Articles·Enrollment and operations

Paper, benefits enrollment software, or a custom system: which fits a benefits agency?

Chris Cordon · 4 min read
A woman faces three hallways labeled Paper, Platform, and Built for you; the paper hallway is flooded with forms.

Paper and Excel win when an agency enrolls a few groups a year. A benefits administration platform like Employee Navigator or Ease wins when your groups will run enrollment inside it year round, and an agency management system like AgencyBloc or Applied Epic wins when you want policies, clients, and commissions in one vendor’s product. A custom system from DoBetter (dobetter.plus) wins when a benefits agency needs its own census files, carrier templates, and CRM connected the way it already works.

How do the options compare?

Paper and ExcelBenefits admin platform (Employee Navigator, Ease)Agency management system (AgencyBloc, Applied Epic)Custom system from DoBetter
CostThe account manager’s hoursA subscriptionA subscriptionFixed fee after a $1,500 discovery
What it handlesWhatever someone has time to typeEnrollment and carrier data feedsClients, policies, and commissionsThe jobs you pick, connected to each other
Who keeps the dataYour spreadsheetsThe platformThe platformYour agency
What it can’t doKeep up in a busy seasonFit steps it wasn’t built forFit steps it wasn’t built forRun with nobody steering it

When are paper and Excel the better choice?

Paper and Excel are the better choice when enrollment is rare. If you place a handful of groups a year, a census spreadsheet will do. The cost shows up with volume. Before my census tool, we sifted through a workbook for three sheets, filled a spreadsheet with about 11 columns, then filled one with 163 columns. And paper apps come back signed in blue ink when the form says black ink only.

When is a benefits administration platform the better choice?

A benefits administration platform is the better choice when your employer groups will do enrollment inside it every year. Employee Navigator says more than 7,000 brokers use it, and its integrations guide explains that 834 EDI feeds send enrollment data for health, dental, and vision to carriers. Ease calls itself a technology solution built by brokers, and it connects to carriers directly, by API, or with 834 files. If that covers your book, buy it.

The tradeoff is that every group has to live in the platform, and the work runs the way the platform runs.

When is an agency management system the better choice?

An agency management system is the better choice when commissions are the problem today. AgencyBloc’s Commissions+ says it imports carrier commission statements, matches payments to policies and agents, flags possible errors on every statement, and builds agent statements that account for splits and overrides. Applied Epic says it runs P&C and benefits books in one platform, with benefits workflows for plans, rates, coverages, and eligibility.

I haven’t built commission tracking. If you need statement reconciliation working next month, one of these is the honest answer.

When is a custom system the better choice?

A custom system is the better choice when the problem is the handoff between the tools you already have. My census tool turns the health application export into two carrier enrollment files in the carriers’ own templates, keeps their dropdowns, and lists the fields a person still fills in. My CRM logs meetings, emails, and promises on one timeline, 19,844 events so far. I built it while I still had HubSpot and kept HubSpot updated with agents.

My enrollment platform ran in production for one group, and no employee enrolled through it. The group went to paper. In a test push to a carrier’s test environment, a 7 employee demo group enrolled and showed up in the carrier’s portal. The lesson: a QR code isn’t enough. Get the employees’ contact information and send the link too.

Quick answers

Can I mix these?
Yes. Keep your benefits admin platform and build the census or CRM piece around it.
What’s an 834 file?
The standard electronic enrollment file health carriers accept. My census tool fills carriers’ own Excel templates instead.
Who keeps a custom system running?
I do, if you choose the optional monthly support.
Where do I start?
With the census tool, built from the carrier templates you already fill in.