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What FINRA compliant data means: the short answer
FINRA compliant data is business data a FINRA member firm makes, keeps and can produce the way FINRA and SEC rules require. Three rules do most of the work:
- FINRA Rule 4511 tells member firms to make and preserve the books and records FINRA and the Exchange Act require, keep any record with no stated period for at least six years, and store them in a format that complies with SEC Rule 17a-4.
- SEC Rule 17a-4(b)(4) sets three years for communications relating to the firm's business, including inter-office memoranda, with the first two years in an easily accessible place.
- SEC Rule 17a-4(f) lets firms keep those records electronically only on a system with a complete time-stamped audit trail or in a non-rewriteable, non-erasable (WORM) format.
No FINRA rule approves a software product, so "FINRA compliant" describes how a firm handles its data, not a badge a tool can carry. VoicePrivate Finance Edition is dictation software, $197 a year or $24.99 a month, that recognizes speech on your Mac or Windows computer. It is not a compliance archive; it keeps dictation audio off vendor servers so the text you dictate lands only in the systems your firm already archives.
What does FINRA stand for, and who does FINRA regulate?
FINRA stands for the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. FINRA's own description calls it "a self-regulatory organization for member broker-dealers that is responsible under federal law for supervising our member firms." It is a private not-for-profit organization registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the SEC oversees it.
That scope matters for FINRA compliant data. FINRA rules bind broker-dealer member firms and the registered representatives who work for them. A standalone registered investment adviser answers to the SEC or a state regulator under different recordkeeping rules, covered further down this page. This guide keeps the two rule sets apart because their recordkeeping duties differ.
The FINRA and SEC rules that define compliant data
FINRA compliant data is not defined in one place. It is the sum of several FINRA and SEC rules, each covering a different part of the record's life: making it, keeping it, storing it, reviewing it and reporting from it. The table sets out the ones that come up most often, with the retention period where the rule states one.
| Rule | What it requires of your data | How long |
|---|---|---|
| FINRA Rule 4511 | Make and preserve the books and records required by FINRA rules, the Exchange Act and Exchange Act rules; store them in a format and media that complies with SEC Rule 17a-4 | At least six years for any FINRA record with no period specified elsewhere |
| SEC Rule 17a-4(b)(4) | Keep originals of communications received and copies of communications sent relating to the firm's business as such, including inter-office memoranda and communications | Three years, the first two in an easily accessible place |
| SEC Rule 17a-4(f)(2) | Electronic records must sit on a system with a complete time-stamped audit trail of every change and deletion, or be kept exclusively in a non-rewriteable, non-erasable (WORM) format; the system must also verify its storage processes automatically, produce downloadable copies, and include either a backup recordkeeping system or other redundancy capabilities designed to ensure access to the records | For the life of the underlying retention period |
| FINRA Rule 3110(b)(4) | Written procedures for review of incoming and outgoing written, including electronic, correspondence and internal communications, by a registered principal, evidenced in writing | Ongoing supervision duty |
| FINRA Rule 4530 | Report listed events, such as violations, certain customer complaints and regulatory actions, to FINRA; report statistical customer complaint data each quarter | Events within 30 calendar days; complaint statistics by the 15th of the month after each quarter |
| SEC Regulation S-P (amended 16 May 2024) | An incident response program for unauthorized access to customer information, notice to affected customers, and oversight of service providers that handle customer information | Customer notice within 30 days of discovery; compliance required from 3 December 2025 for larger entities and 3 June 2026 for smaller ones |
Sources for the FINRA compliant data rules table: rule text of FINRA Rule 4511, FINRA Rule 3110 and FINRA Rule 4530 on finra.org; 17 CFR 240.17a-4; the SEC's May 2024 Regulation S-P release and FINRA's compliance date reminder. All checked 29 September 2026. Some vendor pages say Rule 17a-4 means six years for everything; the rule text sets three years for business communications and leaves the six year default to FINRA Rule 4511 and the specific records listed in 17a-4(a). This is a summary for orientation, not legal advice, and your firm's compliance team decides how each rule applies to you.
