Envisage Information Systems: A Specialist in providing Cutting-Edge Software for the Retirement Industry

“With over 25 years of experience, Envisage uses component technology to create lasting, scalable, retirement solutions.”

Envisage Information Systems, headquartered in Ithaca, New York, provides long-term cost-effective solutions to clients in the retirement industry. The company has been immersed in the web-based e-commerce arena for over 20 years, assisting in the building of business-to-business and business-to-end-user technologies for its clients.

Established in 1990 by Steff McGonagle and Rob Jetty, Envisage was originally setup to provide custom programming services and off-the-shelf business solutions for vertical and horizontal markets in the greater New York State area. Over the past two decades, it has focused exclusively on the retirement industry, solving fundamental problems within the industry rather than simply developing technology to address a surface issue. The company has a long history of using small components to build large systems for the retirement industry and is constantly looking for opportunities to improve its offerings by reusing open-source third-party components and libraries. In order to make sure that its technical solutions satisfy business objectives, Envisage is committed to an approach that combines various aspects of ATDD, BDD, and the “Testing Pyramid.”

The company’s team members include engineers who have international standards knowledge. They are also retirement industry experts, holding ASPPA’s (the American Society of Pension Professionals and Actuaries) QKA, QPA, TGPC and CPC credentials and the IRS’s ERPA designation. Envisage has been in the industry for the past 25 years. It is in the fifth generation of its component-based technology stack, while others in the domain are in their first or second generation of component-based architecture.

Product Offerings
Envisage develops cutting-edge solutions for its customers. The solutions offered are highlighted below:

Enveritus- is Envisage’s industry-defining suite of web solutions targeting participants, plan sponsors, financial consultants, and administrators. Since 2000 the Enveritus suite has been offering record keepers and third party administrators, web-facing functionality that allows them to lead and differentiate in the 401(k), 403(b), and 457(b) markets.

PayRule- is a web-based remittance and census submission, validation, and transformation tool set. PayRule reduces labor costs related to processing client data and training new staff. It improves traceability in support of audits, compliance with service-level agreements, and increases client satisfaction through instant feedback and results on remittances.

Allocator- provides a solution for multi-vendor payroll and census file acceptance, eligibility and plan determination, service tracking, employer contribution, year-end look back, and full compliance limit monitoring in the 403(b) and 457 markets. It also includes a web-based participant enrollment system, comprehensive reporting and notification capabilities.

Retirement Services
Application- is a highly sophisticated browser-based workflow and document management system designed to allow back office workflows and documents to flow seamlessly and securely between internal workgroups and outside parties. RSA includes tight integration to Microsoft office, minimizing staff training.

RKConnect- provides consistent web-based access to record keeping systems and other back office applications locally and across disparate physical locations. It unleashes the data in the record keeping system and is optimized for several major record keeping platforms. RKConnect provides secure data transmission through firewalls. Its small footprint and fast efficient processing go virtually unnoticed within a client’s infrastructure, yet provide high value to growing providers. It is the key technology behind many Envisage products and is available as a standalone service for other integration efforts.

Lumen- automates the process of delivering questions from a client to a subject matter expert based on the category of the question. A subject matter expert can easily retrieve a prior answer to a repeated question with Lumen’s pattern matching ability. Lumen also includes a rating system with which clients can rate the helpfulness of the answers that they receive.

Geographies
Apart from its headquarters in Ithaca, the company has offices located in Endicott and Syracuse. All three offices are in strategic proximity to Ithaca College, Cornell University, State University of New York and the University of Rochester, which is where it pulls much of its new talent. Envisage fosters a flexible environment that includes team members who work remotely.

Clientele
The company’s client organizations are part of the Fortune 50 going all the way to Fortune 1000. The majority of its clients have been with them for more than ten years. Envisage’s technology solutions are used to deliver data to retirement plan sponsors, financial advisors and more than 6 million participants. Record keepers are the target area of its clientele, helping them optimize custom solutions around their record keeping systems. It has also broadened that target to include broker dealers, helping them gain mastery over the record keeping systems they have to work with from outsourced providers.

Future Road Map
For the future, Envisage is focusing heavily on how Millennials will fundamentally change how retirement has to work. Their approaches to technology, social networking, and the way their career paths will unfold will fundamentally alter how the country needs to view and handle retirement.

Knowing the Master
Steff McGonagle, Co-Founder and CEO
Steff McGonagle founded Envisage with Robb Jetty in 1990. He began his career as a software developer for the transportation industry and ran a small regional trucking company. Eventually becoming a partial owner of a local computer retailer, Steff went on to establish Envisage with Robb Jetty. A graduate of Cornell University, he currently lives with his family in Genoa, New York. Robb Jetty retired from the company in 2012.

“We have been at the forefront of data-driven applications in the retirement industry since 1995.”