Centurion, a prominent financial planning firm headquartered in south west England, historically operated two very successful, major joint ventures with legal firms, WBW and Mogers Drewett. These relationships were set up as appointed representatives and effectively run as independent companies with Centurion as the principal firm providing services and clients introduced by the solicitors.

This is a tried and tested model that is replicated nationwide, enabling accountants and solicitors to introduce clients into a company that they have a stake in. It’s a win-win-win for all parties:advisers and planners attract new clients, accountants and solicitors share the value of those clients over the longer term, and clients get the advice they need as well as better outcomes.

Centurion’s plan was to grow these joint ventures to the point where they could offer the right partners equity in the principal firm, increasing the incentive for close collaboration.

“We’ve been on a journey with these joint ventures, from setting up the entities, growing them to a critical mass and eventually having WBW and Mogers Drewett take equity in the principal firm (Centurion). They've been very successful and as such are now fully integrated into Centurion.

It’s always been our belief that professional services should be collaborative, ensuring the client is at the heart of everything we do, and that's where our approach to joint ventures comes from.”

Duplicated costs and burdensome admin

Steve says that despite Centurion’s joint venture and trading name success, operating multiple companies incurs significant pain points. These include increased admin costs, duplicated accounts and irrecoverable VAT on cross-charging for operational services. Running a joint venture that has appointed rep status also brings with it the burden of increased FCA reporting.

“There are duplicated costs that come with each of them: multiple sets of accounts that need to be done, regulatory returns for each individual firm, and perhaps most painful of all is that there’s an awful lot of irrecoverable VAT on cross charging.

Administering them is also almost a job in itself. I’d say we would spend about 30 person hours a month on administering them, essentially just to run these joint venture appointed rep firms.”

Manual referral tracking

Under the JV model, referral leads that came through to Centurion from professional relationships would be sent to the admin team, who would then manually record the data in Intelligent Office.

Though an effective setup, all data was entered manually, subject to human error and not automatically updated by each party.

“We recorded the referral data manually, forming part of the MI (management information) that we report on quarterly to the board. We've got referral figures historically going back five years per professional connection."

Centurion introduced RQ to remove all of these pain points, streamlining professional relationships into a single automated and compliant system. It has enabled them to transition away from running regulated entities, reduce admin and operational costs and improve referral activity with partners.

By harnessing RQ to manage the internal flow of referrals, Centurion has unlocked the benefits of collaboration it has always excelled at producing, whilst reducing internal admin costs associated with managing them.

It has removed the painful VAT on cross-charging, removed its need to provide regulatory oversight (as it no longer runs these relationships as ARs) and removed the need to run the companies themselves. Vitally, it has also made the relationships more transparent and seamless, as well as automating and improving data collection.

Collaboration has changed

Professional collaboration has changed, says Steve. Relationships with other professionals move at a slower pace today compared with the past, and as such being able to nurture them via RQ is "ideal". 

“RQ is the ideal home for them [our relationships] because it's more efficient and lower cost compared to what we've had to do in the past.

We can instead focus on getting these firms to a position where the stream of referrals is consistent and the relationship is solid and it can just tick over. We don't have to worry too much about the trajectory of the business relationship as much as we did before because there is now instant oversight of all referrals between the two firms so each firm can see exactly what’s going on with each case, giving everyone peace of mind. 

Simply put, through implementing RQ, we’ve realised it’s easier to have people referring to Centurion rather than setting up a trading style or joint venture.”

Centurion still works with a few firms as trading styles, but they've got their own email addresses, business cards, logos and everything else they need.

‍“These relationships are great, but it can become a bit unwieldy when you've got an adviser who trades under four or five different brands and styles. She’s got to remember who she is, which account she's emailing from, which stationery to use. It's fraught with error, or the potential for error, when you start doing that.”

Relationships take time to nurture, RQ makes it much easier

According to Steve, relationships need time to develop to see whether there's alignment between brands and organisations. Nurturing relationships to this point is something that takes time and by using RQ, firms can manage and develop multiple relationships across professions with ease.

“We also need to get a relationship going to see whether there's actually a bonafide brand there to get behind before we then commit to it, which is why running the newer relationships, which just refer directly to Centurion, via RQ is our preferred route now.

There's nothing else to set up. There's no confusion over who is what in this whole network of names and trading styles. It definitely makes a lot more sense for us.”

RQ has been transformational for Centurion, enabling the firm to enjoy the benefits of cross-referrals without the burdensome admin, duplicated costs and regulatory scrutiny.

“We’re now taking our introductions from professional introducers directly via RQ, running with the referrals, converting them into clients of Centurion, and paying fees through the platform.”

The firm now manages eight relationships with solicitors and accountants, and no longer sets up new joint ventures for firms, choosing instead to run its relationships via RQ. ‍

“I think the biggest advantage of RQ for us was the ease of getting law firms to adopt the platform as opposed to trying to get them through the hoops of setting up a joint venture and appointed rep status, which is now entirely removed thanks to RQ."

Steve says that the firm has also dramatically reduced the work associated with managing their appointed representatives:‍

"We're very glad not to have to report on our appointed reps now, because the reporting on that is onerous and for good reason. The last one we had to do for our appointed reps, which are no longer trading, was 80-something pages.