FINRA compliant data vs SEC requirements vs investment adviser recordkeeping
FINRA and the SEC overlap on data, and a firm's registration decides which rulebook applies. A broker-dealer that is a FINRA member follows FINRA Rule 4511 and SEC Rule 17a-4 together, because 4511 points straight back to 17a-4 for storage format. A registered investment adviser that is not a broker-dealer does not follow FINRA rules at all for its advisory records; it follows Advisers Act Rule 204-2.
Rule 204-2 is not a copy of 17a-4. Under 17 CFR 275.204-2(e)(1), adviser records are kept "for a period of not less than five years from the end of the fiscal year during which the last entry was made on such record, the first two years in an appropriate office of the investment adviser." Rule 204-2(a)(7) covers written communications about recommendations or advice, fund and securities movements, orders, and performance. Its electronic storage section asks for safeguards against loss, alteration or destruction, restricted access and separately stored duplicates, rather than naming WORM or an audit trail.
A dual registrant, an adviser that also has a broker-dealer affiliation, usually has to satisfy both. The same client meeting note dictated with VoicePrivate Finance Edition can therefore fall under a five year adviser rule and a three or six year broker-dealer rule at once, which is why the destination system, not the dictation tool, is where retention gets set.
What is FINRA data?
"FINRA data" means two different things, and searchers mix them up. The first is FINRA Data, FINRA's public data portal, which FINRA says "provides centralized access to the abundance of data FINRA makes available to the public, media, researchers and member firms." It carries fixed income trade data, equity and options data, mutual fund data, firm and registered representative data, and the quarterly SEC Rule 606(a) order routing reports.
The second meaning is the data a member firm is required to keep and hand to FINRA on request: the books, records and communications in the rules table above. When a compliance officer asks whether data is "FINRA compliant," they mean this second kind. VoicePrivate Finance Edition only ever touches the second kind, and only at the moment you speak a note into it.
Who needs to report to FINRA?
Every FINRA member firm reports to FINRA. Under FINRA Rule 4530, "each member shall promptly report to FINRA" listed events involving the firm or its associated persons, and must do so "not later than 30 calendar days" after it knows or should have known of the event. The events include violations of securities laws, written customer complaints involving theft or misappropriation, regulatory proceedings, disciplinary actions, certain criminal charges, and civil settlements above set dollar thresholds. Firms also file statistical and summary information on written customer complaints by the 15th day of the month after each calendar quarter.
Registered representatives report through their member firm rather than on their own, and a standalone investment adviser reports to the SEC or its state instead. The link to FINRA compliant data is practical: a firm can only report a complaint accurately if the note recording it was kept, and a note you dictated with VoicePrivate Finance Edition is only as findable as the CRM or document it was dictated into.
Is there such a thing as a FINRA compliant product?
FINRA rules place duties on member firms, not on software. None of the rules above describes a product approval, so when a vendor calls its tool "FINRA compliant" it is claiming the tool can help a firm meet its own duties. The useful question for any vendor is which duty, and how: does it capture records into a 17a-4(f) system, does it feed 3110 review, and what customer information does it hold as a service provider under Regulation S-P.
FINRA has said the same about AI tools. Regulatory Notice 24-09, published 27 June 2024, states that FINRA intends its rules "to be technologically neutral" and that they apply "when member firms use AI, including Gen AI or similar technologies, in the course of their business, just as they apply when member firms use any other technology or tool," including tools built by a third party and features embedded in existing third-party products. A dictation or transcription tool is inside that frame. VoicePrivate does not describe VoicePrivate Finance Edition as FINRA compliant for exactly this reason: compliance is the firm's result, and a dictation tool is one input to it.
