Not happy? Do-it-yourself

Dissatisfiedwith the financial planning software on offer, Infocus Securities managing director Darren Steinhardt decided to build his own.

After a process that has taken five years and millions of dollars, the boutique dealer group has built a system that incorporates the whole gamut of financial planning and dealer group technology requirements, including client management, practice management, compliance, training, research, and dealer administration systems.

Steinhardt says the system, PlatformPlus, is a client-focused tool that enables all aspects of the planning and business administration process to be managed and automated to achieve efficiency and consistency.

The motivation to build the software platform came from the compliance-related complaint of an Infocus client, a situation that Steinhardt believes was a result of its IT systems not being interrelated.

“We used to operate with several pieces of software, for separate things like modelling and data collection, and data had to be keyed in manually more than once,” Steinhardt says.

After commissioning extensive research on what the ideal IT solution for a financial planning business would be, Infocus went to the market and found that what they were looking for did not exist.

Steinhardt says that it was then that he realised that the business would have to build its own.

PlatformPlus has enabled Infocus to ramp-up efficiencies and cost savings, and as it is web-hosted, the business’ five Australian offices are able to operate off one continually updated system.

Infocus is also able to easily track the income generated through each of its clients and advisers, in a way it was unable to do before the system was developed.

One of the greatest benefits from a dealer perspective is that it enables close monitoring of the PS 146 compliance of its advisers, so that if a problem develops, it will be caught early.

Although not the intention, Steinhardt says demand for such technology has led Infocus to lease customised versions of the platform to other boutique and mid-size dealer groups.

He says that depending on the number of users, the monthly fee for PlatformPlus would be anywhere from $700 to $2,000, though he says the efficiencies reward users tenfold in cost savings.