CallNote vs Filenote.ai at a glance
| Feature | CallNote | Filenote.ai |
|---|---|---|
| How it gets the conversation | Receives a transcript that already exists: paste, .vtt/.txt upload, Email-in, Dialpad, Aircall, or a dictated voice memo | You press Record in Teams or Zoom. Filenote.ai retrieves the recording and "pulls the meeting audio" to create the outputs |
| Needs a recording | No. Never records, never joins as a bot, never stores call audio | Yes. The recording is stored in your own Teams or Zoom environment |
| In-person meetings | Dictate a voice memo after the meeting | Start a Teams or Zoom meeting on your phone or laptop and press Record |
| Phone calls | Yes. Dialpad and Aircall transcripts arrive automatically | Not covered on their site. The workflow is built on Teams and Zoom |
| Turnaround | About two minutes once the transcript is in | Their FAQ says recordings are retrieved overnight and file notes are emailed to you |
| Outputs | Structured file note. PDF export | File notes, client summary email, full transcript, engagement letters, mind maps. PRO adds ROA, strategy paper, advice flowchart, paraplanner request and fact find data sheet |
| Note format | Paste one of your past notes and we build a matching template. Custom templates on every plan | Specialised templates for Reviews, Discoveries, SOAs and Strategy sessions. Custom templates listed under PRO |
| Locking the record | Publish: SHA-256 checksum, immutable, append-only amendments, full audit log | Not described on their site. Notes arrive by email or are saved to SharePoint or OneDrive |
| Where notes go | HubSpot, Notion, Slack, Zapier, PDF. No native Xplan or AdviserLogic integration | Your inbox, SharePoint or OneDrive. No Xplan or AdviserLogic integration named on their site |
| Security statements | Hosted in Sydney (AWS ap-southeast-2), encrypted, not used to train AI | SOC 2 Type II certified. States it does not retain client data or recordings, and that data processing is in-country |
| Built for | Australian client-facing professionals, including financial advisers, mortgage brokers and law firms | Financial advisers only |
| Pricing (AUD) | Solo $149/month. Team $99 per seat/month | Standard $139 per user/month. PRO $249 per user/month. Excluding GST. Enterprise for 7+ advisers by quote |
| Free trial | 14 days, no credit card | 21 days |
Which one to choose
When Filenote.ai is the better choice
- Your client meetings already run on Teams or Zoom and you are comfortable recording them. Filenote.ai's whole workflow is pressing Record, and their FAQ says IT setup takes no more than 20 minutes.
- You want more than the file note. Filenote.ai also produces client summary emails, engagement letters and client mind maps, and the PRO plan adds a Word ROA, strategy paper with peer review, advice flowchart, paraplanner request and fact find data sheet. CallNote writes the file note and stops there.
- You want notes saved straight to SharePoint or OneDrive. Filenote.ai delivers to your inbox or to those two. CallNote does not have a SharePoint or OneDrive connection.
- You want a vendor with SOC 2 Type II certification on the page for your licensee. Filenote.ai states it. CallNote does not claim a SOC 2 certification.
- You want an adviser-only product with a track record. Their site says more than 1,000 financial advisers use it and it offers support staff access at no extra cost.
- You want a longer trial. Filenote.ai offers 21 days against CallNote's 14.
When CallNote is the better choice
- Your licensee or your clients are not comfortable with meetings being recorded for a note tool. CallNote never records and never touches a recording. It only sees the transcript you give it.
- A lot of your client contact is by phone. Dialpad and Aircall send each call transcript to CallNote automatically. Filenote.ai's workflow is built around Teams and Zoom meetings.
- You want the note quickly. CallNote produces the draft in about two minutes. Filenote.ai's FAQ says recordings are retrieved overnight.
- You want your own file note format without moving to a higher plan. Paste one of your past notes and CallNote builds the template. Filenote.ai lists custom templates under PRO at $249 per user.
- You want a sealed record. Publish applies a SHA-256 checksum, makes the note immutable, and logs any amendment as an append-only entry.
- You run a team and the per-seat cost matters. CallNote Team is $99 per seat a month, against $139 or $249 per user.
- Your business covers more than advice. CallNote also has templates for NCCP/mortgage and legal work, so one tool covers an advice and broking group.
If you are looking for a Filenote.ai alternative, here is the direct answer. Filenote.ai is an adviser-only tool that works from a Teams or Zoom recording and returns a file note plus a set of advice documents. CallNote is an Australian tool that never records, works from a transcript you already have (including phone calls), writes the note in your own format and seals it. The right one depends on how you meet clients and how your licensee feels about recordings.
We make CallNote. Everything below about Filenote.ai comes from its own website on the date this page was updated, and we have tried to be fair about where it is the better pick. Check their site for current details before you decide.
What Filenote.ai does
Filenote.ai is built only for financial advisers. Their site describes three steps. You press Record in your Teams or Zoom meeting. Filenote.ai "automatically pulls the meeting audio to create detailed outputs". The outputs arrive in your inbox or are saved to SharePoint or OneDrive.
