In short
Software Home helps US TPAs that use FIS Relius reduce manual work around it, through census intake and validation, data extraction for reporting, workflow and portals, and, where a firm decides to move, phased migration with parallel runs. Software Home is independent and not affiliated with FIS; integration methods depend on each firm’s license and hosting.
Relius in a TPA practice
FIS markets a family of retirement plan products under the Relius name, including Relius Administration for plan administration and testing and Relius Documents for plan documents. Many US TPAs have run their practice on Relius for years. It holds plan data and produces results that the rest of the business depends on, but much of the surrounding work, such as census collection, billing, client communication and reporting, often happens outside it.
FIS and Relius are trademarks of Fidelity National Information Services, Inc. or its affiliates. Software Home is an independent software company and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or a partner of FIS. Integration methods depend on your license, version and hosting, and are confirmed with your team and, where needed, with FIS.
Common challenges
- Data re-entry. Census and payroll data prepared in spreadsheets, then loaded; results copied back into billing, reports and emails.
- Limited visibility. Owners and managers cannot easily see work in progress, deadlines at risk or revenue by plan.
- Custom reporting. Reports that clients ask for require manual assembly.
- Scaling. Year-end peaks depend on a few experienced people who know the workarounds.
- Platform decisions. Firms weighing whether to stay, extend or eventually move need a clear picture of their data first.
Integration and modernization approaches
| Approach | What it involves | Good fit when |
|---|---|---|
| Automate the edges | Census intake and validation before import; billing, reporting and client portals fed from exported results | Relius works well for testing and you want to remove manual work around it |
| Data layer | Scheduled, read-only extraction of plan and results data into a reporting store, with reconciliation | Owners need dashboards, analytics or a single view across systems |
| Workflow layer | Annual projects, tasks, deadlines and sponsor requests managed in a system that links to Relius plan records | Work tracking is in spreadsheets and email |
| Phased migration | Plan-by-plan move to a new platform with mapped data, parallel testing and reconciled results | The firm has decided to change platforms |
How we would approach a Relius project
- Inventory. Which modules and versions you run, where they are hosted, which exports, imports and reports you use, and what your license allows.
- Map the data. Plan, participant, source and result data mapped to a canonical model with sample files.
- Prove one flow. Build one end-to-end flow, for example census validation before import, and measure the time saved.
- Extend or migrate. Add flows, or plan a phased migration with parallel runs until results match.
Read more in FIS Relius integration: challenges and opportunities.
If you are considering alternatives
For independent TPAs that want an integrated, customer-hosted platform, KinetiPlan is one option to evaluate. It is a pilot build; a scoped pilot on your own workflow shows whether it fits before any migration is planned. We will tell you plainly if staying on your current platform and automating around it is the better choice.