Contracts
Priority assessed by the APEXA Governance Board in March 2022
| Key | Operational categorization | Summary | Business Need (What is missing or needs improvement?) | Business Value (how does this enhancement help you?) | APEXA partner | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SD-25079 | Contracts - Related Contracts/Hierarchy | Contracting -Corporation Playing Two Roles in Hierarchy | The system allows partners to use branch codes when contracting through an entity that operates under their organization. However, the system does not display that entity in the contract hierarchy, making it difficult to quickly identify all parties involved. | Help us properly identify the correct contract container and hierarchy. | Sun Life | MEDIUM |
| SD-12158 | Contracts - Related Contracts/Hierarchy | Contracting -Branches -Allow Branch Codes for Non-Billable Corps | Partners are allowed to use branch codes when contracting through an entity that operates under their organization. However, branch codes are only available to partners that are billable. | Canada Life and other partners have reported that there are more common contracting scenarios where Non-Billable corporations are contracting through themselves. Allows for contracting hierarchy where non-billable corporations can contract through themselves, such as AGAs. | MEDIUM | |
| SD-5724 | Contracts - Related Contracts/Hierarchy | Contracting -Changes to Hierarchy Doesn't Require New Contract -Approving Hierarchy Change Without Adding a Package | Advisors or corporations often have changes in their business hierarchy or structure, which do not require signing a new agreement. We currently manage this business case by submitting contracts with blank packages to the advisor or corporation, since there is no better option on the system to manage this. | So what happens is every time we have a hierarchy change, we have to leave the contract pending as there are no requirements. | Barrington Wealth Partners Inc. | MEDIUM |
| SD-14801 | Contracts - Contract Requests | US.53 - As an MGA, I want to be able to select the hierarchy and the party role in the contract request so that I don't have to deny it. | As part of the Enhancements 2021, it was planned to give the ability to MGAs to select the hierarchy and the party role in the contract request if needed. However, it was removed from the scope due to limited resources. | MGA will no longer have to deny the contract request if the contract request hierarchy is incorrect. | MEDIUM | |
| SD-22561 | Contracts - Contract Requests | Contracting -Contract Request -Add Date to Contract Request Summary Screen | Contract requests can take some time to get processed by the MGA. But there is no option to see what date the contract request has been submitted. | Allow users to see the date contract requests were submitted | Bridgeforce Financial Group Inc. | MEDIUM |
| SD-14817 | Contracts - Contract Requests | US.69 - As an advisor, I want to have a new contract request screen with the most common options for an advisor so that I don't get confused when I'm requesting a new contract | As part of the Enhancements 2021, the contract request screen was to be refined to have only the most common options available to the corporation. However, it was removed from the scope due to limited resources. | Better user experience. Corporations should require less assistance to perform this action on the system. | MEDIUM | |
| SD-14995 | Contracts - Contract Requests | US.70 - As a corporation, I want to have a new contract request screen with the most common options for a corporation so that I don't get confused when I'm requesting a new contract | As part of the Enhancements 2021, the contract request screen was to be refined to have only the most common options available to the corporation. However, it was removed from the scope due to limited resources. | Better user experience. Corporations should require less assistance to perform this action on the system. | MEDIUM | |
| SD-14813 | Contracts - Contract Requests | US.65 - As a corporation, I want to have a screen designed only to request a contract to a new carrier through an MGA so that I can do so more quickly | As part of the Enhancements 2021, it was planned to improve the way corporations are requesting a new carrier contract. However, it was removed from the scope due to limited resources. | Better user experience. Corporations should require less assistance to perform this action on the system. | MEDIUM | |
| SD-13276 | Contracts - Contract Requests | Contracting -Prevent Users from Selecting HUB Corp in Lieu or HUB MGA | Some MGAs also have their own corporation on APEXA, which some advisors and other corporations can contract through. The concern is that both entities can be selected when they submit the contract request, which is confusing for advisors who should contract directly with the MGA. | Will prevent broker from requesting a relationship with the wrong entity and then re-doing the same steps. | HUB | MEDIUM |
| SD-1376 | Contracts - Viewing Contracts | Contracting -Downgrading Notes -Privilege Automatically Set to 'Everyone' | MGAs and carriers can add notes when changing the status of a contract. The system will add this note to the contract comments. However, there is no option to choose the privilege of this note as it will be visible to everyone by default. | It will allow MGAs and carriers to add notes that shouldn't be visible by the bottom party. | Manulife | MEDIUM |
