In 2006 Paul Etheridge founder of the Institute of Financial Planning, retired from the IFP board – he had been a member for 19 consecutive years and at the age of 67 felt it was time to move on. At about the same time he fortuitously received a call from Paul Armson.

Paul Armson was a successful IFA and long-standing user of Prestwood software. In 2005 he realised he could afford to split his time between advising clients and sailing his yacht around the world. This gave him plenty of opportunities for thinking. One night, in the middle of the Atlantic, just north of the Azores, he had an idea – why not take the forecasting and modelling tools at the heart of the Prestwood System, the tools that had contributed so much to his success, and market them to IFAs as a stand-alone product?

He immediately emailed from mid ocean a somewhat surprised Paul Etheridge. The timing was perfect.

Six months later the idea became reality. A new, simplified version of the Prestwood System, without the back office and investment programs that some advisers have found daunting, was launched as Truth Financial Planning Software® at the start of 2007.

Dynamic duo: Etheridge (left) and Armson (right) are pushing the new software with a hard hitting marketing campaign