The Compliance Guide for Registered Firms

Compliance in regulated finance is not one thing; it is dozens of interlocking obligations, and a gap in any of them can become a finding. This guide gathers everything we have written into a single map, ordered from registration through the ongoing program, so a firm can see the whole terrain at once.

It is written from the examiner's side of the table, by people who ran the exams, and it is general information rather than legal advice. Greenridge L&C Advisors is a compliance consultancy, not a law firm; for legal questions, involve counsel.

Start at registration if you are building a firm, or jump to the program area you need to shore up.

• What Is Form PF?. A confidential filing that lets regulators watch private funds for risks to the wider system.
• State vs. SEC Adviser Registration. Where you register depends mostly on how much you manage, and it changes who examines you.
• What Is Form CRS?. A two-page relationship summary that has to say the hard things simply.
• What Is Form ADV?. The registration and disclosure document at the center of every investment adviser's regulatory life.
• RIA vs. Broker-Dealer, Explained. Both help people with investments. One owes a fiduciary duty; the other historically owed a different standard.
• How to Register as an Investment Adviser. State or SEC, ADV Parts 1 and 2, and the questions to settle before you file.

• Insider Trading Controls at a Firm. Firms are required to build walls against the misuse of information they inevitably come to hold.
• How Advisory Fees Are Disclosed. Clients are entitled to understand what they pay and every way the firm makes money from them.
• Political Contributions and Pay-to-Play. A single campaign contribution can, under the rules, cost a firm the right to be paid by a government client.
• Gifts and Entertainment Policies. Small courtesies are fine. The rules exist for the point where a gift becomes an inducement.
• Outside Business Activities and Conflicts. What the firm's people do outside the firm can create conflicts the firm has to manage.
• Cybersecurity and Protecting Client Data. Regulators increasingly treat a data breach as a compliance failure, not just bad luck.
• Wrap Fee Programs, Explained. One bundled fee for advice and trading, and a set of disclosures that keep it honest.
• Testimonials and Endorsements Under the Marketing Rule. Client praise is now allowed in advertising, on conditions that trip up firms who treat it casually.
• The Code of Ethics for RIAs. A required document that turns a firm's duty to clients into rules its own people must follow.
• Books and Records for Advisers. If you cannot produce it, for the regulator it did not happen.
• What Is Regulation Best Interest?. The standard that raised what a broker owes a retail customer, without quite making them a fiduciary.
• The Custody Rule for RIAs. Holding client assets, or even the ability to move them, triggers some of the strictest safeguards in adviser regulation.
• The SEC Marketing Rule, Explained. The rule that finally allowed testimonials, and set exacting conditions for using them.

• The Annual Compliance Review. Once a year, the rule requires a firm to test whether its own program actually works.
• What Is a Mock Regulatory Exam?. The best way to find your gaps is to have someone find them before the regulator does.
• Building a Compliance Program From Scratch. A new registered firm needs a real program on day one, not a template it grows into.
• The Form ADV Annual Amendment. Once a year, every registered adviser has to prove its disclosure is still true.
• Business Continuity Planning for Advisers. A plan for the day the office, the systems, or a key person is suddenly unavailable.
• A Compliance Calendar for a Small RIA. Most compliance failures are not decisions. They are deadlines nobody was watching.

• Preparing for Your First SEC Exam. The examiner is not trying to trap you. They are trying to close a set of questions. Help them.

• Suspicious Activity Reports, Explained. When something looks wrong, the law requires you to say so, quietly and on a deadline.
• KYC and the Customer Identification Program. Knowing who your customer actually is is the foundation everything else in AML stands on.

• Blue Sky Laws, Explained. State securities laws that add a layer of filings on top of federal rules, one state at a time.
• Regulation D and Private Placements. How companies raise money privately without registering the offering, and the rules that make it legal.

• What a Chief Compliance Officer Does. Every registered firm needs one. The role is far more than a title on an org chart.

• AML for Small Firms. A small firm does not get a smaller obligation. It gets less room to fake one.
• Written Supervisory Procedures That Hold Up. The problem is rarely that a firm has no WSPs. It is that the WSPs describe a firm that does not exist.
• When the Deficiency Letter Arrives. The response becomes part of your record. Do not improvise it.

• Money Transmitter Licensing, Explained. Move other people's money and you may need a license in nearly every state you touch.

Compliance rewards preparation. Build the program before the letter arrives.