Member News - March 2020

Welcome to the March 2020 edition of our member news.

At the time of providing this current update, there is a huge amount of uncertainty globally surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic which is impacting all of our businesses and may result (if not already) in working from home (WFH). Whilst working through this uncertainty, I want to assure you that the team at Smarter SMSF is in a position to be able to support ALL of our members, which we recommend in the first instance through our ticketed support system. Remember that you can submit a ticket by either:

clicking on the 'beacon' in the bottom right corner of the page and filling in the details; or
emailing support@smartersmsf.com - this will also created a ticket that an be tracked from within the platform.

As you will have read, we unfortunately needed to postpone our SMSF Day events until later in the year. We are currently assessing revised event dates and will provide an update before the end of the month with further information.

Whilst much of the news currently appears as 'doom and gloom', our team have been doing some fantastic work on the Smarter SMSF platform which I share with you below.

I hope you enjoy the update and stay healthy.

Regards,

Aaron Dunn, CEO - Smarter SMSF

Below is a summary of what's been happening at Smarter SMSF over the past months and what we currently have in the pipeline:

Updates, fixes and enhancements

[Beta] New documents ordering page - we have been working on a new & improved version of the document ordering platform that will significantly speed up the ordering process for both subscription and PAYG members. In the next couple of weeks we will commence the roll out of the first few revised order forms in beta for you to provide feedback on. We will be adding an additional menu item under documents that will redirect you across to the beta order forms for use. We will initially be releasing investment strategy, death benefit nomination and pension commencement forms for use and testing. Once we have the new company order integration finalised, we will add in the company and new SMSF forms as well. We will be progressively adding documents into beta for feedback, until ultimately we reach a time where all document orders are migrated here. One of the key feature differences is that it provides a shopping cart to purchase one or more documents (on a PAYG basis), and once payment is made, it will allow for the order(s) to be created. For subscriptions, users will be able to simply create the document and will deduct from your subscription.

Company order integration - we are now well advanced in the process of migrating away from our eCompanies API integration for all company incorporations. This change in process is initially focusing on the new SMSF and trustee company form, but will apply to all company order forms in the next couple of months. The updated forms will provide a range of additional validations including checking the company name before you start the order process. Below is a screenshot of how this will work:

New SMSF & Corporate Trustee - we are in the final stages of development to roll out a combined special purpose company incorporation and new SMSF form that will simplify the order process. It is expected to save users significant time in the ordering process. As previously mentioned, we are also working on an action process post order which will allow for the ABN/TFN application, which we estimate to be ready in Q2, 2020.

Investment Strategy - following the ATO's recent guidance on SMSF investment strategies, we have recently added additional features now allowing you to select how the fund is to show asset ranges as either percentage (%) asset ranges or dollar amount ($) asset ranges. In addition, you have the ability to not choose an asset range, but rather list material assets of the fund, along with providing explanation on how these investments will help to reach the retirement goals of fund members. You can watch this video for a more detailed explanation, https://smartersmsf.com/choice-of-asset-range-now-available-within-investment-strategy/
User profile update - we have improved you user profile information that will now show you the current profile details, in addition to allowing for updates to be made. You can also add your image to the user profile now too as you can see from the screenshot below.

Automated Trust Deed Service (ADUS) - with our focus recently on other projects, the completion of the deed update service has taken longer than expected. However, we do intend to release the first version of this service early in Q2, 2020 that will allow you to activate your SMSF clients and take away the stress of whether your client's deed's are up-to-date. As previously indicated, this will be offered as an add-on product and is to be priced at approx. $70 + GST per fund p.a. Where more than 25 funds are on the ADUS, this fee can be paid as a monthly subscription - e.g. (50 funds x $77 p/fund) / 12 mths = $320.83 p/mth. You will be able to activate (add) and remove funds at anytime with the fee adjusting accordingly. We are finalising the integrations to import a fund's deed history from Class or BGL. You can also upload information via CSV/XML. Importantly, you will be able to provide access to other parties, including trustees, auditors, lawyers and more via your subscription.

BGL document platform

Major system update - We will be rolling out a significant platform upgrade to our BGL docs integration that will allow for staff to be linked to the primary account holder for the purpose of managing orders and subscriptions. Using the firm 'shortname', we will link the primary account holder to all staff members that will order documents online. You can determine from within Simple Fund which staff will have access to order documents.
Investment strategy - the additional features listed above have also been added into the form within Simple Fund 360.
Additional documents - over the past couple of months we have been working on a more efficient way to bring in documents from the Smarter platform into Simple Fund 360. Having successfully built a migration tool, we are now accelerating the importing of order forms to have available for use. Having recently released the investment strategy and death benefit nominations, will are now in final testing for the pension commencement, followed by trust deed upgrades.
Improved navigation - users will have noticed the improved document list within Simple Fund 360 to replicate how you can order on the Smarter SMSF platform.

CPD Training

As a result of us having to postpone the Smarter SMSF Day events, we are running 2 x 1.5 hour webcasts that will deal with some of the more time-sensitive topics and strategies you should be addressing with your SMSF clients. Current ticket holders have these webcasts included due to the event postponement, however these webcasts are available for others to register.

For more information, visit https://smartersmsf.com/smsf-day/webcast

Keep up-to-date with our training and events calendar on the Smarter SMSF website, https://smartersmsf.com/events/

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