How Forward Group transformed their operations with PlainSail.

Tell me a little bit about Forward Group?

Forward Group is a Jersey based trust company business that grew out of a Jersey accountancy firm. We currently employ around 15 staff and work primarily in private wealth.

What led you to consider PlainSail?

We had grown frustrated with our current supplier. Every change seemed to become a major request, the costs growth had outgrown the service offering. The product we were using felt clunky and outdated which didn't fit with our way of working (we picked our name for a reason!).

When we met Sam and the team, we felt an instant connection. They worked in the same way we worked, client focused, open to ideas, dynamic, not driven by the demands of private equity. They had even been in existence for around the same amount of time so the stars were aligning.

When did you "make the leap"?

It actually all happened very quickly. We had been considering a change for a while and then in November 2023 we decided we had to rip the band aid off and make the change in systems and by Jan 1st 2024 we had moved, operating the two systems side by side for a period until we were comfortable everything had migrated ok.

"For us the difference is night and day in terms of the service offering – I don’t think you could pay us to go back."

What was the migration process like?

PlainSail again made that relatively painless. We took a decision on what data we wanted to move and what was key to the business continuing to operate smoothly, and needed on day 1, and certain other data we decided was only really needed for historic reasons and could be left behind on our old systems, and other data could be pulled in as we built our business processes.

One of the things we liked about PlainSail was the ability to centralise a lot of functions that had been maintained in different places, whether it was on our old CRM system, spreadsheets, pdf forms or in word documents. So once the initial data migration was complete, PlainSail have been really great in pulling these separate data sources to build a complete centralised picture that we can use to better understand our clients and their needs and to serve them in a more efficient way.

What else are you liking and not liking about PlainSail?

It is almost entirely all good, our goal is to have one centre of truth for all that we do. I firmly believe that data should only ever have to be entered once, and once it is entered then it becomes much easier to maintain. I hate having to locate and update the same thing in multiple places as if something is missed, there can be doubt about which entry is correct – it's a big ask we know and PlainSail is nearly there, and we are working with them to find ways to make that happen, but to someone who doesn't build software for a living, I appreciate that sometimes what might be an easy ask – doesn't always turn out to be an easy do!

The one centre of truth philosophy is why some of the integrations offerings really added to the appeal of PlainSail, for example, whenever we update a client or entity record in PlainSail, we know that update will propagate automatically to KYC360, which we use for our ongoing screening. This takes away a business risk in perhaps a change of address, particularly if someone changes jurisdiction, or a change in name not being picked up and being screened correctly. The manual reconciliation process that we used to previously undertake between the two systems is now a breeze and we have a full audit trail to see what changes have propagated. New entities we add to PlainSail are now screened automatically, rather than previously which involved notifying our compliance team that we had new entities to control. Any potential hits feed directly into alerts in PlainSail. It gives us so much more control.

We are working with PlainSail to now extend that same efficiency other systems, including a connection with the Jersey company registry, which again will ensure that any updates to entity records are passed onto the registry in real time, preventing fines and ensuring filing accuracy and efficiencies. We are keen to work with PlainSail on further integrations around banking and risk ratings and some other external data connections we see as being valuable.

The biggest difference for us, especially compared to our previous partner, is the openness to ideas. I have always believed that perfection is a journey rather than a destination, and there are as with anything, always way to improve. We love the collaborative nature of our relationship with PlainSail. We pass them our ideas, or we spot a small bug, and sometimes within days or even hours they been fixed or implemented. If we find or think of things that can be done better then its great to know that PlainSail want to make those improvements too and welcome ideas.

Where are your current ambitions with PlainSail?

We have been using PlainSail for 3 months and a lot of our efforts have so far been directed to ensuring that all the data contained in the database has been fully populated and the inventories filled in, which is a task we need to complete first in order to then build and refine the company systems to take advantage of the full functionality of the system.

If our first 3 months of working with PlainSail have been an indication, then the future is something we are excited about rather than dreading. Our team love the intuitive nature of how it all works together, and we are already starting to see the benefits of an integrated platform in terms of efficiencies and tools and document management.

We have also started building out reporting on tools such as Power BI which will allow the directors real time access on certain metrics around business risks and KPIs which will allow us to gather greater insight into our business performance, but also concentrations of risks, staff performance and a whole host of other things.

Would you recommend PlainSail to similar businesses?

Without hesitation. For us the difference is night and day in terms of the service offering – I don’t think you could pay us to go back.