Automating the Salesforce + Orion + DocuSign stack at an RIA
For operations leaders at multi-advisor RIAs running Salesforce, Orion and DocuSign: the seven workflows that cross all three, what the native integrations already cover, and what still runs through a person.
On a Salesforce + Orion + DocuSign stack, the native integrations move data: Orion Connect syncs households and accounts into Salesforce, and DocuSign for Salesforce sends envelopes from a record and files the signed copy back. What they do not do is the work between the three: deciding which custodian form a registration needs, filling it, noticing when Orion and Salesforce disagree, and opening the task that fixes it.
That in-between work is where a multi-advisor RIA's new-accounts, service and billing desks spend their day. Below are the seven workflows that cross this stack most often, each with its trigger, the steps across tools, and what a person still reviews.
Who runs this stack
This is the stack of a multi-advisor RIA that has outgrown a simple CRM. Salesforce is usually Financial Services Cloud or a Salesforce-based package built for advisors, such as XLR8, and someone owns it: an in-house admin or a Salesforce consultant on retainer. Orion is the portfolio accounting, billing and reporting system. DocuSign is the signature layer, often through DocuSign for Salesforce.
The operations team is big enough to be split into desks: new accounts, service requests, billing, sometimes a reporting analyst. The firm often grows by recruiting advisors or acquiring smaller practices, which means onboarding arrives in waves and every wave tests how well Salesforce and Orion agree about who a household is.
| Layer | Typical choice |
|---|---|
| CRM | Salesforce Financial Services Cloud, or a Salesforce-based advisor CRM such as XLR8 |
| Portfolio, billing, reporting | Orion |
| Signature | DocuSign, usually sent from Salesforce |
| Ops shape | Specialized desks: new accounts, service, billing |
| Custodians | Often more than one, such as Schwab and Fidelity |
| Growth pattern | Advisor recruiting and tuck-in acquisitions |
The pressure on this stack is volume. When a recruited advisor brings 150 households, the new-accounts desk fills the same custodian forms hundreds of times, and every household has to land in Salesforce and Orion the same way or the first billing run finds it. So the workflows that matter most here are onboarding and billing, with account maintenance behind them.
The workflows that cross Salesforce + Orion + DocuSign
Each workflow below lists what starts it, the steps across tools, and what a person still reviews. The steps are what Caddi runs when a firm automates it; the review is what stays with your team.
New household to signed custodian paperwork
Trigger: An opportunity reaches your onboarding stage in Salesforce.
- Check the household and each member for the fields the paperwork needs (registration type, trusted contact, beneficiaries, employment, fee schedule) and send the advisor a list of what is missing.
- Pick the forms for each account: the custodian's new account application for the registration, the transfer form if assets are moving, and your advisory agreement.
- Fill every form from the Salesforce household record, so a name or address is typed by nobody.
- Send one DocuSign envelope in the signing order your firm uses.
- When the envelope completes, file the signed PDFs to the Salesforce household, move the onboarding stage, and open a task for the new-accounts desk to submit in the custodian portal.
What a person still does: The new-accounts desk checks registrations and the fee schedule before the envelope goes out, and does the custodian portal submission.
Orion account setup when account numbers arrive
Trigger: The custodian's account numbers are entered on the Salesforce financial accounts, or arrive by email.
- Prepare the Orion account setup from the Salesforce record: household assignment, registration, fee schedule and model.
- After the custodian feed brings the account into Orion, compare what Orion shows with what Salesforce says.
- Open a Salesforce task for each mismatch, such as an account in the wrong household or with no fee schedule, with both values side by side.
What a person still does: Billing or the new-accounts desk confirms the Orion setup before the first billing run touches the account.
Billing exceptions to CRM tasks
Trigger: A set number of days before each billing run.
- Pull the period's billing data from Orion.
- Check the patterns that cause bad bills: accounts with no fee schedule, billing groups that do not match the Salesforce household, accounts funded or closed mid-period, and fee schedules that differ from the signed agreement on file.
- Create one Salesforce task per exception, assigned to the right service associate, with the Orion values and the agreement attached.
- Recheck open exceptions the day before the run and send the billing lead what is still open.