Dictation and FINRA compliant data: the audio and the text are two different problems
A dictation tool creates two pieces of data: the audio of you speaking and the text it produces. With a cloud dictation or transcription service, both pass through the vendor's servers. With VoicePrivate Finance Edition, speech is recognized on your own computer and the audio is not uploaded to VoicePrivate, so only the text leaves the dictation step, and it goes wherever your cursor is.
| FINRA compliant data question | Cloud dictation or transcription service | VoicePrivate Finance Edition |
|---|---|---|
| Where client audio is processed | On the vendor's servers | On your Mac or Windows computer; audio is not uploaded to VoicePrivate |
| Copies outside your firm's systems | Audio and transcripts can sit with the vendor under its retention policy | No dictation audio or transcript text is sent to VoicePrivate's servers |
| Regulation S-P service provider review | The vendor handles customer information, so it belongs in your service provider oversight | No customer information reaches VoicePrivate through dictation; licensing, downloads and updates use the internet |
| 17a-4(f) or 204-2 archiving | Depends on whether the vendor's copy is itself a record your firm must capture | Not a compliance archive; the text lands in your CRM, email or document, where your existing archive captures it |
| 3110(b)(4) review | Outside your review workflow unless captured | Not a review tool; the text is reviewed wherever your firm already reviews that channel |
| Works with the network off | No | Yes, after installation and the model download |
Two honest limits on VoicePrivate Finance Edition. It keeps a local history of your dictations on your computer, so your firm should decide whether that history counts as a record or should be cleared under your written supervisory procedures. On the Team plan with iCloud sync turned on, that history is also synced through iCloud, encrypted on the device before upload. And it does nothing for retention by itself: if you dictate a client note into a local text file that no archive captures, the note is no more compliant than if you had typed it there. VoicePrivate's walkthrough of cloud transcription risk for financial advisors covers the Regulation S-P side in more depth, and the cost comparison of finance transcription services and private dictation puts numbers on the per-minute alternative.
A FINRA compliant data checklist before your firm adds a dictation tool
Use this checklist to test any dictation tool, VoicePrivate Finance Edition included, against the FINRA and SEC rules in the table above. Have a compliance officer and an advisor review each step against your firm's systems and procedures.
Map where the text lands. List the apps advisors will dictate into: CRM notes, email, Word, the portfolio system. Every one of them should already be a captured channel.
Confirm the archive captures it. Check that notes entered into those apps reach your 17a-4(f) system, or your 204-2 storage if you are an investment adviser, with the right retention period.
Decide whether dictated notes are records. Rule 17a-4(b)(4) reaches inter-office memoranda, and 204-2(a)(7) reaches written communications about advice. Write the answer into your procedures instead of leaving each advisor to guess.
Ask where the audio goes. If the tool uploads audio or transcripts, add the vendor to your Regulation S-P service provider oversight and get its retention terms in writing. If it runs on the device, as VoicePrivate Finance Edition does, record that too.
Cover local copies. Set a policy for any history the tool keeps on the advisor's computer, and for device encryption and access on that computer.
Update your written supervisory procedures. Name the approved tool and the channels it may be used in, so a 3110 review and an exam both find the same answer.
Is VoicePrivate Finance Edition worth it for a FINRA member firm?
VoicePrivate Finance Edition is worth it when advisors already document in captured systems and the open question is the dictation step itself. It keeps client audio off third-party servers, types into any CRM or document that accepts keyboard input, knows financial terms such as FINRA, ERISA, RMD and Form ADV out of the box, and runs on Mac and Windows. The full feature list is on the Finance Edition features page, and VoicePrivate's ranking of voice-to-text tools for financial advisors sets it beside Dragon, Otter and Apple Dictation.
VoicePrivate Finance Edition is the wrong tool if what your firm needs is capture, surveillance or archiving of communications: it does not store records in WORM format, record calls, or feed a supervision queue. For that you need an archiving vendor. It also does not transcribe meetings with a bot; it turns your own speech into text as you talk.