For an in-person meeting, their FAQ says to start a new Teams or Zoom meeting on your phone or laptop and press Record. It also says Filenote.ai "will retrieve your recorded meetings overnight and email you the File Notes", and that your IT sets permissions so it can access your recordings. All plans need a Microsoft Teams (Business Basic) or Zoom (Pro) business licence as a minimum.
The output list is long, and this is where Filenote.ai is strongest:
- Standard: file notes with templates for Reviews, Discoveries, SOAs and Strategy sessions, client summary emails, full transcripts, engagement letters and client mind maps.
- PRO: a Word-based ROA, a strategy paper with peer review, an advice flowchart, a paraplanner request form, a fact find data sheet and customisable outputs.
- Enterprise: for firms with 7 or more advisers, with volume pricing and a dedicated account manager.
If you want one tool to draft the documents around a meeting as well as the note, that is a real reason to choose it. CallNote does not draft ROAs, engagement letters or paraplanner requests.
The main difference: a recording, or a transcript
Filenote.ai needs a recording to exist. It does not send a bot into the meeting. You record in Teams or Zoom and it collects the file. Their security page says the recording stays in your own Teams or Zoom environment, that they use a temporary access link valid for 60 minutes to transcribe it, and that the processing environment is destroyed once the file note is done. It also notes the default storage periods for recordings are 120 days in Teams and 180 days in Zoom, under your own settings.
CallNote needs a transcript to exist. It never records, never joins a meeting and never stores call audio. The ways in are:
- Paste the transcript.
- Upload a .vtt or .txt export from Teams, Zoom or Google Meet.
- Forward the transcript text to your Email-in address.
- Connect Dialpad or Aircall and each call transcript arrives automatically.
- Dictate a voice memo after an in-person meeting.
This matters in two situations. The first is phone calls. A lot of advice conversations that need a file note are ten-minute calls, such as a client ringing about a withdrawal or a contribution before 30 June. Those do not happen in Teams. The second is recording policy. Some licensees and some clients are fine with a live transcript and are not fine with a video recording sitting in storage for months. If you use Teams transcription without recording, CallNote can work from that transcript. We go through the options in AI note takers that don't record.
What the file note has to do
For personal advice, the file note is part of how you show you met the best interests duty in s 961B of the Corporations Act 2001 and gave appropriate advice under s 961G. AFS licensees must also keep records of personal advice for seven years after the advice is given, under ASIC Corporations (Record-Keeping Requirements for Australian Financial Services Licensees when Giving Personal Advice) Instrument 2024/508, which replaced Class Order 14/923. ASIC's RG 175 covers the conduct and disclosure obligations around that advice.
So the test for either tool is simple. Does the note capture the client's circumstances and objectives, what was discussed, what you advised and why, and what happens next? And will it still be there, unchanged, in seven years? Our guide on what to record in a financial advice file note and the best interests duty file note checklist go through the content side.
A worked example from CallNote, using an invented client:
- Why the client called
Marcus wants to put $40,000 from a share sale into super before 30 June.
- His situation
Age 58, still working full time, and no change to his income. Wants to retire at 62. His emergency cash is separate from this $40,000.
- What we discussed
- Before-tax or after-tax contribution. We compared concessional (before-tax) and non-concessional (after-tax) contributions.
- His before-tax cap. Marcus has about $9,000 of his concessional cap left this financial year, after his employer's compulsory super and his salary sacrifice. We have not yet checked whether he can carry forward unused amounts from earlier years.
- Access to the money. Explained preservation. Marcus understands he cannot get the money out until he meets a condition of release.
- Advice
- No recommendation given on the call. Further advice is needed.
- Scope: contribution strategy only. His product, which is on our approved product list (APL), stays the same.
- Advice document: likely a record of advice (ROA), because his circumstances and the basis of the advice are not significantly different from his statement of advice (SOA) dated March 2025.
- Best interests check
Marcus confirmed his goal is to have the biggest possible super balance at 62.
- Next steps
- PK: confirm Marcus's total super balance and unused concessional cap amounts from his myGov records.
- Marcus: send the contract notes from the share sale.
- Then: send Marcus the record of advice once the figures are confirmed.
Your format, and what it costs to get it
Filenote.ai ships templates for the main adviser meeting types and lets you add your logo, font and style. Their pricing page lists custom templates under the PRO plan.
In CallNote, custom templates are part of every plan. Paste one of your own past file notes and we build a template that matches your headings and shorthand, so the output reads the way your practice and your licensee expect. There is a system template for financial advice if you would rather start from ours, and the free file note template library has formats you can borrow.
After the note is written
Filenote.ai delivers the note to your inbox or saves it to SharePoint or OneDrive, and you file it from there. Their site does not describe locking, versioning or an audit trail for the note itself. Once it is a Word document or an email, it is as editable as any other.
