Recorded, archived and supervised communications for advisory and brokerage offices

Who ZentryVoice Financial is for

ZentryVoice Financial is a cloud phone system for independent registered investment advisers, broker-dealer branch offices and OSJs, and wealth, insurance and tax advisory practices of roughly 2 to 50 people. It gives the office one firm number for calls, client texting, eFax and voicemail, captures each of them as a record with a retention policy, routes written communications into a supervisor review queue, and exports audit trails in the formats examiners ask for.

It is for the advisor whose clients want to text, the branch manager who signs off on correspondence review, and the chief compliance officer who has read the off-channel enforcement orders and would rather give advisors a compliant channel than police personal phones. ZentryVoice works alongside your CRM and your designated archiving vendor rather than replacing them.

The compliance frame: 17a-4, 4511, 3110 and off-channel enforcement

Broker-dealers must keep, under SEC Rule 17a-4(b)(4), “originals of all communications received and copies of all communications sent” relating to the firm’s business as such, for not less than three years, the first two in an easily accessible place. Since the SEC’s October 2022 amendments, Rule 17a-4(f) lets electronic records be kept either in non-rewriteable, non-erasable (WORM) form or in a system with a complete, time-stamped audit trail that can recreate an original record if it is altered or deleted, with automated verification, redundancy and download in human-readable and reasonably usable electronic formats. Registered investment advisers have a parallel books-and-records duty under Advisers Act Rule 204-2.

FINRA Rule 4511 requires members to make and preserve books and records in a format and media that comply with Rule 17a-4, and sets a default retention of at least six years where no period is specified. FINRA Rule 3110(b)(4) requires written procedures for the review of incoming and outgoing written, including electronic, correspondence; Supplementary Material .07 says evidence of review must identify the reviewer, what was reviewed, the date and any action taken, and that merely opening a message is not review. Regulatory Notice 17-18 confirms that text messages used for business must be retainable before the channel is permitted, and that retention depends on content, not the device.

The enforcement record makes the point. On September 27, 2022 the SEC announced that 16 firms would pay more than $1.1 billion for employees’ use of personal devices and messaging apps for business communications between January 2018 and September 2021 that were never preserved; the firms were also charged with failing to reasonably supervise. In August 2023, 11 more firms paid $289 million for communications on iMessage, WhatsApp and Signal, and on August 14, 2024, 26 broker-dealers, investment advisers and dual registrants paid $392.75 million, with reduced penalties for the three that self-reported. The common failure was a compliant channel that advisors did not use because clients texted them somewhere else.

• checkA Recordkeeping & Supervision Addendum, signed at signup, that defines ZentryVoice’s obligations: capture of every call, text, fax and voicemail on firm numbers, retention policies set to your written supervisory procedures, time-stamped audit trails, export to your archiving vendor, and no deletion before the policy period ends.
• checkClient texting from the firm number, on advisors’ own phones as a soft extension, so the channel clients actually use is the one that is captured. Consent and STOP are handled per CTIA’s Messaging Principles and the number is registered for 10DLC.
• checkSupervisor review queues with lexicon flags for the words and phrases your WSPs name, with the reviewer, item, date and action recorded so evidence of review exists in the form Rule 3110.07 describes.
• checkExportable audit trails and records in human-readable and electronic formats for examinations, plus an immutable per-firm audit log of every configuration change, export and support session.
• checkEncryption on every leg (SIP over TLS with SRTP media on the Telnyx network; TLS for texting, fax and the apps), encrypted storage, SOC 2 Type II controls and passkeys for ZentryVoice operators.
• checkDirect 911 dialing, front-desk notification and a validated dispatchable address per number under Kari’s Law and RAY BAUM’S Act, and STIR/SHAKEN A-attestation on outbound calls.

How it works at the front desk and on the advisor’s phone

A day on ZentryVoice Financial.

1. 1A client calls the firm numberReception answers from the ring group or the call waits in a queue; the AI summary records the subject while the call is live and the call is tagged to the client record.
2. 2The advisor is out and the client textsThe text reaches the advisor’s soft extension on their phone, shows the firm number, and is captured as a record with its timestamp and both parties, not left on a personal line.
3. 3A trade instruction arrives by textLexicon flags route the message into the supervisor’s review queue; the reviewer, date and action are logged as evidence of review.
4. 4A custodian faxes account paperworkThe T.38 eFax is stored as a PDF, tagged to the client and routed to operations, with the fax record retained under the same policy as correspondence.
5. 5A voicemail is left after hoursIt is transcribed, prioritized and retained; the callback is assigned and visible on the dashboard.
6. 6Month endSupervisory review is complete in the queue; records export to your archiving vendor in human-readable and electronic formats; the audit trail shows every export.
7. 7An examination requestPull calls, texts, faxes and review evidence for the period requested, with time-stamped audit trails, in one export.

ZentryVoice vs a regular advisory office phone setup

Most offices run a desk-phone system, an archiving vendor for email, a texting app that may or may not feed it, and advisors’ personal phones. Side by side:

Why a compliant channel beats a policy against texting

The firms in the SEC’s off-channel orders had policies against texting on personal devices. The failure was not the policy but the gap between what clients wanted, a text, and what the firm offered. The orders describe “pervasive and longstanding” use of unapproved channels by personnel at every level, including supervisors, and cite failures to reasonably supervise alongside the recordkeeping violations.

A firm number that advisors carry on their own phones, where texting is captured whether or not anyone remembers the policy, closes that gap. Self-reporting earned reduced penalties in the 2024 orders; having the records in the first place is the better outcome.

infoZentryVoice captures and retains communications and exports them to your archiving system; it does not replace your written supervisory procedures, your designated archive or your compliance counsel.

Pricing for financial firms

ZentryVoice Financial is $20 per seat per month. A seat is an extension with voicemail transcription, AI call summaries, live reporting, call capture with retention policies and soft extensions on desktop, iOS, Android and web. Captured client texting is $15 per month per firm; Compliance eFax is $15 per month per firm. Desk phones are $119 each, optional and pre-provisioned.

Support is a flat plan by office size. Technical Support (priority human line, about a 2-minute wait) is $15, $20 or $30 per month for up to 4, 8 or 16 extensions; Technical Support + Advanced Warranty adds next-day replacement of desk phones for $30, $35 or $40. The Recordkeeping & Supervision Addendum, review queues, audit trails, SOC 2 Type II controls, E911 and STIR/SHAKEN are included at every size.

• check30-day free trial, month-to-month, cancel anytime, free port-out of your numbers.
• checkSoft extensions live in about 15 minutes; desk phones in 2–3 business days; number ports complete in 5–10 business days with a temporary number forwarding from minute one.
• checkVoice core availability target of 99.999% on the Telnyx carrier network.

Switching an advisory office without a gap in the record

Numbers port in 5–10 business days while a temporary number forwards from day one, and capture begins with the first call on the temporary number, so there is no unrecorded gap. Retention policies and lexicon lists are set before the port completes. Desk phones ship pre-mapped through Grandstream GDMS zero-touch provisioning. If you leave, port-out is free and your records export in full before anything is deleted under the Addendum.