Docupace, the back-office solutions provider and parent company of PreciseFP, is expanding with the acquisition of Hubly, a Vancouver-based workflow management platform designed for client onboarding, account management and tax preparation. According to Docupace on Tuesday, the Canadian solutions provider has experienced higher assets-on-platform growth than competitors, with a five-year growth rate that’s almost double the industry average.
The key to Hubly’s accessibility is its no-code workflow platform, which enables firms to design and manage customized workflows. Hubly currently integrates with Redtail and Wealthbox CRM to ensure client data flows back and forth quickly and securely. David Knoch, Chief Executive Officer at Docupace, spoke to Digital Wealth News ahead of the announcement on the significance of this acquisition four years after the purchase of PreciseFP in 2021 and the strategic investment from Genstar Capital in 2024.
Digital Wealth News: What motivated Docupace to acquire Hubly, and how does it align with your broader strategic goals?
David Knoch: Acquiring Hubly advances our mission to provide a top-of-the-line back-office ecosystem to firms of all sizes across all channels. As we expand the capabilities and connectivity of our client data-gathering solution, PreciseFP, Hubly adds significant process management capabilities to those RIAs and ensemble practices we serve through this compelling workflow platform.
While Docupace remains the optimal solution for the home office of large enterprises, especially with our newly reimagined user experience, Hubly provides an ideal solution for small and medium-sized RIAs, field offices and OSJs to document, manage and streamline work for all team members across all functions, both front-office and back. As we expand the capabilities and connectivity of PreciseFP, Hubly adds significant workflow management capabilities to what we offer the market.
When you take a look at the typical RIA firm that uses Hubly and those that use PreciseFP, they look very much the same. However, there’s only a small amount of overlap. So, we’re really looking forward to introducing the two communities together, it will be like bringing long-lost old friends back together again.
But it’s not just the customer communities. Docupace and Hubly are spiritual cousins in terms of how we view the importance of back-office excellence. We had the opportunity to spend time with Hubly leadership during a company offsite several weeks back. It was clear our new team members share similar skills, energy and passion for making the work our clients do more transparent, automated and easier.
DWN: How can Docupace/PreciseFP users benefit from adopting the capabilities of Hubly and PreciseFP tools, and do they complement each other?
DK: Both PreciseFP and Hubly are focused on taking the mundane, manual activities that occur at the firm level out of the equation through digitization and automation. While PreciseFP is a powerful tool that collects client information and connects it with other essential pieces of the tech stack – financial planning software, CRM or specialty planning tool – Hubly helps firms manage the actions needed to best serve the client.
We see our existing partnerships with CRMs like Redtail, Wealthbox and Salesforce being an immediate area where we can show the power of the three (CRM+Hubly+PreciseFP) can have a dramatic impact on improving efficiency for ensemble RIAs.
There’s also a natural tie-in regarding Docupace. Historically, the Docupace Platform serves the large enterprises or home offices of independent broker-dealers, supersized RIAs, banks and more. Hubly, on the other hand, helps the firm in the field, the one directly serving and advising the client, scale their efforts and enhance the client experience. I can see a time in the future where we partner with a large enterprise to install operational best processes utilizing Hubly.
DWN: Given Hubly’s impressive AUM growth figures, how will Docupace leverage this data to attract new clients?
DK: Workflows are powerful. That’s not new to us of course. This data just shows us what’s possible when you remove inefficiencies from the process. As a firm leader, what if I told you that you could unlock 2x growth not by doing more work, marketing more or hiring more people but by simply taking the work you do today and making it more transparent, automated, predictable and process-driven?
It’s hard to say no to that.
