Member News - July 2019

I trust the new financial year has started strongly… the level of activity from 1 July on the Smarter platform suggest that quite a few firms have got off to a great start!

Over the past few months we have been working on a few important projects that we wanted to share in this update with you.

Automated Deed Update Service

Over the past few months we have been building an automated deed update service (we are taking ideas for a 'smarter' name!) and will be shortly releasing a version in beta for our members.  The most recent deed template available from 1 July 2019 has been updated to cater for this automated deed update service.

This automated service will allow you to track the history of fund changes (from establishing deed, variations and changes of trustee), seamlessly integrating with your BGL or Class software to import any fund history you have stored.  You will be able to link documents to your existing cloud document storage, or alternatively upload to our Amazon S3 storage (in Sydney) where all fund documents are stored once generated on the platform.  Below is a screenshot of how this looks current within the staging (development) environment:

Screenshot 1 - Home page with fund list and status

Screenshot 2 - View history

Once a fund has been activated, any subsequent changes made to the deed will then be automatically time stamped and a URL link to the new governing rules attached to the SMSF client record.  Through your subscription, you will be able to provide access for additional users including trustees, along with other service providers (e.g. auditors, lawyers).  At anytime you will be able to download a complete history of the fund and will always have access to all document updates.

It’s important to note that this is a distinctly different product to what is in the marketplace today, providing a far more efficient, cost effective and transparent process in maintaining currency of your SMSF client’s deeds.  The relationship remains with you and your client, with two agreements:

1. between Smarter SMSF and you (your practice) to use the service; and 
2. you and your client, signing the fund up to the service.  

This is not an annual process, but will be updated as many times as required based upon legislative change, case law or otherwise.  This may be once a year, it may be more, however there is no additional cost regardless of the number of times the deed is kept up-to-date. More details about pricing will be available shortly for our existing members and for new subscriptions.

This is an exciting project for us, which will continue to evolve after it’s upcoming launch.  Importantly, we can clearly see the opportunities to further this initial development work and how it will shape the future direction of the platform.  Feedback has already commenced with some members about this exciting next stage.

Updates & Enhancements

Here's a list of other items we've been working on throughout the month:

• Simple Fund 360 'one-click' fund establishment - from a new SMSF order, you will shortly be able to push this completed information across into Simple Fund 360 to instantly setup the new fund.  The BGL integration will allow you to push the fund name, trustee and member information to save significant time in this process.
• Updated LRBA documents - We previously mentioned that we have been rebuilding the LRBA order form process, splitting the bare trust and LRB Agreement from the related party loan facility agreement.  The new LRBA loan form has now been finalised and includes information to allow for the loan to comply with the safe harbour or alternatively an external arm’s length arrangement.  We expect to have the updated LRBA form finalised in the coming weeks and will make both available for use at this time.
• Lost Trust Deed - following member feedback, we had made some changes to the wording within the Lost Trust Deed.  This has now been added onto the document list and is available to order.
• Lost Pension Deed - we have now fixed some mapping issues with this document identified by members.

Upcoming Training

We have recently updated our calendar of training events for the remainder of 2019 and included this information on this site for you to save the date or register.  Our next event is on 1 August, looking at the topic of aging SMSF clients.  You can register for this event from the 'upcoming training' page within the platform, or alternatively for eligible members you will be able to register from the 'one click' email registration shortly.

Finally, we are making some subtle changes to the platform that we hope will have a significant impact on site speed and the document ordering process.  We expect this to also enhance our training area (learning management system), improving course design and management of courses you have enrolled in and completed.

As always, if there’s any ideas with feature requests, new or updates to documents, please let us know.

Regards,

Aaron Dunn

CEO & Co-founder