COMPLIANCE

Built to make your CCO's job easier.
Not to replace it.

Inktrust is not a compliance system of record. We don’t approve your communications and we don’t issue determinations. What we do is hand your compliance officer a draft that’s already been screened against the rules they care about — with citations, suggested rewrites, and a complete audit trail of what changed and why.

Our compliance posture

“Inktrust assists compliance review. It does not replace it. The licensed professional whose name appears on the byline is responsible for the content.”

This language appears in our terms of service, our marketing materials, and our customer agreements without exception.

THREE PRINCIPLES, NO EXCEPTIONS

A compliance vendor that doesn't make you a worse compliance officer.

Principle 1

Pre-screen. Don't approve.

Inktrust flags issues against published rules. Approval — the legal act of clearing a communication for publication — remains with the human reviewer who has the regulatory standing to make it.

Principle 2

Cite the rule. Show the phrase.

Every flag includes the rule citation, the offending phrase from the article, and a suggested rewrite. Reviewers see the reasoning, not a black-box “compliance score.”

Principle 3

Override is a feature.

A compliance officer who knows their firm and their context will sometimes correctly disagree with a flag. Override with a justification, log it to the audit trail, move on. We don’t pretend to know your firm better than you do.

RULES COVERED IN THE BASELINE

The regulations we screen against. By name, by section, by check.

Our baseline rule library covers FINRA and SEC requirements applicable to communications with the public, advertising, and recordkeeping. Updated as guidance evolves; you see the change log in your dashboard.

FINRARule 2210 — Communications with the Public

The principal communications rule for broker-dealers. Inktrust screens against the content standards in 2210(d) including fair-and-balanced presentation, prohibited claims, and required disclosures.

2210(d)(1)(B) — Misleading or unwarranted claims
2210(d)(1)(D) — Predictions and projections
2210(d)(3) — Prohibited use of testimonials
2210(d)(7) — Required disclosures
SECRule 206(4)-1 — Marketing Rule

The investment-adviser marketing rule, in effect since November 2022. Inktrust screens against the seven general prohibitions and the testimonial, endorsement, and performance presentation requirements.

(a) Seven general prohibitions on advertisements
(b) Testimonial and endorsement disclosures
(d) Hypothetical performance restrictions
(e) Net-of-fees performance presentation
SECRule 17a-4 — Records Retention

Records of communications must be preserved in non-rewritable, non-erasable format for defined periods. Inktrust's audit trail is designed for this.

Immutable artifact storage with timestamps
Reviewer identity preserved per artifact
Export to CSV or PDF on demand
Configurable retention windows
FINRARule 2111 — Suitability

While suitability applies primarily to recommendations rather than general communications, marketing content can stray into recommendation territory. Inktrust flags language that could constitute or imply a recommendation.

Implied recommendation language
Investor-class assumptions
One-size-fits-all claims

Additional rules screened where applicable: FINRA Rule 3110 (supervision), MSRB Rule G-21 (advertising for municipal securities professionals), state-specific advertising rules, and your firm’s specific written supervisory procedures when configured as part of the broker-dealer overlay.

THE BROKER-DEALER OVERLAY

Your BD has rules that aren't in any rulebook. We screen for those too.

Every broker-dealer accumulates a private list of language they’ve flagged before, topics they restrict, and disclosures they require. Inktrust loads your BD’s overlay alongside the FINRA and SEC baseline so the second pass catches what the first pass wouldn’t.

Overlay rules are authored during onboarding, often in collaboration with your CCO or BD compliance liaison. They live in a versioned rule library you can edit at any time.

When your BD updates its written supervisory procedures or marketing guidance, you update the overlay. The change log is timestamped and exportable. Future articles screen against the new rules; past articles can be re-screened on demand.

LPL Financial overlay
14 rules · last updated Apr 14, 2026
No “guaranteed” language
Catches “guaranteed,” “promise,” “ensure” outside specifically annuity-product contexts.
Required risk disclosure on options
Any mention of options strategies must be accompanied by the standardized risk disclosure block.
No specific stock or ETF tickers
Articles may discuss asset classes and strategies but not name specific securities.
“Independent” use restrictions
“Independent advisor” requires the BD-approved disclosure footer.
+ 10 more rules
Custom-authored during onboarding.
THE WORKFLOW YOUR CCO SEES

From draft to approval, exactly what reviewers want.

