AdviceTech Podcast #39 – REVEX – Transcript

Peita Diamantidis
Hello, and welcome to the Ensombl AdviceTech Podcast. I’m Peita Diamantidis. And the guest joining me here today to deep dive into Revex has experience in telecommunications, which is interesting, but has also worked and run a financial advice practice. But he’s actually here in his role as COO of an advice tech solution. So thank you so much for joining me on the show.

Yul Hardick
Thank you warm introduction.

Peita Diamantidis
Well, we’ve got an easy win before we clobber you with the tough questions, right. So catch you soon. So we’re going to dive into WebEx, which we will in a second, but we love in the ensemble community to get to know our guests through their own use of technology when we kick off. So let’s start with emojis. What is your most used emojis do even use emojis?

Yul Hardick
Yeah, I’m a fan of using emojis. Very quick and simple ways to express yourself. But I’d have to say my most used is the boring thumbs up. Yeah, I think it’s pretty common the way to you know, acknowledge that you understand something or agree with something. So it’d be the thumbs up or the love hearts. I like what you’re saying, or I love it. That’s pretty much it.

Peita Diamantidis
Perfect. Well, that’s all about simplicity, right? So then, you know, we live with our smartphones permanently attached to us, I think some of us would actually have it permanently attached. If it was possible. If you had to wipe everything off your smartphone and just keep three apps, which ones would you keep

Yul Hardick
three apps. To that I’d use on a on a daily basis that I’d probably want to keep would be airmail, which is an email application just like your Gmail or your Apple Mail or whatever else. I just prefer that one. So it’s a paid app. It’s got a lot more functionality, I can aggregate all my email accounts in there very easily. So email would be one. Fantastic owl, which is a calendaring app. Yes, it’s a paid replacement to the standard calendaring apps allows me to unify calendars across different accounts, and has a bit more functionality and it syncs with my MAC and all that sort of thing. Yeah. And thirdly, would probably

probably have to be, dare I say, Candy Crush soda.

Peita Diamantidis
I love and kudos for admitting that. I love it. That’s fantastic.

Yul Hardick
I was tempted to keep that one to myself. But I thought you’re too boring one. So I’ll give you a fun one there.

Peita Diamantidis
Absolutely. And you know what, it’s because I was reflecting the other day on what I would have to keep on my iPad. And for me, it’s the Kindle app. You know, I can I am a speed reader. So I devour books, particularly. That right?

Yul Hardick
It’d probably be civilization six, actually. So there you go. So I’ve got to go to on the iPad, if I’ve got some downtime,

Peita Diamantidis
I love a bit of game gaming, gamification going on. I love it. Well, let’s dive into Revex, shall we? So I’m pretty confident most listeners will have heard of you guys. But depending on where they’ve sat in practices, or how new they are to the industry, they might not so why don’t we take it up to a high level first and just give us a sense of where rebek sits in the sort of advice tech space, you know, what category does it generally fall under? Who do you generally get lined up against yet?

Yul Hardick
So Rubik’s is essentially a revenue management system. Very much like other players in industry would include your comm. PE, pe logic, feasibly, software or services of that nature. We’re also a invoicing and client payments solution, yet we’ve got an integrated client payments and client payment gateway option. We also have a rebates module is it’s a pretty fleshed out piece of software, but at its core, a revenue management system.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah. Okay. And in terms of, you know, how it sort of came about, I’m betting that the initial problem that was solving was that, you know, one business, multiple providers, multiple commissions statement, I mean, in the old days, of course, multiple Commission reports or whatever coming from providers, how do we bring it together so we can make any, you know, headway on understanding this data? Is that fair?

Yul Hardick
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, in the, in this industry in this space, it’s, it’s always been a bit of the bane of an existence for a practice manager or a dealer group is managing all the fragmented commission statements you might get from various platforms. and legacy platforms, alongside with the move to fee for service models and being able to integrate a direct fee, payment gateways and billing options, being able to track invoicing, as well as revenue against insurance. Yep. But probably more important over the past 10 or so years is being able to provide accurate and compliant fee disclosure statements or statements of fees, as they were, industry has always been a bit up and down with these, these new new and wonderful regulations. So it’s, I think an RMS has always been a necessary evil, but it’s probably one of the most important components to running a compliant financial, yeah, to

Peita Diamantidis
rely on it. And yeah, absolutely. And it’s interesting, and I am, you know, putting you on the spot here, but it’s an interesting challenge. We’ve all been faced all the parties with free disclosure, because when, you know, the public hears that they’re like, well, you’re disclosing your fees. And like, we’re all nodding. And we’re, of course, but, you know, one of the interesting things, for example, for me, that came out is the fee, the client agrees is X dollars, the fee they see from within their super platform could be x minus $2 a month, the feet like, like the unit, so So in fact, right, and, and lack of clarity. Like, it’s just an end. It’s not none of that is bad intent. That’s the thing, right? It’s just that, you know, this platform decides they give the benefit of the, you know, credit due to to GST and other things, and but they knit it around, whereas the other platform decides, no, we share the fee that’s disclosed. And then we do an add back or, like, it’s just the wonder the public or uncertain righty,

Yul Hardick
many moving parts, you know, the date on which a client may pay a fee out of their account compared to the date it’s received into an advisor compared to needed to receive to a bank account? Yeah. All these conflicting little things, every Yes, upon seems to have their own way of calculating, you know, the Ri TC on on fees in Super and all these sorts of things. Yeah. If it was just $1, for dollar equation, you probably wouldn’t even need it, RMS because it’d be straightforward. But right. I guess, our advantage, yeah. So many layers from the platform, that dealer group or licensee that practice, and then the adviser and then the client, there are many moving parts and having a system that that helps keep all of that in check, organized, structured, and the ability to tidy up and link it to other data and all sorts of things is a huge advantage.

