Agency Management System

[Mainemiss]

As a 2 location 5 person agency that has been using AMS360 since 2003 (we were a Beta agency moving up from AMSPrime)I should know and love them like my own family, but I don't. The program is so incredibly dense with function you can see grass grow faster than see a screen change at times. The cost for this is very very high (I think) going to $866 a month for 4 users in Jan 2011. Paid around $6,000 up front plus several $1,000 for training.

I was on hold the other day for 30 minutes waiting for a new password to get into their HELP program which had just been revised blowing out all the old user info and no helpful e-mail to help us move seamlessly from one to anther.

I have been looking at programs for the past 4 years and will finally be moving to NASA's Eclipse, online. $400 per month for 4 users and several thousand upfront. The have a complete accounting system lacking only the automated payroll reports of Quickbooks, but AMS does not have that either.

The format is very straightforward and fast, no endless waiting for screens to load (I have a highspeed T-1 line) And, when I call for help I speak to someone instantly and am treated with Mid WEst friendliness. The economics, the system (we are btw a 60/40 commercial/personal agency and store all our information online through scan and attach) and the service contributed to my decision.

I am determined to prove there is productive life out there beyond the big TWO. Now say a prayer with me they will remain autonomous for the life of my agency.

[KatD]

Russman is correct. InStar does run on Windows 7.

[koctail]

Thanks for all of your feedback. It is awesome! For those that use Instar, how do u like it? I also did confirm with the sales rep it runson Win 7. Apparently the material she sent me was outdated.

At this point I am leaning towards following the advice that mica.cooper gave me in the forum and keeping TAM 7.5 and running Windows 7 in XP mode. We have computers that do run TAM 7.5 with XP, so hopefully that would work. Now I have to find a local very good nerd to do this for me. My big worry with TAM is that during the transfer something goes wrong and it goes down and we are forced to call them. Every time we have called Applied in the past they are asking for our back support first before they will help us. Well that now is in the tens of thousands. Have others run into this problem. Solutions?

[insrep]

Has anyone here used SIS Partner XE? We're giving them a strong look for our agencies next mgt system but like others here, I too have that concern about going outside of the usual suspects and I'm having a difficult time finding discussion about them.

Thanks
InsRep

[fchelf]

We use Partner XE, and the previous version Partner 6. previously since 2005. The system is functional and easy to use. They were having some speed issues with their servers, but I believe that this has been corrected satisfactorily. It is a good system.

[rsadmin]

I am totally confused. I have been researching agency management systems for the past 3 weeks. There seems to be no concensus on what the 'best' system is. I, so far, have evaluated 9 or so different systems and still have questions about their fitting our needs at our budget - Agency Matrix, The Agency Advantage, HawkSoft, TAM, EBIX, AMS360SA, Quomation, QQEvolution and Partner XE.

We are a small agency (5 people) who use DORIS and are unsatisfied with it's style, ease of use, and quirks. We need an honest assessment of what a small but meticulous agency should use as a management tool. Is there a website or webpage that compares the most popular AM Systems?

[Mainemiss]

If you are confused then you are normal. There is no easy way other than to determine the features most important to you and the price range you want to be in and then get sample programs downloaded for you to experiment with until you decide on one.

I started four years ago going through the process and have chosen Eclipse from North American Software Associates as the best of all worlds (as far as I can tell).

[SteveAnderson]

There is not a "Best Agency Management System." But there is a best system for your agency. I have helped many agencies go through the process of selecting a system and have created an email course that will help you think through some of the issues. It is available at no cost at http://www.steveanderson.com/resources/. There is no cost involved.

Another resource is http://www.AgencyUserReviews.com. It is a site where users of agency software products and services can go to leave a review and to read reviews from other agency staff. It is a new site and the number of reviews is growing. Check it out.

Steve Anderson

[Pathway]

Thanks for all of your feedback. It is awesome! For those that use Instar, how do u like it? I also did confirm with the sales rep it runson Win 7. Apparently the material she sent me was outdated.

