For all those breakaway brokers who have gone off on their own, Laserfiche is offering a $1,500 document management and workflow system that can be used to automate formerly paper-based tasks, such as the storage and retrieval of customer records and accounts payable.

The system, Avante, is built on Microsoft technology and works with Word, Excel and SharePoint applications. It scans documents, translates document images into machine-readable text, provides a search tool to find specific documents, and it provides workflow — a way of automatically passing a document from one person to the next to complete a task.

Laserfiche says 1,000 small investment advisory firms use its document management technology today, but that represents only one in ten.