All the more reason you need the CAS 360 and Simple Fund 360 Top 50 features list when comparing software providers.
BGL is dismayed at Treasury’s proposed 45 day SMSF accounts rule.
“It’s just dumb” said BGL’s Managing Director, Ron Lesh. “Why do SMSFs need to prepare their financial statements 45 days before their lodgement date? It just makes no sense”
In a draft amendment to the The Treasury Laws Amendment (Miscellaneous and Technical Amendments) Regulations 2020 it is proposed to insert a new regulation 8.02AA into the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Regulations 1994 to require accounts and statements for SMSFs to be prepared at least 45 days before the annual return is required to be lodged.
“I am trying to understand why this is necessary or where this has come from” asked Lesh. “It will not improve SMSF reporting, it will not improve SMSF audits, it will not improve SMSF annual return lodgements – so why has it been proposed?”
“In fact, in my view it could do the opposite. It could put SMSF trustees in a position where they need to backdate accounts – for no reason or benefit” noted Lesh.
“The SMSF industry has clearly said this change is unnecessary and that it would simply be an additional burden on SMSF trustees, administrators and auditors” says Lesh. “I thought post COVID-19 we were trying to cut unnecessary red tape rather than add more regulations to an already incredibly over-regulated industry.”
“I hope Treasury is listening” stated Lesh. “I do not know who came up with this dumb idea, but one would suspect it was someone who has no experience in the real world. A clear statement from Treasury or the Government this change will be dropped is needed now before it causes more angst in the SMSF industry that has already suffered through a year of extreme stress.”
The CAS 360 team have lost all of their pocket money betting on races during the sprint carnival, so we have divided to release another huge update!
Compliance tab in Contacts
We have added a new compliance tab into the CAS 360 contacts screen. This feature will allow you to store identity information for each contact. Currently we support drivers’ licence, passport and citizenship information for each contact.
Company Screen Columns
Since the initial release of CAS 360 over 3 and a half years ago, our clients have requested that we add (or remove) fields to the company screen. This is the home screen of CAS 360 and where so much of your daily work kicks off.
Now, you have control over your own company screen columns. You can select and deselect the columns you need to complete your work. The selections are saved only for you and will not change for anyone else in your firm. You can now choose to add new fields such as:
- Partner
- Billing Contact
- Company Status (yes, that’s company status)
- Client Number
- Client Reference Number
- Billing Date
- Current Client
- NZBN
Trust Import Spreadsheet
Over the last 6 months we have invested in building a fantastic trust feature set, there are now close to 100,000 trusts managed in CAS 360.
We have now made it even easier for you to start managing your trusts through CAS 360, with our new Trust Import Spreadsheet. This can be downloaded from within the Trust screen, and once you have added the data, send it to BGL via a Support ticket and we will import the data.
Best of all, we do not charge for trusts. So, unlike a bet on the Melbourne Cup, you can’t lose.
Communication Details
We have greatly improved the way you are able to store contact communication information.
CAS 360 will now allow you to store unlimited email accounts for each contact, as well as unlimited phone, mobile phone and Skype contact information.
Google Addresses Integration
We have added a new integration with Google Addresses when adding a new address.
Now when adding an address to CAS 360, we will automatically Google the address for you and help you complete the address.
Australia
Company Name change invoice
When preparing a Company Name change in CAS 360, a company name change invoice will be prepared for the client with all the correct ASIC information entered.
We have also made improvements to all CAS 360 generated invoices, by consolidating 3 invoice templates (deregistration, late fee and name change) into just 1 template.
New Zealand
CDD/AML Compliance
We are very excited to release phase 1 of our CDD & AML Compliance features in CAS 360. Now each company in CAS 360 will have a compliance tab, these screens will go through the important steps of adding information such as nature of business relationships and setting up compliance officers.
As CAS 360 has all the company and trust information, we are easily able to identify the contacts involved in the company, and provide you with identity, SOF and PEP fields to add all the required information.
Coming Soon: Phase 2 of our identity features will include the ability to email your clients and ask them to provider their identity data, and we are also working on a new integration to verify client identity documents with identity providers.
Multi Company Changes
Phase 2 of our Multi Company Changes for New Zealand has been released and we are excited to now support Contact Address Changes for Directors and Shareholders, and also Communication Address Changes for companies.
As with the last release, these changes can be made once and all the required documents for each entity is automatically prepared. This feature is cross-jurisdiction and will prepare the correct supporting documents based on the company jurisdiction. Once prepared these documents can be easily lodged with the regulator.
