assisted extract for full history.
Who administers itNone. An operations associate can run it.None. An operations associate can run it.
Pricing$35 to $65 per user per month billed annually, or $59 to $99 monthly.$39 to $59 per user per month billed annually.
Record models drive the field map below. Where the two rows differ, that line is a decision rather than a mapping.

What breaks

  • Grouping changes: Household, as a first-class record 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. Wealthbox stores it as notes, tasks, events and email history 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 Wealthbox:

  • Wealthbox documents that recurring-task future occurrences cannot be imported from Redtail.
  • Contact Type absorbs the source system's status field, and Deceased or Inactive values also flip the Wealthbox Status field.
  • Servicing and Writing Advisor fields are mapped to Assigned To or a custom contact role, which is a decision someone has to make.

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

ConceptIn WealthboxIn Redtail CRMWhat to watch
Primary recordContactContactSame shape. Mostly a mechanical load.
GroupingHousehold, as a first-class recordFamily or account grouping on the contactThe target groups records differently, so grouping is created rather than copied.
Activity historyNotes, tasks, events and email history on the contactNotes, activities and a separate workflow objectExpect partial fidelity. Types, timestamps and authorship survive; structure often does not.
DocumentsFiles on the contact or householdAttached to the contact, or in Redtail ImagingUsually a separate extract and load from the record data.
Owner and assignmentAssigned user or advisor fieldsAssigned user or team fieldsMap departed staff explicitly. Records assigned to nobody disappear from every view.
Custom fieldsFirm-specific fields added over timeCreated to match, or consciously droppedThe audit here is the work. Undocumented fields that reports depend on are the usual surprise.
Map against fifty real records, including the ugly ones, rather than against the schema. Every remap is a decision with a compliance consequence, so record who made it.

Cost and timeline

PhaseTypical range
Data audit and cleanup$3,000 to $25,000
Migration execution$5,000 to $50,000
Target configurationTwo to six weeks
Ongoing administrationAbsorbed by existing operations staff
Published 2026 ranges. Cleanup and customization discovered mid-project commonly pushes first-year cost 30 to 50 percent past the original estimate.

The five phases

  1. Audit Wealthbox. Count records per object, find duplicates and orphans, and decide what does not come with you. Get that decision signed off before mapping.
  2. Map against real records. Use the table above as the starting point, then walk fifty live records field by field.
  3. Dry run into a Redtail CRM sandbox. Load the full set, not a sample. Sample loads hide the failures that only appear at volume.
  4. Cut over on a quiet window. Freeze writes in Wealthbox, load, repoint every integration, unfreeze. Keep Wealthbox read-only for at least a quarter.
  5. Reconcile. Compare Redtail CRM to Wealthbox 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.

Spend your first two weeks on Wealthbox and your last two weeks on reconciliation. Loading Redtail CRM is the part any vendor can do. Migrations that go wrong almost always shortened one of the two ends.

Where Caddi fits

Caddi does the mechanical half and then keeps doing it. Show it the task once and it reads Wealthbox, 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: Wealthbox and Redtail CRM.

Related migrations

Migration without the manual pass

Move and reconcile Wealthbox into Redtail CRM

Caddi reads Wealthbox, 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 Wealthbox to Redtail CRM?

Audit the Wealthbox 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, a documented API, and a migration team that maps the source for you. Redtail CRM then needs the records loaded in dependency order, with documents as a separate pass.

What does not transfer from Wealthbox to Redtail CRM?

Grouping changes: Household, as a first-class record 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. Wealthbox stores it as notes, tasks, events and email history 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 Wealthbox 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 Wealthbox 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.