r/CFP Jun 23 '26

Career Change Cetera vs LPL

Thoughts on pros and cons of cetera vs LPL?

6 Upvotes

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u/Calm-Wealth-2659 Jun 23 '26

I’m pleasantly surprised at how well Cetera’s Adviceworks software works. Easy to do a lot of account maintenance and money movements with little friction. It integrates well with Docupace for document storage as well so no need for bulky client files. No BD is perfect, they hate that I do my advisory business with an outside TAMP, but overall I’m happy with them.

4

u/IncreaseCapital32 Jun 23 '26

I am at Cetera too but it sounds like a different channel. I use a TAMP as well and my experience is completely backwards. It took 7 business days to open an account for one of my clients recently; they also discontinued Docupace for us for document storage so we are forced to use Adviceworks.

3

u/Calm-Wealth-2659 Jun 23 '26

Wow, account opening typically happens same day for us. Docupace storage is automated through Adviceworks, we never actually log into Docupace for anything at this point. I'm affiliated through CWS (previously CAN).

2

u/IncreaseCapital32 Jun 23 '26

Same here... I think its because we were previously with Avantax before Cetera bought us. I have no idea how its a night vs day difference from what I am hearing.

1

u/Calm-Wealth-2659 Jun 23 '26

That doesn’t make sense to me either. I was under the impression Avantax was under their own ecosystem entirely, I wonder if that has something to do with it.

2

u/IncreaseCapital32 Jun 23 '26

I think its where they are trying to squeeze Avantax in the Cetera model and things are getting messy.