In June 2020, BGL Corporate Solutions, Australia’s leading supplier of SMSF administration and ASIC corporate compliance solutions, launched GuestTrack – a free QR code driven, browser-based application to help businesses collect and store guest data.
“GuestTrack makes it really easy for businesses and organisations of all shapes and sizes to keep a secure, digital visitors log” said BGL’s Managing Director, Ron Lesh. “This app is fast and easy for guests to use therefore providing a sensational customer check-in experience.”
Since its release just 4 months ago, GuestTrack now supports over 4,000 organisations across Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, Philippines and the USA with a satisfaction rate of 99.85% and over 2.24 million guest check-ins.
All data collected by GuestTrack is encrypted to the highest security standard with Amazon Web Services (AWS) Key Management Service (KMS). KMS is designed so no one, including the BGL and AWS teams, can decrypt or access the data.
“The BGL team continues to work hard to further develop this amazing app, recently adding new features including the ability for users to create custom form fields, unlimited QR Codes and much more – all to create a seamless and engaging check-in experience for guests.” continued Lesh. “What started out as an initiative to help our clients’ clients, has turned out to be a spectacular tool. As we enter the new normal, apps like GuestTrack will be a key feature in all organisations for years to come.”
Learn more and sign up FREE today at guesttrack.com.au!
On Thursday afternoon, BGL was named Australia’s 9th most innovative technology company in the AFR BOSS Most Innovative Companies awards.
This is a sensational achievement by the BGL Team, and I could not be prouder of each and every one of you.
BGL’s submission to the AFR awards was BGL Smartdocs. This was developed by the BGL Big Data Team led by James Luo.
So, what is BGL Smartdocs? Well, I described it in our submission to the AFR in the following paragraph:
BGL has built a solution to convert PDFs or images files into transaction data files. Then using our award winning (2019 AFR Most Innovative Technology Company) Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, we automatically process this data in our SMSF administration software. The documents can be clean or contain notations. We use AWS Textract as our OCR provider and then apply Natural Language Processing, Probability and Statistics on lots of linguistic data to help us extract and categorise the data. We then automatically link the data and the document through a system of tags. Our deep learning model runs in the “Edge”, so clients can scan and optimise documents via their mobile phone. BGL SmartDocs will even verify the client has the right data in the right place if they upload a different source document. And BGL SmartDocs also automatically indexes the documents and images making the documents full text searchable.
The BGL Big Data Team have done some amazing work over the past few years. Apart from BGL Smartdocs, they have also developed BGL Smartpost III, our AI based transaction posting solution as well as the big data views in Simple Fund 360 and now Simple Invest 360.
I am especially proud because this is the second year in a row BGL has made the top 10 list. Last year we were recognised as Australia’s 5th most innovative technology company with BGL Smartpost III.
It is unusual and incredible that a 30+ year business can continue to be innovative. This is a reflection of the BGL Culture.
Innovation should be part of the DNA of every business. It is at BGL. But you do not achieve awards like this without a high level of team engagement. At BGL, this is close to 90%. When I hear statistics that only 17% of people are engaged at work, I can understand why the world is in the mess it is today. And why so many of companies have forgotten why they are in business. Hey, let me remind you – it is to serve your customers – not cover the arses of your directors!
When I look at the new board composition laws in California, I wonder what the world has come to. When did we stop selecting the best people for the job rather than the best politically correct candidate? When did quotas ever work? The Victorian government optimizes this stupidity and is one of the reasons my state is in the COVID-19 mess it is in today. Our state public service is employed on the basis of diversity and political views rather than competence.
I am glad to say we have a widely diverse teams of sensational people at BGL. We did not go out to employ a diverse team – we simply employed the best people who came through our doors no matter who they were or where they were from. As Martin Luther King Jnr said I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. Boy have many of us forgotten this.
Congratulations again to the BGL Team. You are incredible!
The Simple Fund 360 and Simple Invest 360 teams have delivered their first release for October 2020 with some exciting new features and client wish list items ticked off! Check out the full release notes on the BGL Community >>>
Learn what’s new direct from our product team by attending our New Features Webinar on 13 October at 11:30 AEDT. Register Now >>>
Digital End to End
The team continues its focus on removing paper and improving the digital experience for clients. This October, we have added a new Upload Authority Form feature to make the bank feed authority setup process faster and more secure for clients. We have also made it simpler for clients to upload any CSV files they may have received from clients and keep track of these in our Feed Management screen.
