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Total Wealth Advisors is a registered investment advisor based in Hopkins, Minnesota, managing just over $100 million in client assets across approximately 75 households. With Paul McCoy serving as both CEO and CCO, compliance isn't an afterthought - it's central to how the firm operates.
The Challenge: Mobile Capture Gaps and an Audit on the Horizon
iMessage is a known weak point across the industry. Most vendors either don't support it or do so poorly, and the SEC has zero tolerance for firms that aren't capturing client communications across every active channel. "Most advisors I speak to don't have text capture set up properly - it's the one piece missing from many advisors' compliance programmes," Paul said.
The consequences are practical as much as regulatory. Many advisors quietly ignore texts because they can't archive them, cutting off clients from their preferred channel or leaving those conversations unarchived. For Paul, neither was acceptable. "We don't want to put up roadblocks - it doesn't work in this world." With an SEC examination approaching, the stakes for getting this right were clear.
The Solution: Audit-Ready by Design
Total Wealth Advisors had been running on MirrorWeb for some time, and when two newer additions to the platform - Trusted Contacts and Sentinel AI - came along, Paul adopted both. When the exam arrived, that foundation meant he wasn't scrambling.
MirrorWeb's native iMessage capture closed that gap directly - removing the problem at the point of capture rather than forcing firms to work around it.
Trusted Contacts added a layer of control on top. Personal phones carry a mix of client conversations and personal messages, and a compliance programme needs to separate them cleanly. "Being able to go into the platform and designate who's a client and who isn't, and separate those out, was a big factor for us," Paul said. Business contacts are captured and archived; personal conversations are left alone.
Sentinel AI handled the review burden, filtering signal from noise and surfacing what actually needs attention. For Paul, it came back to something simple: "You're making it easy for us to conduct business - and we don't want to spend all this unnecessary time fumbling through a compliance platform, especially when what we're doing is too critical to get wrong."
The Impact: A 64-Question Audit, Zero Follow-Ups
In February 2026, Total Wealth Advisors completed their SEC regulatory examination - 64 questions covering everything across their communications archiving and supervision program. Paul pulled the documentation from MirrorWeb and the examiners had nothing to come back on. "Not a single follow-up question," Paul said. "That tells you the information we provided was not just sufficient but more than adequate for what they were looking for." He described the outcome as the compliance equivalent of "the Good Housekeeping seal of approval."
The confidence going into the exam came from knowing the records were in order. "Being able to access data and pull reports quickly gave me a lot more confidence."
Sentinel AI has also had a lasting effect on day-to-day review. "Sentinel has cut the time we spend on that review by around 60 to 70 percent. It lets us cut through all the noise quickly. It's been a godsend, honestly."
And on mobile communications, the compliance anxiety is simply gone. "Now I don't have to worry - it's all captured and I know I'm covered." Paul raises MirrorWeb regularly with a group of advisors he speaks to, and his verdict is unambiguous: "I tell them it's been absolutely fantastic."
