Tech startup Plannr will launch its customer relationship management (CRM) to the wider UK adviser market tomorrow (June 1) following a pilot in February which saw a select handful of firms become early adopters.
The back-office portal, which includes secure messaging between adviser and client, has already been adopted to some extent by 62 advice and brokerage firms.
Early sign-ups paid between £500 and £5,000, depending on their size, to get exclusive access to the system, as well as a consultancy service and the power to shape the company’s final product.
As of tomorrow, all UK firms will have the option to sign up to Plannr for £85 per user per month, or £75 if the firm pays annually.
However, director at Plannr Nick Harper told FTAdviser his team will “control” the number of firms onboarding throughout June and July - meaning all firms may not be able to go live immediately.
I think everybody is getting tired of legacy systems and keen to see if new systems can solve their problems.Nick Harper, Plannr“We want onboarding to be like a concierge service,” he said.
Firms can book go-live slots throughout the next two months. Upon booking the slot, they will need to provide information such as the number of users, client numbers, assets under management, providers and platforms, third-party software products and integrations.
Currently, more than 500 firms have shown interest in Plannr. “This is fast approaching 550,” said Harper.
A number of the larger firms which gained early access will also need to fully migrate over to Plannr from their existing CRM systems too.
Unlike other CRM providers in the adviser space, Plannr will not charge firms for application programme interfaces to third-party providers such as CashCalc, Voyant or FE Fund Index.
“We want to encourage integrations,” said Harper. “So how can you encourage it if you want to charge for it? You’ve got to make it free.”
Each Plannr user gets 10 gigabytes of storage for documentation, but this is aggregated over the business. Firms pay 50p per gigabyte per month. “Some legacy provider contracts lock storage to users,” Harper explained.
Some advisers have shared their excitement around the impending launch of Plannr, particularly following issues with existing providers in the CRM space.
Consistent complaints heard by Harper from advisers while overseeing the build of Plannr, which has been led by Gareth Thompson, fall into three broad categories: “It’s just to slow”, “income reconciliation takes days when it should take hours”, and “system availability”.
“I think everybody is getting tired of legacy systems and keen to see if new systems can solve their problems,” said Harper.
“Everyone talks about access to data being difficult. It’s actually not if you build good APIs.”
Former Moneyinfo lead developer Thompson embarked on the Plannr project after an advice firm asked him to build a bespoke CRM with better data access to other software providers and platforms.
It was with the entrance of Harper that Thompson and his team moved away from project-based work and developed a product able to be used by all firms.
The technology is hosted on Amazon Web Services, the servers Intelliflo recently moved to. AWS servers are designed to dynamically scale as more firms are onboarded.
Planner also incorporates File Haven, which has already been around for five years and underpins the secure messaging part of the portal.
ruby.hinchliffe@ft.com