| SD-29210 | Contracts - Viewing Contracts | Reinstated Contract's comment can be edited | When a partner denies a contract on APEXA, it is required to upload a document to support the reason for denial. The system will attach this document with a comment for all parties to see. However, there is no option for the user to cancel/delete the attachment if the wrong document was uploaded by mistake. | It would be able to fix errors and protect privacy issues to avoid confidential information leaking. | Bridgeforce Pacific Place Inc. | MEDIUM |
| SD-30255 | Contracts - Viewing Contracts | Audit Trail - seeing who made what change | On APEXA, a partner can have employees with the same role. This means that they can perform similar actions on the same record. But the system does not always track which user has modified a contract, for example by adding a question or adding an external signer to the contract. | helps us with training, who is responsible for changes, etc. | Bridgeforce Financial Group Inc. | MEDIUM |
| SD-12770 | Contracts - Contract Approval | Contracting -Contract Failed to Approve Error Unclear | When an error occurs when a user is approving a contract, e.g. when external signers have been removed from the contract in the wrong order, the error message that is displayed (contract failed to approve) is not helpful as it doesn't provide any guidance to the user on what to do next. | Improves workflow, improves communication, adds clarity for both carriers and MGAs. | Foresters Financial (Financière Foresters) | MEDIUM |
| SD-12260 | Contracts - Contract Approval | Contracting -Facilitating Contracts Required First -Unable to Open Corp/Advisor Profile | When looking at a contract with mulitple parties, if the facilitating contracts (the contracts between parties in a larger hierarchy) are not all approved, the Carrier receives a "Page Cannot be Displayed" error when they attempt to view the profile of the bottom party instead of a helpful error message letting them know that the facilitating contracts are not in an active status. | It will eliminate extra communication between carriers and MGAs. | Foresters Financial (Financière Foresters) | MEDIUM |
| SD-6811 | Contracts - Additional Signers | Contracting -External Signers -Notification When Signer has Completed Signing | For contracts requiring external signatures, the MGA is not informed when the external signer, such as the shareholder, has signed the contract. | When we send the email to request external signatures, there is no way for the team to know when the signature is completed unless going back to the contract. It is hard to track when the agents sent multiples request to complete. | Financial Horizons Group | MEDIUM |
| SD-12590 | Contracts - Contracting Roles | Contracting -Hierarchy -AGAs Sending Contracts to Broker on Behalf of MGA | When a broker works with an MGA through an AGA, the AGA's role in the contract is generally to accept the broker under its umbrella. However, on APEXA, the system will force the AGA to set up the contract as opposed to the MGA, for those contracts where both are billable parties. This part needs to change. | It streamlines the process for the AGA and broker alike by keeping the responsibility of sending down the MGA agreement with the MGA, where it belongs. | HUB | MEDIUM |
| SD-6640 | Contracts - Fulfilling Requirements | Contracting -Signing Agreements -Allow MGA to View Signature and Mandatory Fields as Signing Requirements Are Fulfilled by Other Parties | To ensure that all requirements are met on the contract, MGAs verify that all parties have properly fulfilled and signed the agreements when applicable. But, when the MGA is not required to sign, they are not able to review the agreements until all parties have finished signing. | Reviewing capability into Agreements before a final signature is added by us the MGA. I am the one reviewing all contracting but not signing off. I need to ensure all forms are completed properly before our VP signs off. | Barrington Wealth Partners Inc. | MEDIUM |
| SD-920 | Contracts - Fulfilling Requirements | Contracting -Forwarding Contract -Remind User to Send Contract Up/Down After Signing | Once advisors or corporations have fulfilled all of the requirements on the APEXA contract, they have to submit it so that the MGA or AGA can proceed. But sometimes the user forgets to click on the ''submit'' button, and the system has no mechanism to remind them to do so. | Comment from Nov 1st 2017 Ops meeting: There should be an alert for advisors as they are not currently prompted to submit/send the contract forward after they complete requirements. | MEDIUM | |
| SD-28220 | Contracts - Fulfilling Requirements | Visual separation of kits in contracts | A contract may have one or more kits of different types. But it is not possible to easily identify/view the requirements corresponding to each of the kits. Example: Questions. | Operational gains, user-friendliness, speed of use for file conformity validation, etc. | Industrial Alliance | MEDIUM |
| SD-7071 | Contracts - Fulfilling Requirements | Contracting -Email Notifications for Outstanding Contract Requirements | As part of the contracting process, advisors often forget to submit the contract after completing the requirements. The system does not have a mechanism in place to remind them to do so.It would be helpful if there was a reminder email sent to the advisor giving them a heads-up they have an unsubmitted or incomplete contract still sitting with them. | Barrington Wealth Partners Inc. | MEDIUM | |
