Time recording: every hour counts

With the clocks due to change on Saturday we are all going to lose an hour, for some of us an hour of sleep, for others an hour out and about, and we realise how valuable our time is. This is true not only of our personal lives but also our professional ones. An increasing number of advisers are dedicating some of their time to the process of segmentation of their client bank, the criteria for which can include funds under management and commission income amongst others. However, a common error is to confuse turnover with profitability. Many IFA practices have undertaken an analysis and found that a substantial percentage of their individual clients are no longer profitable and this ratio is even worse for Group Scheme business. This data was determined by recording not only the income generated by a client but, vitally, the time spent on that client, by all members of staff. Recording time is a discipline which other professionals have long embraced, but which is only now becoming more widely adopted amongst the financial advisory community. Yet unless we know how long we spend working on a client, how can we determine whether that client is profitable and, by extension, what level of service that client warrants?

However, time recording should be a standard feature of any client management system, which should allow an individual’s charge-out rate, for all staff, to be recorded as a default and all time to be logged automatically when any task is recorded. This should then give rise to detailed analysis and reporting, allowing not only the identification of client profitability and reporting to the client, but in addition allow detailed business analysis, for example identifying types and sources of business that are most profitable. However, many advisers feel reticent recording time spent on, for example administration, valuations and commission reconciliation and charging a client for this, although in many cases these are the very activities that erode a client’s profitability. Yet the same system that allows the recording of time should be able to streamline all these areas, with electronic valuations and commission reconciliation massively cutting the time spent and reflecting this within the client’s ‘account’.

Combining time spent with income received allows the appropriate level of service to be determined and, importantly, met, ensuring the Treating CLIENTS Fairly becomes a means of improving your business, not merely another compliance burden.

For further information please contact our Sales Department on 01279 756080 or send an email to: sales@quaysoftware.co.uk

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Training Courses Commit to making Client Care Desktop really work for you!

Our Getting Started courses have proved so popular for new staff members at existing CCD client firms, as well as with new clients, we will continue to run two courses every month throughout 2008. If you are interested in training new staff, or further developing your firm’s skills with CCD, the following Public courses will be taking place in April and May

April 2008:

May 2008:

The cost (per day) for standard classroom courses is £200 (plus VAT) per delegate, therefore the cost of the two-day Getting Started course is £400 (plus VAT) per delegate*.

All of our courses come with a comprehensive user guide and CPD certificates, upon completion.

Private Courses:

Many of our clients hire out our training facilities in our head office at Bishops Stortford for private courses and this facility will also be available in the Coventry Centre. The cost of this is £750 (plus VAT per day*) and includes a light lunch and refreshments during the day and, of course, the trainer to conduct the session!

We can accommodate up to 8 delegates on a private course and we are happy to work with you to create an agenda for the training to ensure that the content of the day(s) you book meets your business needs.

*Please note that all training days, whether classroom or private, are from 10.00–16.00.

Please contact our Training and Consultancy team to discuss your options on 01279 756086
or send an email to: training@quaysoftware.co.uk

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Did you know? How to flag the latest news from Quay Software To ensure that you are aware of the latest news from Quay Software, please go into your Client Care Desktop (CCD) system and follow the instructions below. Go into Setup, Staff list and select a staff member. Go into the Settings tab and click on the box beside “Display latest Quay Software news on opening system”. This will now launch the news page from the Quay Software website every time you open your CCD system (in a separate screen).

If you have any questions on this area, please contact our Support Team on 01279 756061 or send an email to: support@quaysoftware.co.uk.

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What would you like to see in your newsletter?

We always appreciate your feedback and would be very interested to hear what you would like to see in your Newsletter.

If there are items you would like to see included in your Newsletter, please feel free to let us know.

Please send your ideas and comments to clientcare@quaysoftware.co.uk

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