Tenet switched to back office system Intelligent Office at the start of October as part of a long-term contract with Intelliflo.
One adviser, who wished to remain anonymous, told Financial Adviser he had not been able to see any of his clients for the whole month of October as all of his company’s resources were being deployed to clear up problems caused by the change.
He said: “We were all moved to a new back office, all of the advisers. We were compelled to do it, not given a choice. Clients are suffering, it is quite chaotic.
“For the whole month of October we have not been able to do any business, we have not been able to see any clients.
“The problem is that with the new system in place, we cannot access the old system, cannot access that information.
This is really impacting us because the income we receive from investments is unmatched, we don’t know immediately which client the income is for.
“So all of our staff are manually trying to match the right level of income to the right clients, leaving us with no time to do anything else.”
Announcing the move in February, Tenet said it had 1,300 investment and mortgage advisers within its network who would be using the new system.
It promised advisers “a great front-end user and customer interface and a market-leading breadth of integration with third-party systems”.
But now the network has admitted there was a problem with data-matching and that some advisers had expressed “misgivings”.
A Tenet spokesman said: “There were 25 years of network data to transfer to the new system, which was carefully planned and executed.
“The data structures of the two systems are different, which has caused items not to match in the first instance.
“We are working closely with our member firms, providers and Intelliflo to clear the unmatched commission/charges and have taken a number of steps, including taking on additional staff, to accelerate the process.”
The matching relates to commissions paid to advisers by platforms and providers, such as general insurance companies and equity release companies.
The anonymous adviser said: “Tenet have, in my opinion, done little to rectify the situation. I know of several firms who have quit Tenet because of this.”
Susan Hill, who runs Susan Hill Financial Planning in St Albans, is also part of the Tenet network. She told Financial Adviser that she had used the Intelligent Office system before it was introduced across the network without any problems.
She said: “Since the migration to the new system happened, the matching has been a bit slower than before, but that is all. I think Tenet provided a lot of training on this new system, I have had the training and have had no problems.”
The Tenet spokesman admitted some advisers had left the network this year, but said none had cited the new operating system as the reason for their departure.
On the contrary, the spokesman said some had joined the network and specifically stated that the reason they were joining was the new system.
Tenet also stated it had continued to fully pay its members to ensure their cashflow was not interrupted as a result of the change.
The spokesman said: “While we appreciate that any change is disruptive to business, we believe we have taken all possible steps to act on any feedback to ensure that our members can continue to provide an excellent service to their customers.”
A Intelliflo spokesperson told Financial Adviser: “Intelliflo is committed to providing the best technology. We continue to work closely with the Tenet community. Issues are being resolved as members undergo training and the system is configured to meet specific Tenet needs.”
david.thorpe@ft.com
What do you think about the issues raised by this story? Email us on fa.letters@ft.com to let us know.