CallNote keeps the record. You review the draft, edit it, then publish it. The published note gets a SHA-256 checksum and becomes immutable. A correction is added as an amendment underneath. The original stays as it was, and the audit log shows who did what and when. If a complaint reaches AFCA or your licensee runs an audit years later, you can show the note has not been changed since the day of the call. The file note audit readiness checker is a quick way to test how your current notes would hold up.
Xplan, AdviserLogic and your CRM
Neither product names a native Xplan or AdviserLogic integration. Filenote.ai's site lists inbox, SharePoint and OneDrive as destinations. CallNote pushes notes to HubSpot, Notion and Slack, and connects to other systems through Zapier where they support it. For Xplan or AdviserLogic the honest route with CallNote is copy and paste, or attaching the PDF to the client record.
Security statements side by side
Filenote.ai states that it and its underlying platforms are SOC 2 Type II certified, that it never retains client data or recordings, that data processing is always in-country, and that because it does not keep client data it cannot be used to train AI. It keeps control room log data for up to 90 days for debugging and billing.
CallNote hosts data in Sydney (AWS ap-southeast-2), encrypts it, and does not use it to train AI. We do not claim a SOC 2 certification. The two designs are different on purpose. Filenote.ai does not retain your data, so the long-term record lives in your own inbox and document storage. CallNote holds the sealed note as the record and lets you export it as a PDF. Ask your licensee which model they prefer.
Pricing
| CallNote | Filenote.ai | |
|---|---|---|
| Entry plan (AUD) | Solo $149/month | Standard $139 per user/month, excluding GST |
| Team or higher plan | Team $99 per seat/month | PRO $249 per user/month, excluding GST |
| Custom templates | Every plan | PRO |
| Support staff | Each user is a seat on Team | Support staff at no extra cost |
| Other requirements | None | Teams (Business Basic) or Zoom (Pro) business licence |
| Free trial | 14 days, no credit card | 21 days |
Filenote.ai also offers 5% off for annual billing. For a sole adviser the two entry prices are close. For a team, work through your own numbers: Filenote.ai includes support staff at no extra cost, while CallNote's per-seat price is lower.
Which one should you pick?
Pick Filenote.ai if your meetings are on Teams or Zoom, you and your clients are comfortable with recording, and you want the documents around the meeting drafted too: the summary email, the engagement letter, and on PRO the ROA and paraplanner request. It is a focused adviser product and the output range is wider than ours.
Pick CallNote if you want the note tool to stay away from recordings, if phone calls make up a good share of your client contact, if you want your own note format on any plan, and if you want the note sealed with an audit trail. The financial advisers page has more detail.
Both have free trials, so the cheapest test is to run the same client meeting through each and compare the notes against your licensee's file note standard. For other adviser tools, see CallNote vs Claras, CallNote vs Zocks and the comparison hub.
Common questions
What is Filenote.ai?
Filenote.ai is an AI documentation tool built only for financial advisers. You record a client meeting in Microsoft Teams or Zoom, and Filenote.ai retrieves the recording and emails you a file note. It also produces client summary emails, transcripts, engagement letters and mind maps, and its PRO plan adds a Word ROA, strategy paper, advice flowchart, paraplanner request and fact find data sheet.
How much does Filenote.ai cost?
According to the Filenote.ai pricing page at the time of writing, Standard is AUD $139 per user per month and PRO is AUD $249 per user per month, both excluding GST, with 5% off for annual billing. Enterprise pricing for firms with 7 or more advisers is by quote. There is a 21-day free trial. All plans need a Microsoft Teams (Business Basic) or Zoom (Pro) business licence.
Does Filenote.ai record my client meetings?
You make the recording. Filenote.ai's workflow is to press Record in Teams or Zoom, for online or in-person meetings. Their security page says the recording stays in your own Teams or Zoom environment, that they access it through a temporary link valid for 60 minutes to transcribe it, and that they do not retain client data or recordings.
Does CallNote record calls or meetings?
No. CallNote never records calls, never joins a meeting as a bot and never stores call audio. It works from a transcript that already exists. You can paste it, upload a .vtt or .txt export from Teams, Zoom or Meet, forward it by email, or connect Dialpad or Aircall so call transcripts arrive automatically. After an in-person meeting you can dictate a voice memo instead.
Does CallNote or Filenote.ai integrate with Xplan?
Neither names a native Xplan integration. Filenote.ai delivers outputs to your inbox, SharePoint or OneDrive. CallNote pushes notes to HubSpot, Notion and Slack and connects to other systems through Zapier where they support it. To get a CallNote note into Xplan or AdviserLogic you copy and paste it or attach the PDF to the client record.
How long do financial advisers need to keep file notes?
AFS licensees must keep records of personal advice for seven years after the day the advice was provided, under ASIC Corporations (Record-Keeping Requirements for Australian Financial Services Licensees when Giving Personal Advice) Instrument 2024/508, which replaced Class Order 14/923. Your licensee may require longer. This is general information, not legal advice.