Peita Diamantidis
And, you know, while we’re sort of, on that topic, I’m a bit curious about what, you know, you guys might be seeing in terms of, I mean, years ago, the number of advice practices that might direct bill, a client could probably be counted on one hand, or, or maybe dirt. But I’m guessing that that figure is is changing significantly over time that you guys are seeing far more practices, direct charging, just because of well, perhaps because that dynamic is changing. And they’re more comfortable with that, but also, because it’s taking out a layer of complexity.

Yul Hardick
Yeah, definitely. I mean, it’s still a mix across the board. You know, I’d wager that most businesses are still taking platform based fees in some form or another. But there are a number that have moved solely to fee based or fixed term contracts billing the client directly, or a combination of both. Some of some items, perhaps one off fees for the creation and presentation of an SOA, or some specific piece of advice can be billed directly to credit card or wire direct debit to the client. Other things are invoiced but paid via the platform or through a vehicle such as a self managed Superfund or whatever else. Which, you know, at the end of the day, as long as the client is aware of the fees, where they’re coming from, and they’ve consented to rib x as a software allows that to happen. Yeah, I think, you know, to, to our credit, we recognized that these were some of the moves happening in the industry and we’ve built rebek developed Rubix and continue to develop those parts of remix specifically to accommodate what we think the future have a statement of fees, you know, client disclosure and a And and all that will, will eventually look

Peita Diamantidis
like. Yeah, well. And so I’m curious, actually for you to internally, because and there’s a few systems that have categories like this in the industry where you almost sort of have two masters in that, you know, there could be a own a facil, dealer group, sorry, business that you’re dealing with practice. So that’s, you know, sort of linear and that’s, that’s great, but then you will also have a relationship with a dealer group that then has practices underneath that. And, and while the requirement, there’s lots of overlap, I’m curious how you balance, you know, the demands, or even the development demands between the two like is, you know, it’s summer, you’re gonna need different things. Right. And so it’s, I’m curious how that works internally. And, and you know, how that’s evolved. And I’m guessing that perhaps there’s been a bit of a shift to a bit more attention on the individual practices only because there’s more and more of, you know, boutique, a for sales going on, you know, that’s becoming sort of more consistent. So it’s a how do you guys manage that internally in terms of the demands on the future of, you know, remix?

Yul Hardick
Yeah, you’re right. There are sort of educated to both, I mean, red X’s. I think, yes, I’m allowed to say independent, but we’re agnostic in terms of the technology stack we work with. Yeah, I think that has certainly appealed to the boutique AFSL, as it Australia, but we cater to all sizes, we’ve got big dealer groups, and we’ve got small, self licensed people. But the two types of users, the two power users or groups of users we have in Rebecca would be those licensee level users, who are generally the recipients of all the commission statements, the recipients of all the data that bank transactions, and have to work their magic to marry all that data together, and basically present it for, you know, on payment, or deduction of fees and whatever else down the track. So it’s the licensee level uses that the data wranglers if you like. And as you said, there’s sort of more emergent uses in the rec space, the practice managers, the advisors, that people who log in want to look at the revenue per advisor per client, want to go in and create invoices, or charge the to a client or, you know, give a client an email to pay their bill. But also business intelligence. Almost everyone we talked to lately is is just on the bandwagon about business intelligence, and data analytics. And, you know, at a dealer group level, obviously, that’s that’s important, the licensees want that data as well. But the practices and the advisors needed, they needed you. So, you know, in terms of the power users, the licensees of the data Wranglers, they get it in they they get it clean, they make the payments, the advisors and the practices are the ones that want the reporting the extensive access to their data and the integrations with other layers in the tech stack. And certainly our development is catering towards both. We’re constantly fleshing out integrations with other CRMs, for example, and certainly improving our reporting module and fleshing out our API to enhance the possibility of better information that enabled advisors putting together their own reporting their own business intelligence, and better serving their clients ultimately, with real live structured data.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah, right. I mean, it’s, it’s an interesting, it’s an interesting evolution of these things where, you know, some years ago, a lot of this, I guess, data was the the advisor, or the practice was a sort of passive recipient, if you’re gonna mean, like, it was just, this is just a summary of where the income is coming from, I was sort of just, you know, it was quite a passive summary of

Yul Hardick
This is what I’ll show you.

