Looking for an FE Analytics alternative? Plan the switch around your client's next review pack

One quarter.

That's how long our own comparison of FE fundinfo and its alternatives suggests keeping the old subscription live after a firm moves its research platform. The reason is practical: the firm still needs to pull historical reports while the new tool beds in.

I think that's the right instinct, and it points at something most switching plans miss. Advisers judge a research platform by the screens they use every day. Clients judge it by the pack that lands on the table at their review. They never see the screener. They see the charts, the fund names, the performance table, and whether this year's pages look like last year's.

So once you've decided to move, I'd plan the switch around the client.

Give FE its due first

FE fundinfo is a serious business, and anyone shopping for an FE Analytics alternative should be clear about what they'd be leaving. Our comparison names four places it leads: a long fund history built with consistent methodology, brand recognition that compliance teams rarely question, a mature cashflow tool in FE CashCalc, and a two-sided business that also supplies data and documents to fund managers. FE's own site describes FE Analytics as fund research, portfolio analysis and investment decision tools, and it runs a training academy for users.

Those strengths matter during a switch as well as before it. A firm that has built its research file on years of FE data has a record worth protecting. But protecting it takes planning, because the old platform won't be there forever.

Run both, and keep the pack familiar

The cleanest way I know to test a new platform on real clients is to let both systems produce the same thing for a while. Run old and new side by side through one full review cycle. For each review in that window, build the pack in the new tool and check it against what the old one would have shown.

You'll find differences. Some are trivial. Some aren't: a performance figure that differs because two providers treat a fund's share class history differently, or a sector average that has moved because the peer group is drawn another way. Better to find those at your desk than across the table from a client who kept last year's report and has marked it up in pen.

And keep a short note of each one. When the client asks why a number changed, the answer should already be written down.

The look of the report matters just as much. Clients tend to read change in a report as change in the advice. If the layout, the order of sections and the chart styles all shift in the same year, some will assume something has gone wrong, even when the portfolio hasn't moved. So rebuild your template in the new tool to look as close to the old one as you reasonably can before the first client sees it. Same section order. Same words for the same things. Then improve it gradually, a section at a time, with a line in the covering note when something is genuinely new. The client notices the report getting clearer, and that's all they notice.

What happens to the history?

Fund data continuity is the technical risk most likely to surface in a meeting. Before you switch, pick the funds your clients hold most widely and pull the longest history each platform offers. Compare start dates, gaps and the figures for the same periods. Any fund that has merged, changed share class or closed deserves a second look, because that's where providers tend to differ.

If the new platform's history is shorter for a fund, decide now how you'll show long-term performance to clients who hold it. Our comparison is open that FE leads on depth where a firm needs a clean, long series on FE's own methodology, and it notes that some firms keep a single seat for exactly those fund-history questions. For some firms that's simply the sensible choice.

Then there's the evidence behind your centralised investment proposition. The research file that shows why each fund is on your list probably cites FE ratings, FE sector averages and screens saved inside FE Analytics. When the subscription ends, those saved screens go with it. Before cancelling, export what you'd need to explain past decisions: the screens, the shortlists and the reports behind each change to the proposition, all dated. From switchover, record which platform each new piece of evidence came from. Someone reading the file a year from now should be able to see where the old trail stops and the new one starts, with nothing missing in between.

The client should barely notice

Done well, a platform switch is something clients hear about only if you tell them. The meeting runs the same way. The pack looks familiar and reads a little better. The numbers they remember are still there, or there's a clear reason one moved.

That's the bar I'd set for any provider, Wealth Analytica included. Ask it to rebuild your current client report closely enough that a long-standing client wouldn't spot the join, and judge it on the result.

If your next round of reviews started tomorrow, which client's pack would you want to rebuild first?