| SD-924 | Contracts - Fulfilling Requirements | Contracting -Address Information -Group Contracting Requirement -Different Address Could Apply to Different Contracts | Some carriers have group contracts where advisors and corporations can have a different business address depending on which carrier they work with. But the bottom party of the contract has no option to pick the correct address to consider for the contract. | Comments from Nov 1st 2017 Ops meeting: An advisor could have an active contract with one MGA, but could also have a group only contract through another company. The address on these two contracts could be different, and there needs to be a way to identify which address applies to which contact. This requirement will become important once Manulife and Sun Life onboard group contracts. Select an address record per contract (as banking currently functions) and/or update address for all contracts as needed. | MEDIUM | |
| SD-12540 | Contracts - Fulfilling Requirements | Contracting -Alert Banners Indicating Advisor Has Issues with Profile are not Clear as to Underlying Issue | The system will display the following message when the bottom party has issues with their profile: "This contract cannot be approved because the associated advisor has issues with their profile", but this message does not point to which specific requirements are missing. | Please add a more specific actionable message that allows us to take action and remedy the issues so the contract can be approved. | Foresters Financial (Financière Foresters) | MEDIUM |
| SD-1695 | Contracts - Terminations/Downgrades/Vesting | Contracting -Downgrading -Add Downgrade Reason | In our industry, any party to the contract can agree with the carrier or the MGA to terminate, downgrade or vest the contract. While the system provides various reasons to select, there is no reason to indicate which party initiated the termination of the contract. | Today, we have to select Business Decision for a variety of scenarios, and it is an untrue reason. We quite often receive the request for Termination from the Advisor, Corporation or MGA/Branch. Internally, we have all of these as Termination Reasons to be sure that when we are looking at the contract/code, we know why the termination occurred. With Apexa showing Business Decision, it appears that the carrier or MGA made the decision. It would be ideal if we could have these options added to truly reflect why/who requested the contract/code be terminated (downgraded). | Manulife | MEDIUM |
| SD-27710 | Contracts - Other | Option to Terminate Subordinate Contracts when Terminating a Corporation | When a relationship with a corporation is terminated, the MGA/Carrier should be given the option to also terminate all of the contracts with the advisors contracting with them through that corporation. | Saves time and is more efficient for cases in which the termination is also applicable for advisors below the corporation. | PPI | MEDIUM |
| SD-946 | Contracts - Viewing Contracts | Contracting -Comment -New Options to Allow Comments to be Seen by Specific Parties Only | Any contracting party can add a comment to the contract on APEXA, with a privilege to restrict others from seeing it when appropriate. But the MGA or AGA is not allowed to add comments for the bottom party only. | Comments from Nov 1st 2017 Ops meeting: The ability to write internal comments to just an MGA or advisor would be beneficial. The Carriers agree as they do not want to see these comments as it adds extra work for them to review additional comments which are not relevant to them. | LOW | |
| SD-18877 | Contracts - Signing Agreements | Assets -Signing Agreements -Allow Hierarchy Agreement Signing Within Same Organization | With the appropriate agreement, employees of the same billable organization can sign a contract. However, this is not a simple task as all requirements will have the same labels in the agreement for the same organization, making it confusing for its employees. | Allows for agreement signing requirement in a hierarchy level within the same organization. It will also facilitate the contracting process in this situation. | Pacific Place Financial Services Inc. | LOW |
Pending review by the APEXA Governance Board
| Key | Operational categorization | Summary | Business Need (What is missing or needs improvement?) | Business Value (how does this enhancement help you?) | APEXA partner | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SD-30377 | Contracts - Fulfilling Requirements | Submitting contracts - add a prompt for brokers to submit the contract | As part of the contracting process, advisors often forget to submit the contract after completing the requirements. The system does not have a mechanism in place to remind them to do so. | We have a lot of brokers who think they are done but have not actually clicked the Submit button. We are having to email and call them and direct them back to the contract where they need to click the Submit button. | HUB | NONE |