Peita Diamantidis
Exactly a job done, you know, until next month, or whatever it comes through. But, you know, the sort of things now that are becoming more real is if you’re got a direct fee, and it might be a monthly fee, you know, being able to have flags such that if something happens, and you know, the payment drops off for it’s or it’s somehow broken, you know, that connection, then, you know, not finding out when you do a review in nine months, you know, it’s this sort of stuff is evolving into a different way. We’ve all we’re all going to have to operate in like you say that we’re going to have to have our systems talk to each other so that then those flags can be raised, you know?

Speaker 2
Yeah, definitely. And I think that sort of the fragmentation in the industry in terms of every platform having their own format for revenue statement or a commission statement paired with the need for advisors to be able to charge clients directly through some sort of payment gateway or, you know, flush out an invoice where the client can click a link and basically self directed update their credit card or direct debit authority, those sorts of things. Yeah, I mean, essential, the less drops or charge or fires, or you name it, these sorts of subscription management solutions that that have been around for other industries for some time. Now, yeah, central parts of any financial planning, practice and need to be integrated into that larger, fragmented structure.

Peita Diamantidis
So on that front, actually, let’s imagine there’s a practice out there, they’re in the throes of building a wonderful cash flow coaching program, one to many, it’s going to be a nine month sort of program, and they’ve decided to spread that cost for the attendees over say, nine months, for a monthly amount. So it’s, it’s this term, you know, nine months spread, almost to buy the program, like you do all sorts of other things where we learn email marketing, or we learn, you know, all these things we buy online that can be charged for a certain amount. Is that something that can be set up within Revex narrows, it’s something you guys are working towards?

Yul Hardick
Yes, yes, we do that at the moment. So we’ve got capability to create. We call them ongoing plans in Redux. Other industries would call it sort of subscription encryption or yet more, you know, ongoing service fee, that sort of thing. So yeah, absolutely. In WebEx, anything from a fixed term contract to an open ended contract for whatever service can be built into WebEx clearly specified, email, the client copy of the invoice, say, if it’s, you know, a couple of $100 each month, since then the invoice each month, they’ve got the opportunity to update their payment details, if there’s a connected payment gateway through our API module, yep. And the client can can manage it directly. If, if the advisor sitting down with the client and has the time and the patience, they can enable the client to update the details there. And then in the office, but I think in today, the most accepted form is to email a secure link and, and let the client do it in their own time.

Peita Diamantidis
100%. And I mean, I’m hoping everybody out there is the last thing I want to be doing is collecting details I don’t need if somebody’s you know, whether it’s their credit card, or that like, you know, none of us want that note or they’re

Yul Hardick
gone. But just people would send their credit card information over an e mail or you’re collecting it over the phone.

Peita Diamantidis
But that’s nothing, right. It’s just it’s it’s, yeah, it’s fraught with danger. So I’m with you, if there’s something that’s set it up, and then the client can go away and set up that payment. And off they go. You know, that’s there’s a level of liberation to that, that I think is probably a bit untapped in the industry, I think we probably haven’t quite, quite got to the point where lots of people are doing that, because we’re so used to it being via product, even if it is a fixed dollar. We’re so used to doing it that way that we’re not seeing these other opportunities necessarily. So I

Yul Hardick
think we’re still sort of in that transition phase two of still using platforms. You know, notably, if you charge a fee through a platform, you can still marry it up to an invoice charged through WebEx. Yep. But there’s certainly it does seem like the missing piece has been a payment gateway, integrator client billing solution, specifically for advisors, which is why we built our AP module in the first place

Peita Diamantidis
that can Yeah, and you’re right, it’s something that’s been around well, ages elsewhere, is Yeah, every time you buy anything really online, you’re going through a payment gateway. I mean, as a rule, I’m generalizing there, but that’s really how wet so really, it’s just a way for clients to directly interface with, you know, money collection facility.

Yul Hardick
I’ve seen some businesses using XERO to invoice their clients and whatever else to and linking that up to a stripe or whatever else. But it will get complicated for AFSL because you sort of have two levels of With payments and receipts, if you’re paying multiple advisors or multiple practices, as well as dealing with billing for the clients, offset advisors and practices, it does require a special set of tools to manage that properly.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah. And then in terms of in terms of, then you’re talking about integrations with CRMs. And look, we’re all on that journey, aren’t we about real integration, as opposed to token push of data one way or the other? Then, before we dive into what they are, and I think that would be, you know, something we should definitely cover? I’m curious as you guys have gone down that path? Is there any lessons of you know, what practices are better prepared from that from their data? And like, is there been any work that, you know, on the practices side, they’ve had to do to make that worthwhile? Or make it, you know, really valuable, as opposed to? Well, we’ve got the integration, our bit crap, our data is not good enough. It’s not gonna, like we’ve got some work to do. Is there any sort of insights that you could bring on that front?

