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Bye Bye Qube, hello starPort

An adviser wrote me the other day seeking advice after reading the series of CRM columns I wrote the last few weeks

An adviser wrote me the other day seeking advice after reading the series of CRM columns I wrote the last few weeks.
Her firm relies on two products from Advent Software Inc.: Axys for portfolio management and the fully integrated Qube customer relationship management application.
Unfortunately for her firm Advent will be pulling the plug on support for Qube at the end of December and this adviser asked me whether I knew of good alternatives.
I cannot tell you the name of the firm or adviser because I have been unable to get in touch — we have both been traveling.
What I can tell you is that this wealth management and registered investment advisory firm has $1.6 billion in assets under management and 300 clients.
She wrote: “Newer, more expensive versions of Advent incorporate CRM but moving to that version is not within our budget; have you come across any CRM software in your research that interfaces with Advent?”
The folks at Advent responded that the options for Qube-using Axys clients will be to either migrate to Advent Portfolio Exchange (better known as APX, Advent’s newer SQL-based portfolio management offering), stay on Qube (with no support starting in 2012), or use another third-party CRM system, though it won’t be integrated.
Enter Hemant Moré.
He is the owner and chief executive of Arcons Technology Inc. I met him a year ago at the 2010 Technology Tools for Today conference.
At that time his firm specialized in data migrations and several different data-related tools, among other things, and many of those tools were meant to supplement or integrate with Advent products.
I called him last week to ask about the quandary listed above and he chuckled and and said my call was an auspicious coincidence — he was just rolling out his own CRM system called starPort for the exact scenario listed above.
He add that his firm can also carry out the necessary migrations from Qube to several other CRM packages including Junxure (from CRM Software Inc.), Redtail or Salesforce.com.
Getting back to starPort, Mr. Moré said that five firms are currently in beta using it and that it works natively with Advent Axys versions 3.8 down to 3.5.1. He added that PortfolioCenter support would be available by mid-March as well.
There is a one-time license fee of $2000 per user (I am checking on what annual updates will cost).
Among starPort’s features are the ability for an adviser to define any information they want to track at the account level and create dynamic screens (I’m looking further into what this means) and layouts for tracking information.
Longtime Axys users will also like that starPort can read contact, labels and holdings data from Axys natively and that advisers can customize and define households and legal entities.
The CRM system also allows users to create client files and groups in Axys itself and there is Microsoft Outlook synchronization of contacts and appointments.
Finally, for those that do choose to stay within the Advent realm but migrate to APX, you will find integrated CRM within that system. APX clients unsatisfied with it that want to use a different CRM have additional options thanks to the application programming interface Advent has built.
I know that both Junxure (from CRM Software Inc.) and Salesforce (I am checking on whether this is vanilla Salesforce aka non-customized Salesforce, or Salesforce for Wealth Management) have integrations using this API (I believe this is the case with the Salesforce overlay applications Appcrown and XLR8 as well but I am not 100% certain and am looking into it — doubtless some other advisers, consultants or vendors will leave a comment here correcting me if I am in error).
For more information visit Arcons online.
Related stories:
Advisers held hostage by portfolio systems
Part 2: CRM Systems for the Big Guys