| SD-32321 | Contracts - Contract Requests | Comments on contract requests | When a contract is requested in APEXA, the system allows the advisor and the GM to exchange information and documents by adding a comment. However, this information is not included in the contract generated by the request. The GM or AGM must copy and transfer this information manually into the contract. | This would allow us to avoid copying information from the contract request to the current contract generated. Especially when we need to confirm that the comment came from the sales rep himself. If a sales rep leaves a comment in his contract request and I want to prove that he really left it, I have to take screenshots and send them. | DESJARDINS RÉSEAU INDÉPENDANT (DRIA) | NONE |
| SD-37012 | Contracts - Contract Requests | Transfers - excluding Downgraded or vested statuses | On APEXA, a corporation or an advisor can request the transfer of its contracts. In this process, the system will take into account all of the contracts associated with the relationship between the parties. However, the parties do not have the option to include or exclude contracts with a certain status. Example: Vested contracts. | Would allow the rest of the contracts to transfer properly – with less work for both Carrier, MGA and advisor & a better audit trail of the transfers. | Sun Life | NONE |
| SD-38526 | Contracts - Contract Requests | Transfers | In the industry, it is common for a carrier contract to get transferred from one MGA/AGA to another. In some cases, advisors and corporations under this contract are not required to sign a new contract. But on APEXA, the parties have no choice but to send the new contract to the bottom party before it can get approved by the carrier. The system does not have an option to choose whether or not the bottom party should get involved. | this would provide value to everyone from the advisor not having to complete anything multiple times to the MGAS to the Carriers. Will save on unnecessary manual creation of records in In-trust and time savings for the Carriers and MGAs. Just would make an overall better experience for everyone. AGAs or corps with multiple people under them move all the time so having a more user friendly solution will go a long way with every level within Apexa | RBC | NONE |
| SD-36967 | Contracts - Contract Requests | Transfer Requests in APEXA | On APEXA, a corporation or an advisor can request the transfer of its contracts. In this process, the system will take into account all of the contracts associated with the relationship between the parties. However, the parties do not have the option to include or exclude contracts with a certain status. Example: Vested contracts. | Transfer requests within APEXA are very limiting at the moment as there is a lot of inactive/terminated data being included. Carriers do not generally, if ever, use "terminated" status. So all the actual terminated contracts are being included because they are reported as downgraded or vested. We need to expand the transfer request to not only exclude terminated but also downgraded or vested. For some contract transfers in APEXA, the inability to remove these containers/contracts, in turn forces us to do the transfer as a net new contract.. Which we don't want. | Barrington Wealth Partners Inc. | NONE |
| SD-36968 | Contracts - Other | Advisor Automated Email Notifications | On APEXA, parties are notified when changes are made to the contract they hold. In some cases, the carrier or MGA would prefer not to notify other parties of changes that they deem irrelevant. | Advisors often get email notifications when things happen within APEXA. In some situations it is not necessary for them to be notified. Like when the status of their contracting is being changed due to clean up.. We should have the ability to tick off a box if we do not want a notification generated. | Barrington Wealth Partners Inc. | NONE |
| Contracts - Other | Audit trail | Currently on APEXA, there is no audit trail for billable clients and they are unable to see the employees that actioned contracts or tasks on behalf of their organization.The client has requested for us to implement audit trails for actions carried out by employees in billable organizations. | It would help to have a better vision on what is done by the employees and to know who has made a mistake and understand what is going on. | MICA | NONE | |
| Contracts - Other | Advisor Carrier Contract Status After Termination | Currently on APEXA, when an MGA terminates their relationship with an Advisor, they no longer have a "live" view of the Advisors profile. Because of this, the MGA will no longer be able to view the current status of the 3 party Carrier contracts they have with the Advisor. The client is asking for the Carrier contract status for advisors in which an MGA is included in to still show as current dated for the MGA in the contract after the Advisor has been terminated. | Often we terminate an advisor upon notification that the advisor is no longer with one of our firms. It can then take weeks if not months to move all block of business and terminate the contract however, the MGA contract is terminated first. It is very confusing when you look at the advisor contract listing and you still see Active, when it fact something has been downgraded. I end up rechecking all these records, 2 and 3 times to make sure they are downgraded. It would be very beneficial if the status of these contracts did not get locked down upon termination of the advisor-MGA contrat. | Barrington Wealth Partners | NONE | |