What a person still does: The billing lead decides every fix and approves the run. Caddi does not approve bills.
Recruited advisor move-in
Trigger: A recruited advisor's household list lands as a spreadsheet.
- Create or match each household in Salesforce, flagging likely duplicates for a person to merge.
- Fill the transfer paperwork (ACAT or the custodian's transfer form) and new account applications for each account from the spreadsheet and the prior statements.
- Send envelopes in batches the advisor can manage, and track each household's status on a Salesforce report.
- File signed paperwork and open the custodian submission tasks as each household completes.
What a person still does: Someone compares every registration against the prior custodian statement before it goes to the client. Rejected transfers are almost always a registration mismatch.
Address change across accounts
Trigger: A client emails a new address, or a service case is opened in Salesforce.
- Log the request on the Salesforce contact and hold it until identity is verified under your procedure.
- Fill the custodian's account maintenance form for every account the client holds there.
- Send for signature, file the signed form, and update the Salesforce contact.
- Open a follow-up task to confirm the new address has reached Orion through the custodian feed.
What a person still does: A person verifies the request under your identity procedures before anything is sent. Address changes are a common fraud pattern; ask your CCO what your policy requires.
Beneficiary update after a life event
Trigger: A meeting note in Salesforce mentions a marriage, birth or death, or the client asks.
- Open a service case and list the client's accounts and current beneficiaries from Salesforce.
- Fill the custodian's beneficiary designation form for each account.
- Send for signature, file the signed forms, and update the beneficiary fields in Salesforce.
- Open a task to confirm the custodian has processed each form.
What a person still does: The advisor confirms the designations with the client. Designations are the client's decision.
Quarterly review prep
Trigger: Client reviews scheduled in Salesforce for the next two weeks.
- Pull each household's Orion reports.
- Add open Salesforce tasks, recent service cases and the last meeting's notes.
- File the prep pack to the household and send the advisor a link the day before.
What a person still does: The advisor reads it before the meeting.
Where to start
Start with new household to signed paperwork. It has the most volume, a clear trigger in Salesforce, a right answer for every field, and a person already reviewing the output before it goes to the client. Billing exceptions are the second pick, because the cost of a missed one shows up on a client's bill.
What the native integrations cover, and what they leave
Use the vendors' own integrations first. They are maintained by the vendors and they handle the data sync. The table is what each vendor says its integration does, read on the vendor's own pages on September 29, 2026, and the work it leaves for a person.
| Between | What the native integration covers | What it leaves |
|---|---|---|
| Orion and Salesforce | Orion Connect for Financial Services Cloud is Orion's own Salesforce package. Orion describes it as syncing household and financial account data into Salesforce, with contextual links into Orion reports and single sign-on. Source: Orion Connect for Financial Services Cloud (Salesforce AppExchange). | The sync moves data between the records. It does not decide what should happen when Salesforce and Orion disagree, open the task that fixes it, or do the paperwork around a new account. |
| DocuSign and Salesforce | Docusign eSignature for Salesforce sends envelopes from a Salesforce record, with recipients and documents added manually, from a template or from the record, and saves the completed document back to that record. Document writeback can update text and picklist fields. Source: Docusign eSignature for Salesforce overview (Docusign Support). | Choosing the right custodian form for each registration and filling it with each account's details is still a person's job, as are the follow-up tasks after signing. |
| Orion and DocuSign | Orion's advisor portal has its own new account workflow with DocuSign. Its Dynamic New Account Opening, announced July 27, 2026, launched with Goldman Sachs Custody Solutions, with more custodians planned later in 2026. Source: Orion: Dynamic New Account Opening announcement, July 27, 2026. | If a household starts in Salesforce, or its custodian is not in Orion's flow yet, the team re-keys the same data into forms. Check which custodians Orion supports for your firm today. |
Tools in this stack
Caddi connects to each of these:
- Salesforce: CRM of record: households, opportunities, service cases, tasks
- Orion: Portfolio accounting, billing and reporting
- DocuSign: Signature on custodian forms and advisory agreements
- Box: Document storage, where firms keep signed paperwork outside Salesforce
- Microsoft Outlook: Client requests and advisor notices
Often around this stack, and not Caddi connections:
- Schwab, Fidelity, Pershing: Caddi does not connect to custodians. It fills the custodian's PDF forms from the CRM record, sends them for signature through DocuSign and logs the result back to the CRM. Submitting in the custodian portal stays with your team.