Yul Hardick
Yeah, definitely. I think, you know, it’s probably not unusual in this industry to have unclean data somewhere, whether it’s in your your CRM of choice, or in your RMS, or, you know, an email campaign manager, it’s, it’s not uncommon to have unclean data. And a lot of the reason that data isn’t clean is because it’s never been properly integrated or connected with other data, or in terms of, if you have to move data from one layer of your tech stack to another. It requires a number of steps that that can either make it a little bit too hard, or too difficult. Yep. To to get it cleaned and incorrect. And that’s not a new problem. That’s been a problem for 1015 years. Yeah, the industry has always battled with the freedom of their data and being able to access it on their own terms. One thing, I think that is a big advantage with REG X is that we have a very focused core mission. And that is to be the best of breed in the RMS space in the Australian Yeah, we don’t want to be a CRM, we don’t want to be anything other than focusing on revenue management, and client billing and advisor payments, that whole brokerage commissions space, that’s our sweet spot. And I think there’s certainly value in staying focused on something specifically, you know, that old Steve Jobs mentality, don’t, don’t try and do everything, because you’ll do it half as well. The one thing you have to do is actually good. Yeah. And that’s certainly the focus with WebEx. And the advantage for us there is that we can be agnostic, we work with everyone in the landscape we work with, with Iris, we work with Pluto software, we work with intelliflo. More recently, we just want to deliver the best of breed solutions to our clients. Yeah, and part of that, you know, my frustration, I think, from from previous lives gone by is that as as a bit of a nerd myself, I’ve always wanted to use the best software, the world’s best option for any particular piece, it’d be it, you know, a MailChimp or something for email, campaign management, to maybe Salesforce for a CRM, you know, all these different things, but they would never play well with each other. You know what I mean? It’s always jolly, you know, you can, in your mind, you can create that perfect tech stack and say, I’ll use this for that. I’ll use rubrics for an RMS blah, blah, blah. And then you go and try and plug it together. And unless you’re a developer, yourself, the whole thing starts to become a little bit bigger than Ben Hur. Yeah. But I think that challenge has not been unique to me, it’s certainly been a frustration echoed around the industry for over a decade. And it’s coming to a point now where the competitive advantage for any layer in that tech stack is how well it talks to other software. Yeah. And that’s certainly a focus for robotics, we just want to be an RMS, we’re focused on being the best possible RMS and client payments and advisor payments solution in the space. And that is largely driven on our integration with the other layers in the tech stack. Yeah.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah, for sure. I think it’s we’re all talking about it now. And it’s certainly a key element of I mean, it’s it’s a category that I’ve got on my little list of questions. You know, it’s a whole category is integration in My advice to recovering when I interview people but, but like you say, when you look at the amount when you sit back and sort of watch your practice from afar, and you see how much time energy and in particular frustration occurs, because of the lack of integration, it becomes when you become a bit religious about it. It’s, yeah, it becomes an obsession, because that’s not what I’m actually paying them for, you know, like, that’s not actually why they’re there. And it’s not actually this. I mean, these are wonderful people that work for all of us. And they should be doing the wonderful thing of engaging with our clients and getting them great outcomes. And instead, they sitting there ready to throw their computer across the room, because of the lack of it talking to other systems, you know, and you know, that stuff. I’m right there with you. So on that point, then for you guys, I’d imagine there’s this sort of big regular plays, like you mentioned there, that you sort of naturally integrate with it, because you’d have a lot of users that do that. If there’s a CRM, that’s, that’s a bit further down the list, or it’s less popular, how does that work for you guys? How can somebody then try and get an integration for something that’s a little more unusual?

Yul Hardick
Yeah. Again, the advantage to us is where we’re not owned by any particular CRM, and we’re a small to medium sized business. So we can be relatively quick and agile to jump on opportunities in the market. You know, we’ve got a very flexible and talented development team. And, you know, if, if we’re onboarding a client who has something we haven’t encountered before a CRM that’s new to the market, or, or, or, you know, a different method of payment gateway, or whatever it is, we’re pretty quick to adapt and develop an integration. That being said, I think, we’ve probably been exposed to almost everything that’s out there, today. And so

Peita Diamantidis
I’m hearing a challenge listeners during a challenge.

Yul Hardick
Ultimately, the whole point is, we want to be the best at what we do in terms of revenue management, providing payment options for advisors, and the emergent need of those that practice level user needing better access to data, better reporting, business intelligence, integrated payment options. Those are the things that are driving a lot of our current development. Yep. And similarly, it’s what other layers in that tech stack CRMs, or whatever else, other businesses getting the exact same feedback from their clients. Yeah. So I think we’re coming to a bit of a golden age in terms of technology in the financial advice industry, because we’re moving away from the horizontally integrated offerings to being very focused on it’s the advisors data, no more blackbox systems, everyone’s fleshing out their API offerings. And I mean, that everyone in the industry is trying to develop some sort of open API architecture to better integrate, because it is the competitive advantage that will ensure the survival of any layer in that tech stack over the next five to 10 years. And we’re definitely ahead of the curve on that piece, I think.

