At times one shakes one’s head in amazement.

We at BGL think it is important software companies actually provide their clients with software. That is why our Team focused on providing our clients with the 2018 SMSF Annual Return and the complete TBAR system well ahead of time. That is why we think getting compliance such as the CGT Reset right the first time is important. That is why we have focused on new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and Big Data to provide incredible efficiencies for our clients.  That is why we have published new software for our clients every 3 weeks for over 3 years. That is why we now have over 4,000 clients and 150,000 funds on Simple Fund 360 and why we are growing 3 times as fast as any of our competitors.  Because we think publishing software and focusing on what our clients want and need is really important.

Others however, do not seem to think the same way as us.

Others think it is more important to be publishing eBooks than software. So while their clients patiently wait for the software they need to do their work so they can service their clients, these others are publishing self serving eBooks that are all about them. They seem to be more important to them than publishing software.

So if you are considering SMSF admin software you need to ask yourself a question: Should I get my SMSF admin software from a software company that delivers (publishes) software or from a software company that publishes eBooks ?

I think the answer to that question is very simple indeed!!

BGL Corporate Solutions, developer of Australia’s leading SMSF administration and ASIC corporate compliance software solutions, is pleased to announce the release of the 2018 SMSF Annual Return and associated schedules in Simple Fund 360. The release also includes bankstatements.com.au which provides data feeds for almost 100 new banks and financial institutions

“I’m very proud of Simple Fund 360 team”, said Ron Lesh, BGL’s Managing Director. “With the end of financial year fast approaching, they have delivered another huge product update for our clients. This release includes not only the 2018 SMSF Annual Return with the ATO approval for electronic lodgement through SBR, support for 2017 deferred notional gains, a tax return export to Xero Tax and much more”.

“The integration with bankstatements.com.au is also significant” added Lesh. “Clients keep asking for bank data feeds from banks that either don’t have any or simply won’t provide them to us. Bankstatements.com.au have some really smart technology to extract data files through internet banking. Although I prefer direct feeds from banks, if I have the choice of using this technology or not having a feed at all, I think clients would like the technology option.”

“This Simple Fund 360 release also contains updates to the Financial Statements and Notes, Trustee minutes/resolutions, the Trustee declaration and the TAG / BGL Audit Workpapers to meet 2018 reporting requirements” says Lesh.

“We understand how important it is for our clients to have updated software early to meet their compliance requirements” noted Lesh. “There is still much to do with some remaining 2016 super changes and the 2017 super changes. While the bulk of the work is done, our teams can now focus on cleaning up the loose ends and getting this out to clients ASAP”

Simple Fund 360 is now the preferred SMSF admin solution for over 4,150 firms with over 150,000 funds loaded on the platform.

I always wondered where this colloquialism came from and whom used it first. As I was writing this blog post, I asked Mr Google who popularised this term. I was surprised by the response. For those of you uneducated like me, the term was first attributed it to the British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli who said: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

And you know in the SMSF industry, this is certainly the case.

Everyone seems to use data (much of it dubious in nature) to make themselves look like experts. Many of the interpretations however, seem to be more a matter of opinion and self interest than a reflection of the data. And I will say this concerns me somewhat.

BGL invests a lot of time and money extracting industry data from our client database. We know the rules – nothing can be identifiable – and that’s easy when you are holding over 250 million transactions in a single database.

So I know when I am quoting data it has a reasonable basis.

And this is why some of the reports about SMSFs concern me. We know, for example, the large super funds are scared of SMSFs because so many large balances are rolled out of large funds into SMSFs. So when a large fund says it is getting 60% more rollovers from SMSFs back into the fund, it means really nothing without the raw numbers. Unless you know the sample size – it could be from 1 rollover to 6 rollovers. So without the actual numbers, the interpretation is useless and possibly designed to be deliberately misleading.

And similarly, when I see some data in SMSF industry reports I just shake my head. An example: say a survey has 950 responses. And say one question in the survey has 60 response, of which 10% say something is likely or very likely – in other words 6 responses out of 950 say something is likely or very likely. And from those 6 responses, 2 responses pick option A and the other 4 responses pick options B, C, D and E. Do you think the 2 reponses for option A are so compelling you would include them in the survey report highlights ? Do you think this is a good statistical analysis ? Well some people in the industry sure do.

I have no issue with data but the data must be representative. This is why many polls really concern me.

In an industry with many 1,000’s of participants such as the SMSF industry, I would even doubt the validity of a survey with 950 responses, let alone 6 from 950. Even 2 organisations who each hold data for 25% of SMSFs often get different statistical results. So how representative are statistics from 950 participants in an industry with 25,000, 30,000, 40,000 or more participants ? I would say questionable.

So the next time you see an SMSF industry report you need to ask yourself a question – how valid is the data ? How representative are the results of the survey ? If you were looking at the data, would you interpret the data the same way ? There are certainly many cases where I would not.

BGL Corporate Solutions, Australia’s leading supplier of SMSF administration and ASIC corporate compliance solutions is pleased to announce that Bentleys Chartered Accountants & Business Advisors Tasmania has chosen CAS 360 and Simple Fund 360 as their ASIC corporate compliance and SMSF administration.

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