Hi,
I’ve been asked to come up with a solution for an insurance broker and I’m trying to determine if I should develop a custom software from scratch or if SuiteCRM might be a good base for it.
The current process and needs are pretty simple:
The broker resells insurances from several companies
Customers have revolving contracts and pay on monthly/quarterly/yearly… basis
Contract amount is payed to insurance company and broker received a commission back from that company
Broker wants:
keep track of contracts & automate end of contracts emails warnings
keep track of payments done and future payments from customers
keep track of payments done and payments due to insurance company
keep track of commissions received and due
reporting and stats on the above
Reasons I’m considering SuiteCRM (which I am discovering) is that I expect the needs to expand over time and that some might be already covered by it. Also obviously, quite a few functionality are built-in (roles, accounts, invoices…).
I installed SuiteCRM and see I need quite a bit of customization (no concept of commissions, contracts are not linked to products, no cashflow tracking…). So the question is, without prior knowledge of SuiteCRM, will it require a huge effort to implement the above ?
Hi. You seem to be discussing mostly items which would fall under the function of Accounting. It doesn’t seem optimal to try to re-invent that function, but to perhaps synchronize Accounting to CRM for Customer Service. Otherwise, Accounting systems are designed to do exactly the kind of cash flow and transaction reporting you are asking about.
I have a Quickbooks sync program that’s currently in production and being expanded to sync additional entities and bi-directionally.
I’d be interested in helping you implement this system.
From a business needs suitability perspective, it’s a good fit. However, you shouldbe aware that SuiteCRM/SugarCRM is a large and complex application. When we bring new developers on-board, experienced developers need about 30 man days to get up to speed, junior developers at least double that. And that’s factoring in mentoring and support from some of the most experienced Suite/Sugar developers in the business.
So, think carefully before you embark on it. But … it’s a good fit.
I’m sorry that I resurrect the old topic, but it’s just that I myself once encountered this issue, and spent a lot of time to find really useful information.
A pure customer relationship management (CRM) system won’t have many of the features and functions that a broker management systems include in an out of the box implementation.
If you only need the ability to track specific contact, sales and services information about the clients of the brokerage, a product like Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics will be very powerful and flexible.
However, if your intent is to maintain policy information for your clients, track accounting information, exchange data with insurance companies, then a dedicated broker management system is more appropriate.
It isn’t that a ‘pure’ CRM system can’t be customized, it is just that the effort may have cost prohibitive. Are you in the software development business or the insurance business?
The appropriate broker management system for you will depend upon a number of factors including the size of your operation, need for multilingual support, and territory of operation. I find this article https://diceus.com/comparison-of-12-best-insurance-crm-software-systems/ where you can get a lot of useful information on this topic. Hope this helps. Good Luck