Peita Diamantidis
And it’s a, what’s interesting is, is probably revenue management has been, I Well, and you can correct me if I’m wrong here, but I would have, I would have thought from a practice perspective, it’s been a bit further down the list in terms of us sort of focusing on that demand, like going, Hey, we want it to integrate. But when I think about it, the data you guys collect and collate is has far less dimensions than a lot of the data that exists elsewhere. So So really, it it only falls into a couple of categories per client, you know, so each client can only have a couple of likers yes, there’s complexity. You know, what, I’m not underwriting that, but it’s more the volume of the data. That’s the issue, as opposed to the number of headings if you get what I mean, whereas some of the other integrations, I can understand why it’s a bit tough, because it’s like, wow, there’s a lot of potential columns in that thing, you know, like, it’s like, well, why I can be all sorts of things and all sorts of activities, whereas for all, there’s a lot of volume, it’s like, you know, it could be monthly payments on a premium, all sorts of things that comes through really, the the dimensions are quite, quite limited, which is a positive, you know, that means that integration is possible, because you’re not trying to jam, you know, a round peg into a octagonal hole. So it’s, I think that’s,

Yul Hardick
yeah, I get what you’re saying about being said, like we spoke about earlier, the fragmentation in the delivery of this information from platforms and the like, yeah, that is the layer of complexity. Yeah. All

Peita Diamantidis
right. And I guess that’s my point is is you guys are doing a whole lot of hard work for the for the data in you know, that’s that’s where a lot of the hard work for you for yourself. Lucien comes from. Whereas what we haven’t really I think cottoned on to is the next step, which is the data out, you know, or connected to us, maybe isn’t the massive leap in our heads, we thought it was, you know, and so that’s why we’ve pushed it down the list when I think maybe, you know, we should all be focusing on it a bit more to get real advantage of that granular insight.

Yul Hardick
Yeah, absolutely. We

Peita Diamantidis
may not be getting right now,

Yul Hardick
we’re really coming into an age where I think, you know, the likes of the online services power, like Power BI and Microsoft or Tableau, these analytics and data aggregation, software’s are becoming very accessible to end users. And we’ve got a generation of advisors and practice managers and dealer group CEOs coming through now that have a lot more tech nology nows than previous generations. Yeah. So the solutions becoming better scoped and more defined? can ultimately, these software providers like robotics and the CRMs out there, and whoever else to cater to those needs? Yeah. Or else the market will go and develop their own drumming? And we’re very much a possibility, right?

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah. And I think, you know, you’re right, I think it’s our ability these days to announce the eight, what we want is clear up because we’re exposed to more options, even if it’s not in our industry, we’re like, yes, but, you know, the way it works, when I do that, you know, whether it was buying and, you know, an outfit or whatever, like, that seems to work. Can we do that here? You know, like, it’s, we’re exposed to much more of it now. So I agree, I think our our ability to scope in that sense, and certainly from a practice, you know, maybe a practice manager level, they’re getting so good at granular process, understanding that the ability to say I need those things to do this four times, and then that this is how, you know,

Yul Hardick
the volume of data now that seems to be flowing across people’s desks, is creating a lot of what would you call it spreadsheet? Fatigue? Yes, most practice managers, pseudo advanced, Excel uses that. At some point, they, they just get fatigued. So there’s got to be an easier way to do this. There’s only so many power queries or pivot tables I can create before and like I said, I want to bring up,

Peita Diamantidis
correct. Now, let’s talk about, you’ve got a whole lot of people on Revex and users, and maybe focus on at a practice level, are there any features or services you guys sort of have, as part of the package that you find, maybe doesn’t get taken advantage of, but you think is a bit of a gem? Like, is there anything that really like all people should look under the hood there? Because there’s some, there’s some magic that they could take advantage of?

Speaker 2
Yeah, look, we’ve, you know, we’ve we’ve got quite a number of licensees of all sizes as clients, and, and a huge number of practices, and everyone seems to have their own favorite piece or their own flavor. And in my opinion, a couple of the unsung heroes of the Revex software would be what makes it a little bit more than just an RMS and that would be what we call our a pay and pay my bill module. Yep. Which is effectively catering to people who create those ongoing invoices or fixed term contracts or, or one off fees and program those schedules into WebEx. Right? And have it connected to a payment gateway. So that’s all seamlessly integrated, eliminates the need for having to import these fragmented statements from various suppliers as well, because it automatically matches. Right. It’s all driven through WebEx. Yeah. And, you know, I certainly think it’s, it’s the only one of its kind in the Australian market today that does that for the financial advisor space. And okay, use it. I swear by it, that people who don’t use it, probably just don’t know about it yet. Yeah. Another area. I haven’t seen too much of it’s that rebating clients. Yep. It’s it’s a functionality we’ve we’ve built into into WebEx, the ability to rebate clients and to manage that process and the payments and so forth. Directly in in the rebec software, you write the ABA file, you upload it to your bank, and it splits out the payments just like you would for advice or payments or stuff, payments, those sorts of things. There hasn’t been too much demand for that. I don’t think many businesses are really looking at that. But the ones that do swear by it, obviously, it’s more of an ethics concern or a business case. And we do it. Yeah. Okay. And, you know, if there were businesses that were looking at delivering client rebates, that is, for example, rebaiting, everything was paid by our platform, and billing the client directly through through API. It’s it’s a feature that we currently has, and I would like to see more you utilization of it, especially for businesses that have been thinking about moving to a pure fee for service model. And the client direct billing engagement is definitely something we’ve been running and can accommodate.

Peita Diamantidis
And that’s an interesting tool to have, you know, if somebody’s transitioning to that, because there’s always that middle ground where some of it has been the old way and some of the new way and like, it’s, it can always get a bit messy. So to have that facility there such that either way, in that transition you’re covered, can make a big difference. Because it can get messy truly, but like you say, it’s, you know, this provider, you give them notice here, but there’s still two payments that come through or then like it, like all that stuff. chsp Yeah, so messy said I have a way that, you know, we we’d know that we could rebate, and that would all be handled. That’s that’s a, that’s really positive.