Most marketing tools land in a CCO’s inbox as an unreviewed draft. Inktrust delivers a draft with the work already done — flags raised, citations attached, suggested rewrites included, and a queue purpose-built for review.

Step 1

Article enters review queue

Pre-screened, with the article, the flag list, and the audit trail all visible from one screen. No hunting through email attachments.

Step 2

Reviewer sees flags inline

Each flag is anchored to its phrase in the article. Click the flag, see the rule, see the suggested rewrite, see the advisor’s prior override (if any).

Step 3

Approve, request edits, or reject

Three actions, each logged. Comments to the advisor route back through the system. Approval is the legal act; reviewer identity is captured.

Step 4

Audit trail closes

The complete record — generation, flags, advisor actions, reviewer actions, approval, publish event — is sealed and exportable.

“What I cared about was whether the compliance officer would still have to rewrite half of it. The answer was no. The flags were specific, the citations were correct, and the override log was exactly what an examiner would want to see.”
D. H.
Founding member CCO · Multi-advisor RIA, Mountain West

Founding member quote, anonymized at the firm’s request during the patent-pending period. Composite of feedback from beta conversations.

SECURITY AND DATA HANDLING

The questions your IT and procurement teams ask.

Data residency

All firm data — discovery recordings, brand profiles, articles, audit logs — is stored in U.S.-based infrastructure. No cross-border data transfer. SOC 2 Type II audit on the roadmap for 2026.

Encryption

In transit: TLS 1.3. At rest: AES-256. Discovery recordings are encrypted with per-firm keys; voice profiles are derived artifacts, not raw audio storage.

Access control

Role-based access for advisor, reviewer, and CCO roles. SSO via SAML or OAuth on the agency tier. All access events logged.

Vendor due diligence

A complete vendor due-diligence package is available on request, including infrastructure overview, sub-processor list, incident-response plan, and standard MSA.

Data retention and deletion

Audit-trail retention configurable to your firm’s WSP. On termination, full export delivered within 30 days; complete deletion within 90 days unless retention requirements extend that.

Incident notification

Material incident notification within 72 hours per industry practice. Sub-processor list maintained in your dashboard with change notifications.

COMPLIANCE OFFICER FAQ

The questions that come up on the CCO walkthrough.

No. Inktrust raises flags against published rules and provides citations. The compliance determination — whether to approve, edit, or reject — is made by the licensed reviewer in your firm. We never display “approved” or “compliant” as a system-generated status.

Inktrust’s audit trail is designed to support examinations under FINRA and SEC retention rules. Whether a specific examiner accepts a specific record is a determination they make. We provide complete export of all artifacts in CSV and PDF formats. Multiple founding-member firms have walked the audit trail through their CCOs and outside compliance counsel.

Our baseline rule library is maintained by our compliance content team and updated when published guidance or rule amendments take effect. Updates appear in your dashboard with a change log. Articles published before an update aren’t retroactively flagged unless you choose to re-screen.

Yes. The broker-dealer overlay is customer-authored during onboarding and editable on demand. You can add rules, modify thresholds, or disable specific baseline checks if your firm has a written supervisory rationale for doing so. Disabled checks are logged.

Article generation uses commercial LLMs under contractual data-processing terms that prohibit training on customer content. No firm data is used to train any model. The vendor list is part of the due-diligence package and changes are notified in advance.

Yes — the agency tier includes direct support for procurement reviews. We provide our standard MSA, vendor due-diligence package, and a dedicated point of contact for security questions. Most reviews close within 30–45 days; some firms close faster.

A 45-minute CCO walkthrough is the most useful thing we offer.

We walk your compliance officer through the rule library, the override workflow, the audit trail, and the security model. They leave with a complete picture of what changes about their job — and what doesn’t.