A complex suitability report can take the best part of a day to write by hand. Even a routine annual review typically runs to 45–90 minutes once the information is gathered, structured and turned into clear, compliant prose. Across a full book of clients, that is where advice firms lose their time — and where new business waits.
AI cannot make the advice decisions for you, but it can compress almost everything around them. This walkthrough sets out, step by step, how to write a suitability report faster with AI — using Ammonite’s Planbot as the worked example — while keeping the adviser’s judgement and the all-important compliance check exactly where they belong.
Step 1: Set up your template once (Quick Build)
Speed on individual reports starts with getting your template right once. Planbot’s Quick Build turns an existing Word template — or even a written prompt — into a working AI template in a couple of minutes, extracting the variable fields, styling, images and tables automatically. Reports are then assembled from reusable components the firm owns, so when something like a tax-year figure changes, you edit it once and every template using that section updates. In other words, your house style and compliance-approved wording are encoded once, and super users can build out the firm’s template library themselves rather than waiting on a vendor.
Step 2: Bring in the source material
With the template ready, gather the inputs you already have — the fact find, the meeting transcription, cashflow output, provider illustrations and research — and upload them. Planbot ingests transcripts, PDFs, Excel, CSV and Word files. Crucially, it takes unstructured data such as a raw meeting transcript, filters out the irrelevant parts, and uses what remains to populate the report. As co-founder Rob Harradine puts it, gathering information and structuring it are two different problems — and structuring is where AI genuinely helps.
Step 3: Tell the system what the report needs to cover
Next, specify what you are producing — a new-client suitability report or an annual review — and which elements it should include. The template populates in seconds to minutes, pulling the relevant data into the right sections rather than making you copy it across from other systems.
Step 4: Let calculations and tables build themselves
Suitability reports are rarely all prose. Templated calculations draw in the relevant figures and output formatted results and tables directly into the report text, so numbers are presented consistently instead of being rekeyed by hand — a common source of both delay and error.
Step 5: Check the formatting from the outset
A draft that arrives looking wrong costs time to fix. Planbot generates clear formatting from the start — headings, page breaks, sections, numbering and a logical flow — so the document already resembles your firm’s own output and needs far less reformatting before it is client-ready.
Step 6: Interrogate and refine with the chatbot
This is where the review becomes interactive. Planbot’s voice-enabled and text-based chatbot lets you ask questions of the report and make live, sweeping edits as you go — reorder sections, change wording, adjust tone — with changes flowing through the document rather than being made line by line.
Step 7: Apply the human check (the step you never skip)
Everything so far has been about removing manual effort. This step is different, and it is non-negotiable. AI can make mistakes, so a qualified person reviews and edits the draft before it goes anywhere: is the advice suitable, does the report genuinely reflect this client, and does it meet the FCA’s requirements while reading clearly?
That means checking the output against the minimum contents set out in COBS 9 — the client’s demands and needs, why the recommendation is suitable, and any possible disadvantages — and against the Consumer Duty‘s expectation that communications are clear and support good outcomes. The Personal Finance Society’s suitability report writing guide is a useful checklist for readability and tone. Responsibility for the report stays with the firm and a named individual, whatever produced the draft.
Step 8: Export in your firm’s style
Finally, export the finished report as a polished PDF or Word document in the firm’s own brand and style — not a generic AI layout — ready for sign-off and the client.
The payoff
Follow this process and the mechanical work — Steps 2 to 6 and 8 — collapses from hours into minutes. It is how Ammonite describes a complex report falling from around six hours to under one, and an annual review dropping to minutes; the firm states that Planbot at least halves the time to produce suitability reports and annual reviews. That is enough to clear review backlogs and, as its founders have argued, to double or triple an adviser’s effective capacity. Ammonite has also pointed to firms such as Simpson Wood using Planbot to work through an annual review backlog.
The point worth holding onto is where the time is saved. AI takes the drafting, formatting and rekeying; the adviser or paraplanner keeps the judgement and the final check. The report gets faster; the responsibility does not move.
A note on data
Because suitability reports contain sensitive client information, how a tool handles data matters as much as how fast it works. On this, Ammonite’s position is that Planbot stores no client data and never uses it to train AI models, and runs on UK-based Google Cloud — and firms should expect clear answers to those questions from any AI supplier, using the ICO’s guidance on AI and data protection as a benchmark.
Planbot was built by people who have done the work: co-founders Caroline Duff, a Chartered Financial Planner, and Rob Harradine, a Chartered Member of the CISI and former adviser, who between them have written thousands of suitability reports. You can see how Planbot works, read about the team behind it, or explore more in Ammonite’s Insights.
Frequently asked questions
How much faster can AI write a suitability report?
The gains come from automating the manual steps — structuring source data, drafting, formatting, building tables and rekeying figures. Ammonite states that Planbot at least halves report and annual review times, describing complex reports falling from around six hours to under one, with the paraplanner reviewing and editing rather than starting from scratch.
Do you still need a paraplanner or adviser to check the report?
Yes — always. AI produces the draft; a qualified professional reviews and edits it and remains responsible for whether the advice is suitable and the report compliant. Skipping that check is the one shortcut you should never take.
What do you need to get started?
Your own template. With Planbot, Quick Build turns an existing Word template or a written prompt into a working AI template in a couple of minutes, so you can begin drafting from your firm’s established structure rather than rebuilding it.
Is client data safe when using AI for report writing?
It depends on the tool, so ask where data is processed, whether it is stored, and whether it is used to train external models. Planbot is designed not to store client data or use it to train AI models, and runs on UK-based infrastructure.
Next Step
Writing suitability reports takes time, especially when your team needs to maintain consistent wording and formatting.
Ammonite AI offers Planbot to help financial advice firms create documents around their existing processes.
If you are exploring AI for paraplanners, see how it could support your team’s day-to-day work. You can also explore suitability report writing software for a closer look at report creation, or discover how paraplanning software fits into a wider financial planning workflow.
Take a look at the pages most relevant to your firm and book a demo to see Planbot in action.