Speaker 2
And it’s just something that can, that can become a little bit complicated, which is, June, it hasn’t been a popular path for many businesses. Because the complexity of managing something like that does need some bespoke tools. But there are tools that we have. So if there’s anyone out there wanting to relay clients, jump on board, I suppose that also leads to what we’re talking about before around fee disclosure statements or statements is and whatever that’ll turn out to be over the next five or 10 years. Yeah. And I’ve had the great fortune of seeing various implementations of fee disclosure statements, statements of fees, and the like, across many different dealer groups, and how they’re managed. None of them are ever very easy to administer, or pull together. But, you know, and this is probably more of a personal opinion, I look at something like WebEx and I think, well, all the data really is in WebEx. And I’d like to see probably more use of WebEx for producing fee disclosure statements and statements of fees, because that’s the source of the data. Right? In WebEx. It to me, it just makes sense to cleanly develop a, you know, the client facing statements of fees. Yeah, of the software that holds the data. Yeah. That being said, you know, we’ve talked about integration before we do we integrate with almost all the CRM is to produce options to generate FDS as out of other softwares, as well. But I do think it’s more of an RMS concern than anything else. And I would like to see that, that develop over time as well. We have an FDS option inside of Revex. And, and, you know, we’re actively developing that to to accommodate whatever direction businesses go in in terms of being able to produce statements of fees. Yep. But it’s always, it’s always top of mind. That’s, you know, it’s what’s driven regulation over the past 10 years, I think being able to clearly define the fees you’ve collected when they were collected, what they were collected for, with clients. So it’s not that way, anytime soon.

Peita Diamantidis
No, it’s not. I do think that, you know, one of the things that I’m curious about is because there’s, there’s a second half of that activity, which is then, you know, renewal or consent. And, and right now, we’re very much at the mercy of every platform, assuming sorry, that that fee is paid out of a platform, then we’re very much at the mercy of the platform. And so there’s rumblings I’m hearing that’s very early stages of people trying to get to the point where, and I’ll use you guys as an example, where in fact, the FDS, slash consent that got generated, would let you know, would end up having a button, the client could say, Yes, and I agree that I’d like to continue for 12 months, and that then that would then push to the product provider, like the the direction would be the other way, you know, what it did say? Yes, the clients continuing, you know, it’s not for new stuff, I get that for a new, a brand new fee, or a change to the fee forms and all that rigmarole is required, I get it. But if there’s something in place, and all the client is saying, yes, please continue, then it makes a lot of sense that that would actually be pushed to the provider from one place, as opposed to us individually doing these ridiculous forms. And like it’s, it’s, it’s all a bit, it’s sort of a bit embarrassing, to be honest, the whole the rigmarole that goes into all of that. But yeah, just really, this thing’s really hot. I’m like, it really is, you know, this is this is this is it being silly, so

Yul Hardick
and all the rest of it. And I think, you know, platforms, access to API’s for platforms is gonna be a big thing over the next couple of years is to some extent, that’s already a thing overseas. Yep. Yeah, even in terms of revenue management, instead of getting these ridiculous CSVs or P DFC mailed across every so often or downloading a website, upload that into RMS, connect straight to the source and suck that data straight out of a platforms database, I mean, loads of things with where, you know, that are on our radar. And we’re talking to platforms about at the moment. And I know RS have a project as well, which for similar reasons, they want to be able to direct things out of out of explanation, you know, fee payments by platforms and whatever else, right. But it’s got to be a broader market engagement. If platforms want to be the, you know, the ones that charge a fee, take a fee and pay out the fee. Yeah. But sort of integration with an RMS and the payments gateway, like WebEx is crucial. It is, has to be integrated.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah. And it’s, what’s interesting, too, is, you know, we’re in the game of finance. And it’s sort of hysterical, that the information on our own businesses, finance is only historical, in that we only really get it after it’s happened. Like, it’s, it’s like, surely, in finance, we’d have a mod night, because at like you’re saying, if, if we all got better at that, and it was more of a sort of a live feed, which is sort of what you’re saying, right? It’d be more of a live into connection, then cash flow for advice, practices, and being able to, you know, manage that, but it would suddenly transform the way you could run a business because it’s not after the fact and gee, I wonder why that particular payment was half what it was last time, like, it’s, it’s all sort of unknown right now. Like it’s, whereas being at us, you know, see that and, you know, a smart tool, using a bit of AI perhaps would be able to predict that and go, Oh, wait a minute. In three weeks, we reckon there’s going to be something there. That’s a bit unusual, let’s, you know, like it would be pre emptive, which would be fabulous.

Yul Hardick
Yeah. Yeah, I think you already see that a little bit with tools like my prosperity and the like, where they connect directly to the bank account. And you can create some rules around categorizing transactions, budgeting and whatever else. But it certainly needs to be something that’s applied to the revenue management space in financial services in general, not just financial planning, like broking is

Peita Diamantidis
another area, General Insurance assignments

Yul Hardick
have some some technological advancement? Yeah. But ultimately, these are areas where you know, the platform’s if they want to continue to stay relevant, and I’m sure they will need to be engaging with the technology stack directly. Yep. And vice versa.