We have simplified the 2020 tax reporting season by providing you with digital distribution tax statement data for over 530 commonly held investments. This update supports:
- All Vanguard ETFs and popular Vanguard managed investments
- All BetaShare ETFs
- All ETFSecurity ETFs
Continuing the digital theme, we have added a Compilation Report and Engagement Letter to the growing list of documents that can now be digitally signed using both Adobe Sign and DocuSign.
For Financial Planning focused firms, we are excited to announce a new Time Weighted Performance page that has been modified from our mobile interface to take advantage of the larger screen real estate. This MOBILE first approach allows both you and your clients to VIEW the same performance data, without the need to switch to a separate Client View application. This is available for both our Simple Fund 360 and Simple Invest 360 Beta Clients.
Client Wish lists
We have managed to tick off several clients wish lists. Users can now view a contact’s mobile and email address directly from the Fund Relationships screen. Plus, the CGT Register Detailed Report when exported to excel now includes the description of CGT transaction.
Order Documents
The Smarter SMSF Order Document page has a fresh new look! In addition, 3 new documents can now be completed, including;
- Add or Remove a Fund Member
- Lost Trust Deed
- Lost Pension Deed (Affirmation and Confirmation)
Simple Invest 360 (Closed Beta)
We have added several new features to Simple Invest 360:
- Added support for individual investors. Simple Invest 360 now supports all investor types – Individuals, Trusts and Companies.
- A new Appropriation Statement report now available for Trusts and Companies.
- A new Tax Reconciliation report now available for Trusts.
Plus, digital signing solutions Adobe Sign and DocuSign are now available for the following documents in Simple Invest 360:
- Compilation Report Company
- Compilation Report Trust
- Trustee Minute – Family Trust
- Trustee Minute – Unit Trust
- Trustee Resolution – Family Trust
- Trustee Resolution – Unit trust
- Trustee Declaration
- Directors Declaration
Don’t forget to register for BGL REGTECH 2020 to see get a sneak peek at Stage 2 of our AI-Powered BGL Smart Docs feature and a look at Simple Invest 360 – the next evolution in automating your Investments for Trusts, Companies and Individuals.
The BGL Data Services Team have recently released some exciting new features and enhancements in Simple Fund 360 and we would love to share these with you.
New Features and Feeds
- Feed Management for a 360 degree view of all your data feeds
- SmartDocs: our new AI based document to data solution
- Bank Feed Status Report to replace the weekly emails
- Private Portfolio Managers (PPM) is now a supported wrap provider
- RaboDirect Bank Feeds is now supported for more account types
What’s in the Pipeline?
The Product Team are currently working on a new signed authority forms upload. This feature will streamline the authority form process and enhance security for you and your clients. Keep an eye out on the BGL Community for further announcements! In the meantime, please continue to email your authority forms to [email protected].
The BGL Client Experience Team are working closely with the BGL Data Services Team to improve your experience with us. If you have any feedback, please email us at [email protected].
ANZ Authority Forms
We have been experiencing delays in processing ANZ authority forms. The BGL Data Services Team are actively working with ANZ to rectify these problems. To help clients in dealing with these processing delays, we are working with ANZ to provide clients with up to TWO YEARS HISTORICAL DATA!
We sincerely apologise for these delays and appreciate your patience with us.
Bankwest Managed Investments
The Bankwest Cash Management Account product was closed on 31 August 2020. BGL is working to update our systems to reflect this change. For further information, please refer to the BWAMI website.
Please Note: If you have any BWAMI accounts registered with BGL’s Bank Data Service, these accounts will be updated to ‘Account Closed’.
We look forward to sharing more with you soon!
A September in Melbourne without football finals has allowed the CAS 360 team to push out another huge update!
Export all Documents
Users can now export all company documents at the click of a button. So, now when a company wants their documents or moves to another accountant, users are now able to export all the documents and provide these documents. This feature has also been added to trusts in CAS 360.
Register Improvements
We have also improved and added more options to the CAS 360 registers, users can now choose to prepare a historical or current register of officers when preparing officer changes. Unitholder registers can now also be prepared in a current or historical state at any point in time.
Look and Feel
Cosmetic interface improvements have been made to a number of screens, including a new reports screen. Improvements have also been made to fonts, spacing and error messages.