At this point I am leaning towards following the advice that mica.cooper gave me in the forum and keeping TAM 7.5 and running Windows 7 in XP mode. We have computers that do run TAM 7.5 with XP, so hopefully that would work. Now I have to find a local very good nerd to do this for me. My big worry with TAM is that during the transfer something goes wrong and it goes down and we are forced to call them. Every time we have called Applied in the past they are asking for our back support first before they will help us. Well that now is in the tens of thousands. Have others run into this problem. Solutions?

We switched from Instar to Hawksoft and it was the best decision we made...Hawksoft for the money is the best system available.

[koctail]

Has anybody else, and I am sure there are many, who have run into the dreaded unpaid back support situation with their software vendor? In this case it is Applied. They want $15K in back support from us for over 4 years. All I am trying to do is get the copy of the current program wea are running so we can purchase a new server. They won't even let us pay to upgrade to the current version of TAM until we pay them the $15K. I am obviously not giving in and will fight them and try to negotiate the best deal. What is the legality of how they are handling this? The sales rep from AMS I have talked to said what they are doing is illegal? Of course she is just the sales rep and not an attorney. I am sure AMS does the same thing anyway. Any advice?

[mclureins]

29% to other systems. what are these other systems and how do they companre?

[mica.cooper]

Did you have support during the past 4 years?

In contract law, there is a concept of quid pro quo, that is you are only required to pay for something if you get something. If you canceled support, and still used the product, then obviously you should not be paying for support. You were however using the product, and did not terminate your use of it, and therefore are probably liable for 4 years of license fees.

Agreeing to the license terms, and then not abiding by them is like stealing. You owe them because you did not terminate. If you didn't like the product, you should have switched. Agreeing to pay the licensing fees minus the support fees may get you where you want to be.

[gforaker]

The other consideration is that Applied "support fees" are not just for support, but also for all enhancements and upgrades. They charge nothing extra for upgrades. You want to upgrade, so that is the charge. I suspect that the amount would max out at the charge to buy the software all over again. You have had a free ride for 4 years, but you did not think it would last forever, did you? Your versions of Accord forms are all now out of date and depending upon your State, may not be legal for you to use.

[koctail]

Just to clarify a few things. We have been with Applied TAM Forever. We paid them very handsomely for the system years ago and we decided after many years of no problems to stop paying them support for TAM and support for download. the system is ultra stable and we have had zero issues. what is going on is our server is 7 years old and needs replacement. We don't have the CD-R for the current version of TAM we are running. Apparently it was done as one of their downloads. So we can't load the program onto the Server. Our IT guy says he may be able to do a clone of our current server and move to new one using some $1K software, but it seem like just a band aid and we are going to have to pay the piper eventually. sure we knew this day would come. we owe Applied $17K for back support! So buying the sytem new is the better option. They are offering us the following pricing for 4 users:

I. TAM Online: $5,700 Initial upfront (retail $12,600); $720 Monthly support fees (including carrier downloads)


I. TAM Inhouse: $8100Initial upfront (retails approx $18,550); $506 Monthly support fees (including carrier downloads)

I haven't seen anyone post pricing for TAM, so curious if this pricing is competitive or not.

[yoyowordup]

We have been on TAM forever as well. We currently have 5 users. We are NOT Tam online.

We pay $581 per months which is in line with your estimate.

You would be paying about the same for online vs in house for the first year, but after that your cost goes up $2,400 per year for online. I don't know if that's worth it. I do everything myself in house on my server and I like it that way.

The download is extremely efficient, so that alone may make you want to update your system. They have also had many upgrades with respect to paperless transactions which are very nice.

The current version in house does not support Windows7, so if your workstations are current that could be a problem. I think they will support it first quarter of 2011.

For the $7k/yr we pay, we get a lot. I just don't know if we use it all and if it's really a good value. I would love to see some other systems in operation but you just never know what you're getting until it's actually in place. Please let us all know what you end up with.