Pricing for VoicePrivate Finance Edition, from the live Finance Edition pricing page: $197 a year or $24.99 a month for one advisor, with a 7-day free trial on individual plans. A card is required, $0 is due today, and the plan bills after day seven unless you cancel. The Team plan covers 2 to 5 floating seats at $177 per seat per year; it is billed at purchase and does not include the trial. More on how VoicePrivate handles client data is on the VoicePrivate Finance Edition overview.
FINRA compliant data: frequently asked questions
What does FINRA compliant mean?
FINRA compliant means a FINRA member firm makes, keeps, supervises and reports its business records the way FINRA and SEC rules require. For data, that is mainly FINRA Rule 4511, which sets a six year default and points to SEC Rule 17a-4 for storage, and Rule 17a-4(f), which requires an audit-trail system or non-rewriteable, non-erasable storage for electronic records. It describes a firm's practice, not a certification a software product can hold.
What is FINRA data?
FINRA Data is FINRA's public data portal at finra.org/finra-data, with fixed income trade data, equity, options and mutual fund data, firm and registered representative data, and SEC Rule 606(a) order routing reports. In compliance conversations, FINRA data usually means something else: the books, records and communications a member firm must keep and produce for FINRA.
What does FINRA stand for?
FINRA stands for the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. It is a self-regulatory organization that supervises member broker-dealers and their registered representatives, and it operates under the oversight of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Who needs to report to FINRA?
FINRA member firms report to FINRA. Rule 4530 requires a member to report listed events, such as securities law violations, certain written customer complaints, regulatory and disciplinary actions and some civil settlements, within 30 calendar days, and to file quarterly customer complaint statistics by the 15th of the following month. Registered representatives report through their firm; standalone investment advisers report to the SEC or their state.
How long do FINRA records have to be kept?
It depends on the record. FINRA Rule 4511 sets at least six years for FINRA records with no other stated period. SEC Rule 17a-4(b)(4) sets three years for business communications, the first two in an easily accessible place. Registered investment advisers follow Advisers Act Rule 204-2 instead: five years from the end of the fiscal year of the last entry, the first two in an appropriate office.
What is the difference between FINRA and SEC recordkeeping rules?
The SEC writes the federal recordkeeping rules, such as Rule 17a-4 for broker-dealers and Rule 204-2 for investment advisers. FINRA is a self-regulatory organization overseen by the SEC, and its Rule 4511 requires member firms to keep the records FINRA and the Exchange Act require and to store them in a format that meets Rule 17a-4. A broker-dealer follows both; an adviser that is not a broker-dealer follows the SEC or state rules.
Is VoicePrivate FINRA compliant?
VoicePrivate does not claim to be FINRA compliant, because FINRA rules set duties for member firms and do not certify software. What VoicePrivate Finance Edition does is recognize speech on your computer, so dictation audio is not uploaded to VoicePrivate. It is not a compliance archive: the text you dictate lands in your CRM, email or document, and your firm's own archiving and supervision cover it there.
Does dictating client notes create a FINRA record?
It can. SEC Rule 17a-4(b)(4) covers communications relating to the firm's business, including inter-office memoranda, and FINRA Rule 4511 adds a six year default for other required records. Whether a dictated meeting note is one of those records is your compliance team's call, so dictate into a system your archive already captures and write the decision into your supervisory procedures.
How much does VoicePrivate Finance Edition cost?
VoicePrivate Finance Edition is $197 a year or $24.99 a month for an individual, with a 7-day free trial that requires a card, charges $0 today and bills after day seven unless you cancel. The Team plan for 2 to 5 seats is $177 per seat per year, billed at purchase, with no trial.
Keep client audio off vendor servers with VoicePrivate Finance Edition
VoicePrivate Finance Edition recognizes speech on your Mac or Windows computer and types into the systems your firm already archives. $197 a year or $24.99 a month, 7-day free trial on individual plans, card required, $0 today.