| Contracts - Other | Advisor/Sub Corp Invites for Advisor under AGA or Corp | Currently on APEXA, when billable organizations invites a MAC or SAC, a 2 party MCA> Corporation contract is automatically created. The client has requested for a 2 party contract to also be created when an Advisor, AGA and Subcorp is invited | As an MGA, that has extremely few direct contracts, we have been force to offload the task of inviting advisors to the AGA or Corp. We need the ability for us, as the MGA, to invite advisors or sub corp and attached them to the AGA/corp through the invite. The less I have to download onto the corp the better as it is generally not done correctly. | Barrington Wealth Partners | NONE | |
SD-63346 | Contracts - Other | Contract Codes | As a carrier, we can only add “Selling codes”, would it be possible to add other types like for example Licence Management Only, For administrative purposes only, etc. | This would help us document codes and indicate to advisors that these codes shouldn't be used for selling purposes. | Desjardins | NONE |
| SD-68951 | Contracts -Other | Notifications | When cleaning up APEXA, or downgrading/terminating contract, it would be beneficial to have the option to suppress the notification to the advisor. A tick box maybe to turn off notification would be great. | In some situation there is no notification needed from APEXA and these notification can flood an advisors inbox. Maybe it is just clean up by an MGA or downgrading a contract where by the advisor was already notified. | Barrington | NONE |
| SD-37017 | Contracts - Terminations/Downgrades/Vesting | Container Status Changes | Currently in APEXA, billable organizations are able to downgrade or vest an Active contract. In some cases, the final decision for the organization is to terminate the contract. However, the system requires the billable party to first reactivate the contract, before it can be placed in a Terminated status. The request is to review the system rules when transitioning between these statuses. | Often downgraded or vested are used for various of reasons. When we want to change the contract to terminated, we should not have to activate it as this is an unnecessary step. It is also limiting as well, in some situations if an error was made and you go to clean up APEXA you cannot because you cannot reactive so the status remains as downgraded or vested. | Barrington Wealth Partners Inc. | NONE |
| SD-61170 | Contracts -Termination/Downgrading | Contracts for advisor with other carriers | When analyzing an advisor, we look at the contracts they have and we can see the inactive contracts they have with other carriers. However, it can give us a bad impression since we don’t see the date or any details/comments on the contracts. We can often see advisors with a lot of inactive contracts, with only Business Decision as the reason and nothing else.We would suggest the following:
| It helps us analyze advisors before contracting them and avoids unnecessary confusion on the quality of the advisor. | DSF | NONE |
| SD-37156 | Contracts - Viewing Contracts | Ability to review documents signatures before submitting contracting | On APEXA, employees can have different permissions and roles on the system. In the contracting process, some employees do not have signing permission. However, the system does not allow them to view the agreement until after the signature is complete. | In order to make the contracting process smoother and create less delays, all contracting including agreements should be at the very least visible to a contracting administrator (without signing ability). This gives us the ability to reset any agreement not properly completed prior to MGA signature and submission to the carrier. | Barrington Wealth Partners Inc. | NONE |
| Contracts - Related Contracts/Hierarchy | MGA Branch codes - Terminated | The APEXA system allows partners to use branch codes when the carrier has multiple branches. The MGA, AGA or Corporation will be required to select one of the codes from among all their contracts, before they submit a contract to the carrier.However, the branch code will remain available to select even if the contract has been terminated with the MGA for that branch code. | Reduces time delay and clean ups | Sun Life | NONE | |
| Contracts - Related Contracts/Hierarchy | Access for Branches that are not in the contracting hierarchy within APEXA | Currently on APEXA, some contracts go through " Branch Codes" and not directly through the organization. | With no access, it makes it extremely different to see what is going on with contracting and often creates many long delays. A lot of carriers have now shifted to APEXA only and without access it makes that very difficult when contracting still flows through us. | Barrington Wealth Partners | NONE | |
| 53178 | Contracts -Typo | Termination status - French Translation | Can we review the French translation for the termination type: Vested. I never noticed this before because I always view my Apexa in English, but an MGA sent us a screenshot asking something and I noticed the status was different than what we had.To me, and others, ‘en cours d’acquisition' sounds more like the contract is pending a transfer or acquisition. However, this contract was terminated with status vested. I do not believe this is the proper translation and was very confused why they were showing this status. | Correct translation. Avoid confusion on status of contract. | Sun Life | NONE |
, multiple selections available,