It was a necessary and legitimate setup that enabled us to harness the joint relationships with professional firms, but thanks to RQ we now get all those benefits without the administrative burden and costs.

RQ was a massive win because it just took away a lot of administration, the platform has saved us time, money, and enabled us to focus on building relationships and delivering great client outcomes.”

How RQ helps introducing firms‍

Steve says RQ is also an improvement for introducing firms which get more oversight of what's going on. Whereas Centurion used to update introducers sporadically and infrequently, now RQ provides regular status updates and automates quarterly payments for introductions. ‍

“Firms used to give us a referral and that would be it. They wouldn't think too much about it. The frequency of catching up on any pay away was sporadic at best.”‍

Once a year, the Centurion team would have a ‘mop-up’ exercise, where they would reflect on how everything had gone with referrals and partners. They would then inform partners of successful introductions and fees due. Now RQ enables them to provide regular touch points and updates.‍

“Firms love the fact that they've got oversight of how many leads they've generated and what sort of conversion metric is being achieved. Before we rarely heard from firms, now they chase us for updates. What's going on here? I can see we've sent these clients, how are they doing? 

They're acutely aware that there are other firms that refer clients to us, and they take an interest in how they're performing against other introducers. They’re looking for the next step up in terms of how the relationship progresses.

From the solicitor and accountant point of view, they definitely find it easier because it just is.”

How RQ has provided more transparency

Before RQ, Centurion's partners would not get an automatic update on referrals, or updates available on demand.

"If they wanted something, they'd get it. But there was definitely no formal reporting. RQ has helped enormously."

When it comes to partner communication, the key benefit for Centurion was that RQ simplified an unnecessarily complicated process.

‍"RQ has gone beyond what we expected in terms of how it’s impacted the introducers that we are working with. We get more detail. They're a bit more switched on to the relationship because they can see a bit more. It definitely has achieved everything we wanted it to.”

The volume and quality referrals has improved

Steve says the quality of the referral delivery has improved as well, with partners providing more useful context and making the transition with clients easier.‍

“We used to get a name and a number, but no subjectivity around what an enquiry was, whereas we're getting a lot of detail put into the system now, which is great from our point of view. They provide really useful information, so we know exactly what we're going into. 

And it just means that it's a very concise conversation that our advisers will have with a client, rather than a bit more exploratory, because we're not quite sure what's going on with a referral. It's better than it ever has been.”

Some of Centurion’s typically quieter partners have suddenly started making referrals out of the blue.

“After we onboarded two relationships, uploaded historical referrals to RQ and organised the fees due, we suddenly had a big influx of leads from both of them just as they got into the system.  

Clearly it's because they're more switched on to the commercial part of the relationship now. They can see the result of what they're doing straight away, so they're thinking about it a bit more.

If you can see that you can get something out of it, you're going to put a bit more into it. And so I think that's what happened in both those instances. It's an easy system for them to run, because all they do is input the data and leave us to do the rest.”

Why Centurion’s Steve Smith thinks RQ is a must have

"It just feels like common sense.

Why would you not use a piece of kit that can take away all the pain that you've got from this manual process. I cannot explain the laborious nature of operating appointed reps and joint ventures in the way that we did it. 

We probably spent, in person hours just managing the governance of it all, 20 to 30 hours a month. Whereas RQ just takes that headache away. 

It's one system where all of our advisers can sit and manage relationships, removing the difficulties of running various trading styles and email addresses and all that sort of complication that we've had historically.

The commercial aspect of relationships was always a headache for us. Whereas now it's great to have a quarterly payment run through RQ. It's almost like operating a payroll for partners four times a year, and gives us more in terms of our deliverables for the professional connections.

It was always slightly embarrassing to have to be chased for a dividend payment as we used to operate. Whereas now it just happens and it's processed regularly, on time and people are already familiar with it.

If you look at the other benefit of the platform, which is from the referral side, everything's in one place and we get better data. Introducers are giving us more detail because they're got something to fill in rather than just sending us an email or giving us a call. 

That’s definitely an advantage and something that we didn't have before.”

We asked Steve, if RQ was switched off tomorrow, how disappointed would Centurion be on a scale of one to ten?

“Easily a nine or ten. RQ is ingrained in what we do now. It’s taken a lot of pain away for us in terms of getting relationships into a consistent referring process. It's one system that deals with all our referrals. So don't take it away please.”

Centurion is currently happy with the number of relationships its got, something we see often with firms with successful professional connections strategies. The focus then turns to increasing the value of relationships as well as the level and quality of leads.

"We've notionally got individual advisers responsible for each of our professional relationships. I think every adviser has at least one that they look after and we're now able to hold them to account in developing those relationships for the first time.

Our focus is on getting more efficient and getting more out of what we already have established so that anything we look to bolt on in the future is scoped out and justified rather than just going out and trying to amass all these connections and all these referrals, and then falling over and not achieving the right outcomes.

From RQ, we’d love to see an integration with Intelligent Office. We're building out our use of that - it's where we put absolutely everything now. Having RQ and IO talking to each other and having that MI passed through into the rest of our data would be great. It obviously would save us a lot of time, but it would also mean we can draw on that rich data from a single place."