Form ADV
Form ADV is the uniform registration and reporting form that investment advisers file with the SEC and state securities authorities through the IARD system. It has three parts: Part 1 captures structured regulatory data about the firm, Part 2 is the plain-English narrative brochure delivered to clients, and Part 3 is the Form CRS relationship summary.
- Who handles it
- Investment advisers registered with the SEC or with one or more states, and exempt reporting advisers filing a limited subset of Part 1.
- Filed through
- IARD
- Applies to
- SEC-registered RIA, State-registered RIA, Exempt reporting adviser, Dually registered
What the form asks for
- Part 1A — identifying information, form of organization, successions
- Part 1A — advisory business, assets under management, client types and counts
- Part 1A — other business activities and financial industry affiliations
- Part 1A — custody, control persons, and direct owners
- Part 1A — disciplinary history disclosure reporting pages (DRPs)
- Part 1B — additional items required of state-registered advisers
- Part 2A — the narrative brochure (see Form ADV Part 2A)
- Part 2B — brochure supplements for supervised persons
- Part 3 — Form CRS relationship summary
The work behind the filing
Reconcile regulatory AUM against the portfolio system
Regulatory assets under management and the client and account counts reported in Part 1A have to tie back to what the portfolio accounting system actually shows as of the reporting date. That reconciliation is usually done by hand, once a year, under time pressure. Caddi can pull the balances and counts on a schedule, apply the firm's stated methodology consistently, and produce the reconciliation with its source data attached.
Diff this year's answers against last year's filing
Most of the annual amendment is unchanged from the prior year, and the risk sits entirely in the handful of answers that moved. Caddi can assemble a structured diff of the current source data against the prior filing so the CCO reviews a short list of changes rather than re-reading the whole form.
Chase the inputs that live in people's heads
Outside business activities, new affiliations, and disciplinary events are not in any system. They come from attestations. Caddi can run the attestation cycle end to end: send, track, escalate the non-responders, and file the responses to the record.
Questions
What is Form ADV?
Form ADV is the uniform registration and reporting form investment advisers file with the SEC and state securities authorities through IARD. Part 1 is structured regulatory data, Part 2 is the narrative client brochure, and Part 3 is Form CRS.
What data does a Form ADV filing pull from other systems?
Most of it comes from outside compliance. Regulatory assets under management and client and account counts come from the portfolio accounting system, affiliations and control persons from legal and HR records, and disciplinary disclosures from whatever the firm keeps on personnel matters. Assembling those into one consistent set of answers is the part firms do by hand.
What is the difference between an annual amendment and an other-than-annual amendment?
The annual updating amendment is the scheduled, full review of the whole form. An other-than-annual amendment is the one filed during the year when specific information changes. The operational difference is that the first is a known workload you can prepare for and the second arrives unannounced. Timing and scope for both come from the SEC's instructions.
Does Caddi file this form for me?
No. Caddi does not submit filings to IARD, FINRA Gateway, EDGAR, or any regulator, and it is not a substitute for your compliance program or your CCO. Caddi automates the work around the filing: gathering the underlying data out of your portfolio, CRM, and document systems, reconciling it against the prior filing, flagging what changed, and evidencing delivery. A human still reviews and files.
Related forms
The filing is the easy part
Caddi does not file forms. It runs the work around them: pulling the underlying data out of your portfolio, CRM, and document systems, reconciling it against the prior filing, and evidencing delivery. See it run on your own stack.
See the compliance specialistThis page describes what the form is and the work it creates. For requirements, deadlines, and whether any of it applies to your firm, see SEC — Form ADV and instructions.