May 2015 – An apology

I want to start this month with an apology because my recent client service has been poor. When you know that the sole purpose for me being an adviser is being available to help people you will understand me when I tell you that I have had a very frustrating time. For the last six months my time has of necessity been dominated by business structural and organisational changes. I started using ‘Adviser Office’ from ‘1st Software’ as our back office system in 2003 and this became the hub of the business. ‘1st’ was bought by ‘Avelo’ and then was subsequently bought by ‘Iress’ an Australian company who brought with them their own system called ‘XPlan’. Six months ago on the first of November I moved from Adviser Office to XPlan – What a nightmare! Nothing worked and there were so many errors that it was impossible to do anything. You may not understand how much of a difference it makes to a modern business but if you imagine what it is like driving a car which only does 10 miles per hour and constantly breaks down you may start getting the picture. I did what you might expect and left my car and started using my bike but I was constantly having to return to the garage because the mechanic wanted me to try their latest modification. By March enough was enough and while I didn’t want to spend more time with back office systems I decided to move to a new company, Intelliflo. Much of April was taken up with transferring data and training and while there is still a lot to learn the new system ‘Intelligent Office’ actually does what is says on the tin – it works. I am quite excited by Intelliflo because they offer additional services which mean that you will get more over the coming months. Now that we are in May we are now doing what we are here to do – looking after our clients. We have a bit of catching up to do so your continued patience is appreciated. Nicola has been a stalwart throughout and I don’t want to think where we would have been without her. Please excuse me if I only mention the election in passing but if you are like me you have probably had enough. Regardless of your political persuasion we are where we are and the markets like certainty which is always good for everyone’s investments.