How Symphony Risk Solutions unified direct bill processing across AMS360 and BenefitPoint

Symphony Risk Solutions is the next generation, full-service insurance, risk management, and employee benefits consulting firm advising and serving the risk and human capital needs of middle market and “lower Fortune 500” businesses, private equity firms and alternative asset managers, corporate executives, and high net worth families.

Symphony Risk Solutions had a substantially growing direct bill book as it expanded into new client verticals. With this growth, it became more difficult to recognize revenue in a timely manner. The broker was experiencing challenges such as:

• Unapplied cash balances that consistently hovered in the 5 figures 
• Reporting delays due to the time intensive process to receive a statement and recognizing revenue 
• Inefficient workflows that lead to growing hours from the accounting team spent on manual accounting tasks, pulling them away from reporting and strategic initiatives

Symphony Risk Solutions sought a partner that offered more than just software - they needed a partner committed to ensuring a seamless integration and onboarding experience for their team. As a Vertafore Orange Partner, Ascend was selected for its trusted ability to not only deliver results with their technology but also the hands-on onboarding approach to ensure a smooth implementation for Vertafore agencies and teams.

The rollout was defined by a personalized touch:

• Role-Specific Training: Ascend’s team mapped out the roles within Symphony Risk’s accounting department to ensure each team member was trained and guided through their specific workflows.
• Continuous Support: Beyond the initial onboarding, Ascend remained a constant partner in supporting complex scenarios and edge-case exception handling with a fully dedicated on-demand customer success and support team.

Starting first with Symphony Risk Solution’s Property and Casualty business on AMS360, the team then transitioned their Benefits and Consulting business (on BenefitPoint), resulting in a single comprehensive automation workflow across their entire direct bill book and different agency management systems.

With Ascend, Symphony Risk Solutions has been able to realize significant efficiency across the direct bill processing workflow. They’ve seen:

• 40–60 hours hours saved every month on manual reconciliation tasks
• 85%+ reduction of unapplied cash down to only a couple thousand dollars a month
• Reduce time to recognize revenue from weeks down to a few hours/ days.