How Crestbridge Fiduciary simplified and accelerated its operations.

Crestbridge Fiduciary is a privately owned, independent fiduciary business headquartered in Jersey, with offices in the USA. The firm needed core technology for a more focused operation. PlainSail went live in July 2025 – and one year on, the team tell the story of the PlainSail migration and platform in their own words.

What prompted you to start exploring new trust and corporate administration software?

Our existing software solutions were overly complex for our newly focused business. With more streamlined service lines we needed systems that were simpler, more efficient, and better aligned to our operational scale.

A number of our operational processes were inherited and were not optimised for the needs of our more streamlined business. This misalignment led to operational inefficiencies, particularly in our workflows, which required redesign to reflect our refined operation. We recognised opportunities to enhance document management within the business and improve the way emails and client documentation were managed, driving greater efficiency and collaboration.

What were the key requirements in your evaluation?

We had core requirements which included client administration, client accounting, and practice management. Equally important to us were usability and reporting; having rapid access to up-to-date information and a robust suite of reports was essential to enable us to effectively support our clients. We also wanted a technology solution that could be largely supported in-house, without relying on custom development. Additionally, a fully integrated document management solution was key.

How important was user experience in your decision?

This was very critical to us and PlainSail has enabled our existing team and new joiners to get up and running very quickly and smoothly with the technology.

What worried you most before the project began?

Data migration and organisational adoption.

Transitioning to a new core technology platform can be challenging, particularly when it involves critical accounting and billing systems. Ensuring that there was no negative impact on our client service delivery was a key priority. In addition, we needed to ensure that we could migrate smoothly while maintaining complete data integrity throughout the process.

How was the migration handled from start to finish?

The PlainSail team had prior experience migrating from our existing client administration system. That said, our unique configuration and usage patterns introduced some specific challenges. They were highly professional, quickly adapted to the differences in our data structures, and ensured the migrated data was accurate.

We took a cautious approach, scheduling a single business day of system downtime to ensure that we had the weekend to resolve any issues. The migration was successful and the implementation team finished by 6 pm on Friday – no weekend work needed!

All of our team had received a training course ahead of the implementation and got to grips with PlainSail very quickly due to the intuitive nature of the system.

How would you describe the support provided by the PlainSail team during migration?

From start to finish the PlainSail team supported us and ensured that the solution was compatible with our business processes and requirements.

“The implementation team finished by 6 pm on Friday – no weekend work needed!”

What improvements have you seen since going live?

Our billing process has improved significantly, with cycle times reduced from the first post-go-live billing run. Typically, introducing new billing solutions requires the team to become familiar with the new technology, leading to increased effort and time to produce the bills, but this was not the case with PlainSail. Debtor reporting and payment workflows are also hugely improved compared with our previous platform.

The client profile and how it is displayed is impressive and gives the administrator everything that they need to know at their fingertips. As previously mentioned, the billing process in PlainSail is far simpler and is a great user experience for both the internal finance team and the client administrators. The document management system has been a game changer for the team.

How does your trust administration team describe day-to-day life on PlainSail?

Whilst the system itself is extremely intuitive and easy to use/navigate, one of the most impressive aspects with PlainSail is their willingness to take onboard feedback to improve on their product and the speed by which they can implement changes to meet client demands.

From a user perspective, having all information housed in a single platform that is simple to use and navigate saves significant time and resource across the business, helping to improve recoverability, whilst enhancing the services we can provide to clients.

And your finance team?

PlainSail’s billing functionality and automation have transformed our quarterly billing process. Updating fixed fees, like annual confirmation fees, is now a quick, straightforward task rather than a time-consuming one.

Using projects for time recording has also significantly cut down the time we spend analysing time entries during each quarterly billing run.

Since implementing PlainSail, we’ve seen continued improvements to the billing functionality; these improvements have seen efficiencies when setting up fees across a group of client entities, and have significantly reduced the time spent creating fixed fees.

How would you describe the ongoing relationship with the PlainSail team?

PlainSail continue to be a pleasure to work with. They are responsive, collaborative, and proactive in keeping the product aligned with regulatory requirements. We’ve proposed a number of enhancements to the core platform and reporting; these were well received and incorporated into the base product. Working with Sam and the team is genuinely enjoyable: our conversations in relation to the roadmap are constructive, and our feedback is clearly listened to and acted upon.