Overview, Product Overview

Durell runs under all 32 and 64-bit versions of Microsoft’s Windows, from Windows 98 onwards. All versions may be run multi-user over a network, if correctly licensed. It is an integrated suite of programs comprising the following products…

· Office Manager (client & contact management, optionally with accounts)

· Lite (ditto, plus fact finds and financial planners, designed for insurance salespeople)

· Financial Adviser (ditto, but with additional controls designed for IFA offices)

· Mortgage Manager (ditto, but with additional controls designed for Mortgage Brokers & Packagers)

· General Broker (ditto, but with general insurance brokers controls instead)

· Complete Administrator (the combination of Financial Adviser and General Broker)

· Friendly Society Administrator (designed for administering Friendly Society offices)

These products are just different groupings of the Durell modules…

“Office Manager” is common to all versions. It is the client administration system with a document viewer, mail shots, notes, diaries, internal messaging and an optional comprehensive accounting suite. It is designed for professional users, such as accountants, lawyers and dentists.

“Lite” also has extensive client facts along with a number of financial planners and basic policy details. It is designed for individual insurance salespeople, though some offices have used it as their sole administration tool, while conversely some salespeople may find it inadequate and wish to upgrade to one of the following more comprehensive versions.

“General Broker” comprises “Lite” plus an extended database for general policies and claims. It includes far more policy information and allows the posting of premiums directly into the accounts from the policies. It has many extra features for processing renewals, mid-term adjustments, instalments and reporting.

“Financial Adviser” similarly comprises “Lite” plus an extended database, but in this case for investments, life and pensions. Similarly it includes far more policy information and allows the posting of commission directly into the accounts from the policies. It has many extra features for compliance checking, mortgage processing, valuations, commission tracking and reporting.

“Mortgage Manager” is actually identical to “Financial Adviser”. Both contain special features for mortgage broking and packaging. However the product can be renamed to emphasise its suitability for mortgage work.

“Complete Administrator” is simply the combination of “Financial Adviser” and “General Broker”. Individual users on a multi-user system can choose to see just life business, just general business or a combination.

If you purchase a combined product, like “Complete Administrator”, you may set-up users’ names for each of the four sub-products, so for example a general insurer and a financial intermediary could use the same system, one after the other, automatically re-configuring it each time according to their login name. In contrast, if you only have “Office Manager” you will not be able to run any of the other products until you upgrade your licence, though you may create additional “Office Manager” user names.

If installed on a network, the system allows for multiple concurrent access (i.e. the single database comprising all client, policy and accounting records may be accessed simultaneously by a number of networked computers). The number of users that may log in concurrently depends on the number of user licences purchased.

This also means that in a combined life and general practice running “Complete Administrator”, different users may login to completely different aspects of the system. For example, the life department might login to “Financial Adviser” or “Lite”, the general department to “General Broker”, while the accounts department might access the whole system.

Note that the way the system looks (e.g. screen colours, aspects included, etc) depends on the login name, not the computer used. Moreover the login name also controls the access rights of each user, such as whether the accounts may be viewed or amended.