Peita Diamantidis
Yeah. And just see it as part of a given if you’re going to play in this space. This is how we do it. Yeah. Was there anything? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Is there anything else looking forward that you guys have got on the development plan, or you sort of got on the radar, that’s going to be, you know, coming up that you’ll either add into the suite, or upgrade or change it?

Yul Hardick
Yeah, as we were talking about, I mean, we’ve we’ve covered off a lot in this talk, actually, some of the key things on our development pipeline at the moment, are further fleshing out our integration options. So being able to deploy our API and connect with anyone who’s willing quite easily. Yep. In terms of being able to deliver business intelligence at a practice level, a daily group level and whatever else, and of just to be able to use that red x data, however you want your data, how will be in green, is it go for it, you know, we’re all for that open interconnectedness. And also working with other layers in that tech stack be that CRMs be that various, you know, marketing or campaign management software’s, or whatever opportunity we can to make this data more useful to businesses. Yep. We want to be engaging in that space. So we’re actively working to make that a lot easier. There’s also we’ve done quite a bit of work in that integration with payment gateways space to create a fleshed out, we call it the AP module inside of WebEx, or that you can create these ongoing plants, these invoices, and manage all of that from one place. And obviously, the reconciliation piece there is much easier because the data goes out from WebEx comm straight back into WebEx, it matches against itself. It’s a piece of cake. So I’d really like to think that over the next year or so we’ll have a number of big announcements on enhancements in that area too.

Peita Diamantidis
Well, we’ll we’ll we’ll wait with bated breath to hear about those. For sure is, is there any of the features we’ve missed? I mean, I know there’s also on where you guys also have looked for so currently for the listener that doesn’t understand, you know, there’s all these files that come through in terms of revenue, we’re going to load them up all this sort of process. My understanding is you guys can also take on some of that. So if somebody just wants to go, Hey, I need you to upload and get all that done. That’s something that Revex can do for a practice. If they choose to, to sort of take that extra step. Is that correct? Sorry, can you say that again? Yeah. So it’s, um, so So currently we get our files from the insurers and we get our files from the platforms and and you know, we’ve got to do that regularly monthly, however anybody does them and then we load them up ourselves. So there’s my understanding is you guys offer also have a service where you will take on some of that, so that then there isn’t a person there necessarily doing that upload constantly to try and get that data in.

Speaker 2
Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. So Rubik’s Rubik’s is a software. You know, separate to that. We’ve got our comm central business, which is outsourced brokerage services, with the businesses using red X or calm pay or whatever, whatever the software solution, comm Central’s agnostic, obviously we prefer to twist your arm because yeah, your choice. Yep. But yeah, we absolutely have a an option to alleviate that burden in businesses as well, because brokerage has become quite a science today. So we definitely have a team of experts can look after that internally as well.

Peita Diamantidis
Perfect. Anything else we’ve missed? I feel like we’ve covered most of the session.

Yul Hardick
Thanks. Awesome. It’s been lovely.