- XLR8 and other Salesforce-based CRMs: These run inside your Salesforce org. Which of their custom objects an agent reads and writes is something to confirm against your own org on a demo.
- eMoney, MoneyGuide: Common planning tools on this stack. Not Caddi connections today.
Where Caddi fits, and where it does not
Caddi is the layer that runs the work between these tools. Discover finds the repetitive work in the tools your team already uses. Caddi Automate builds each workflow: someone on your team screen-shares the process or describes it in chat, and changes it in plain English as the work changes. Govern gives the firm one view of the work done by AI and by people, with every run logged. AI builds it, verified code runs it, and any model step inside a run is scoped, logged, and reviewable.
Across customers, 99% of agent runs complete successfully, and it takes 45 minutes on average to build the first agent. What Caddi does not do on this stack:
- Connect to Schwab, Fidelity, Pershing or any custodian. It fills their paperwork; the portal stays with your team.
- Replace Orion's billing engine or your Salesforce admin. It works the exceptions around them.
- Approve a bill, a trade or a money movement. Those stay with a person.
Related reading
- The RIA operations tech stack, by workflow
- Salesforce for financial advisors
- How to auto-fill custodian forms
- Breakaway advisor transition checklist
- Custodian account opening forms
- Automating the Wealthbox + Black Diamond + DocuSign stack
- Automating the Practifi + Addepar + Box stack
- Automating the Salesforce + Tamarac + DocuSign stack
More for RIA operations leaders
- The Wealth Advisory COO's Guide to AI
- What a Director of Operations at an RIA owns
- The RIA operations tech stack, by workflow
- RIA acquisition integration checklist
- Client repapering without the NIGO
- Onboarding a breakaway advisor team
Caddi connects to the systems an RIA back office runs on: Salesforce, Wealthbox, Practifi, Orion, Black Diamond, Tamarac, Addepar, DocuSign, Jump, Zocks. See how it runs client onboarding and the operational side of RIA compliance, or the RIA operations overview.
Caddi
See how Caddi AI Agents can fill custodian paperwork from Salesforce and turn Orion billing exceptions into tasks
Frequently asked questions
Does Orion integrate with Salesforce?
Yes. Orion Connect for Financial Services Cloud is Orion's own Salesforce package, listed on the Salesforce AppExchange. Orion describes it as syncing household and financial account data into Salesforce with contextual links into Orion reports and single sign-on. It moves data between the two systems. Deciding what to do when they disagree, and the paperwork around a new account, are still operations work.
Can DocuSign send custodian forms from Salesforce?
Docusign eSignature for Salesforce sends envelopes from any Salesforce record, pulls recipients from the record, and saves the signed document back to it. What it does not do on its own is pick the right custodian form for each registration or fill each account's details into it. That is the step an automation layer such as Caddi adds before the envelope is sent.
What should an RIA on Salesforce and Orion automate first?
Start with new household to signed paperwork. It has the most volume, a clear trigger when the opportunity reaches onboarding, and a right answer for every field. The new-accounts desk already reviews the paperwork before it goes to the client, so the review step exists. Billing exceptions are the second pick, because a missed exception shows up on a client's bill.
Does Caddi connect to Schwab or Fidelity?
No. Caddi does not connect to any custodian. It fills the custodian's PDF forms, such as new account applications, transfer forms and beneficiary designations, from the Salesforce household record, sends them through DocuSign, and logs the signed copies back to Salesforce. Submitting in the custodian portal stays with your team, and Orion still receives custodian data through its own feeds.
How does Caddi handle billing exceptions in Orion?
Before each billing run, Caddi pulls the period's billing data from Orion and checks it against Salesforce and the signed agreements on file: missing fee schedules, household mismatches, accounts funded or closed mid-period. It opens one Salesforce task per exception with the evidence attached. The billing lead decides every fix and approves the run; every Caddi run is logged for review.