Peita Diamantidis
Not at all. Not at all. You are very welcome. All right, advice, explorers. If you’d like to find out more about Rex, then the website link is in the episode shownotes. You know how this works. But along with yours LinkedIn details now I’m sure he’s not actually the person that’s going to be answering your queries, but he can probably point you towards the person that can so reach out and ask and remember, he challenged us to find a CRM that that they’re not yet connected to. So I feel like we need to, you know, help him out. There are suggestions through exactly Garone. Thank you so much for joining me here today and sharing how you guys are playing I know it’s possibly an unsexy part of advice tech, but it’s fundamental to resolving and keep the doors open. So thank you so much for everyone sharing your insights. Exactly, exactly. Thanks so much, you, okie dokie, this revenue management stuff, how we’ve had a couple of episodes now on this. So you know, after the homework from last week, have you worked out? What what your practice is using? Are they a remix user? Are they feasibly using one of the other providers, you know, make sure you know, find out what what system they use, and perhaps even do some digging into what features are being used within the business. Because while I fully understand that, you know, practice managers and maybe the dealer groups are actively doing that work for you, perhaps it is worth understanding what’s possible. So whatever tool you’ve got understanding what’s possible understanding that perhaps you can set up a six month direct debit for a particular program somebody’s going on or, or something for their, you know, adult kids that you can that they can register them for, or like there’s all these tools we have available to us that don’t require us now, as it sounds to have other payment, gateways other ways, we’re going to have to organize that. So do the digging, ask the questions, offered to understand better those systems just so you can understand what data you’ve got, what opportunities you have, and how things might work in your practice. Also, you know, if you’ve come across something wonderful or a great way of using the tool or, gee, this thing does FTS, has really well please share it on the ensemble platform. You know, we’ve got a crowdsource this stuff. You know, it’s it’s truly invaluable from here to here from another practitioner. And it could be a support person who said, Actually, I worked out how we can do this particular nuance thing in our practice, share it please. The more we all do that, then the more we can truly lift up the the industry as a whole and just get really humming in the way that we can engage with the public. Now in terms of my thoughts about our conversation there, something that sort of stood out for me is is well look, it’s an unsexy topic again, we go beta, which is you know, data, quality of data, and how we handle that in our practices. This is something that often we can get very grouchy and focused on when we are moving systems, for example, or trying to integrate systems, but it’s not something we’re generally aware of as we go along. Whereas I would encourage you to consider data quality and ongoing mandate that set within the practice. And what I mean by that is, you know, if something you could go and dig into maybe your core CRM, whatever you use, go and find the mobile phone field and see how many different ways people are entering that in. Are they entering and it depends on the CRM, some of them won’t let you do it, but any any but one way, but for some of them, some people are going to enter them. Four numbers base three numbers base three numbers base, so am I going to enter them all in one big long number, so I’m going to enter them as plus 61412 right eight if you’ve got multiple ways that your team are entering data into the one field, then you’re going to need a data mandate, something that just says for these key fields, this is the way we enter that data. Yeah. And what’s going to happen as you start to become aware of this is you’re going to see how many places the one thing can be represented in six different ways. And those things may seem small. And they are until you need them not to be until you’re trying to connect to something else. And you know, on the mobile phone front, if you want to have automated SMS coming out of the system as follow ups, or click to call, because you’ve put all of the calls into cloud computing, and you want it to click and then the phone just starts ringing for the individual may be working from home or, or even in the practice using Cloud phone systems, then that only works when that data is really clean. And if it’s not clean, that’s when it causes kick ups in these wonderful productivity and efficiency gains. So you know, just start to look use the mobile feeders as example. But there’ll be other fields where they’re just simply isn’t consistency in the way your team are utilizing them, or the information they put in. This is the first layer is those really sort of specific fields like a mobile number, date of birth, those things that have construct. The second layer of you know, data mandates is how you use some of the text fields that you have in your practice. And you might have some fields that you’re typing things in, but some people are using it for one word notes, and some people are using it for long sentences. And so you know, the more you become aware of that, the better quality the data you’re going to have, it’s gonna be far more clean, which means it’s far more useful down the track, and you’re going to be able to trigger and, and engage with it in all sorts of ways. So that’s sort of my mission for you is start to become aware of everything in your CRM and the fact that is an opportunity to be data that can be analyzed and collated and use it to trigger things later. So start with the mobile field, just go and check it out, maybe in your practice in your CRM, it’s not an issue. So look for another field where you think, Oh, hold on, that looks like people are entering that different ways, and just start considering that and debating it in the team. Now, for today’s curiosity, corner discussion, I’ve actually got something a little different for you to take a look at, I accidentally came across this website, and website is an exaggeration is really just a landing page. But it’s basically been set up to represent the wealth of the super rich, shown to scale so that people can get a sense of, you know, if you’re, if you’re Bezos, if you’re these these, you know, Bill Gates, what does that mean, compared to the rest of us? What is what does that actually mean? And, you know, what could they potentially be doing with it. So, the website is called one number one pixel wealth. And the best way to find it is just a Google one pixel p i Xel wealth, we’ll also include the link in the show notes. So if you’re out and about driving, you can’t write that down. The link will be in the show notes. But you know, all I mean, really, this website itself is all about highlighting wealth inequality, right. And that’s what the message is embedded in it are all about, but I’d love you to take a look at it as a really interesting example of how, with a relatively actually really simple graphic, and way of representing something you can get across a message that actually holds a fair bit of complexity and nuance, and has a lot of views and storytelling underneath it, you know, and it’s a topic that I think lots of consumers actually struggled to grasp or get their heads around, you know, how wealthy are the Uber wealthy and what does that actually mean? And why does that make them want to build rocket ships? I’m just being just kidding. But I’m being cheeky there. But, you know, I just wonder whether, as advisors, we could start to think about what great insights we could give the pelvic public, if we could put together some imagery like this that could help them understand concepts. Whether that’s compounding whether that’s, you know, these things that we see is fundamental, and that would help them really get a grasp of a courtroom, you know, is there a way we could do that with some cleverness and sense of humor, and a simple graphic representation and when I say graphic, I don’t mean graph, right? This is about graphic as in a drawing, that captures something so I challenge you to check it out. Like I said, one pixel wealth, but you know, as you’re looking and having a bit of fun with it, and just notice how simple it is, how it’s getting across messages, and then think about what could we do And similarly on a different topic that could be incredibly valuable for the people we interact with. Welp, that’s all we’ve got for this week, folks, be sure to subscribe to the podcast. So you’ll get your advice tech fix automatically sent to you each Friday. And if you feel like you know, your practices sort of stuck in a rut on the processes you have and the and the tech projects do you think you need going forward? Maybe you feel a need to step back and do some planning for the year ahead, then I’d love to facilitate a brainstorming session for your team on sort of drawing out the next best projects for the business might be what tech could assist you with those projects. And then we can, you know, get the team all working together to innovate in an ongoing sense within the practice. So if that sounds something that’s just right for you right now, then please reach out to me on LinkedIn. That’s LinkedIn forward slash Peita M DPITA. M D. Otherwise, oh, look forward to turning up in your earbuds next week. And remember, advice explorers. Stay curious.