Australia
Form 370
In the Australian Jurisdiction we have added support for ASIC form 370. This can now be prepared with any officer resignation when required. The form 370 can be prepared as part of a single company change or a multiple company change. Supporting documents will also be prepared for form 370, and form 370 can be electronically lodged to ASIC.
Other improvements
Improvements have been made to the Company comparison report to support weird and wonderful ASIC data. We have also added enhancements to the RC05 sent from ASIC in for company name reservations.
New Zealand
Multi Company Changes
New Zealand jurisdiction companies are now supported in Multi Company Changes. This will allow a number of changes to be made across a wide range of entities. Support now includes:
- NZ Company Registered Address Change
- NZ Company Address for Service Change
- NZ Company Officer Change
- NZ Company Officer Change for AU company with NZ Directors
- NZ Company Officer Secretary Change
CAS 360 will prepare the necessary documents for all of these changes and allow direct electronic filing to the Companies Office.
These changes will also work correctly for firms that support both Australia and New Zealand companies.
Annual Return
A number of important improvements to the Annual Return process for NZ Companies.
- Annual Return Reminders – Users can now send clients email reminders to remind clients about outstanding Annual Returns
- Annual Return Status filters have been added to the Annual Return screen
- New NZ Annual Return cover letter template
- Pre-Fill signing contact for NZ Changes
- Added Reference Number to NZ AR filing
New Member Register Options
New Register of Member Settings have been added for New Zealand Companies, now registers can show the following:
- Show Premium Paid
- Show Historical Data
- Show in Date order
- Add Premium to amount paid
- Register name order
Singapore
Companies Activities
Singapore Companies can now add Singapore Activity codes to companies, this includes support for primary and secondary activities.
Officers
Singapore Companies Officers have been improved, with new identification options, improved validations, support for Companies as Directors and Nominator Directors have also been added with information hovers.
Looking forward to October where we will have even more great features!
BGL was today announced the winner of the 2020 CoreData SMSF Software award.
This is a clean sweep. First BGL achieved highest overall satisfaction among accountants using SMSF software providers in the 2020 Investment Trends SMSF Accountant Report.
Second BGL was recognised by Momentum Media as the 2020 SMSF Software Provider of the year – for the third year in a row!
And then today, BGL is announced as winner of the 2020 CoreData SMSF Software award.
This confirms it. BGL and Simple Fund 360 are the #1 SMSF software solution in Australia. No buts. The results are in and they are very clear.
BGL won these awards because of the work of our amazing team. The software is sensational – a great job by the Simple Fund 360 Team led by Matt Crofts and supported by our team managers James Luo, Jeevan Tokhi, Anthony Fernandez, Joanne Ng and Brad Wilkinson and of course all our business analysts, developers and testers. You guys have done and amazing job and you should be very proud of yourselves!
But great software is only part of the story. Its is the work of the account managers and sales team, the admin team, the API / integrations team, the client success team, the data services team, the devops team, the IT team, the marketing team, the people and culture team and the support team that helps make BGL #1.
We also can’t forget of course that Simple Fund 360 is only 1 part of the BGL story. Without CAS 360 kicking goals and the upcoming release of Simple Invest 360 and the work of these teams, BGL would not be where it is today.
It is the fully integrated product suite and our extensive ecosystem that makes BGL THE supplier of choice for SMSF admin, corporate and trust compliance.
This post is huge shout out to the team. Great teams with awards. Even greater teams win multiple award. But only the best teams clean up winning ALL the awards in one year. So guys – give yourselves a huge round of applause – you deserve it.
My challenge to the teams: back to back and then let’s head for the 3peat. Let’s do it again in 2021!
Another month of lock-down has passed in Melbourne, however this does not stop the CAS 360 team from delivering some great features.
In the August release we have a number of new integrations where you can connect to CAS 360.
My BGL
First of all, we have the MyBGL. MyBGL will allow you to see all the information related to your CAS 360 subscription. From here you are able to view your usage, upgrade or downgrade your subscription level as well as view all of your billing and payment information.
To see MyBGL in action – watch our video 👉
GreatSoft
A new addition to the CAS 360 integrated Practice Management suite of applications. You can now share contact information between CAS 360 and GreatSoft to ensure that your data is always update and accurate.
To see the GreatSoft integration in action – watch our video 👉
ChangeGPS
Blueprint by ChangeGPS is now connected to CAS 360. This will allow you to create beautiful structure diagrams based on the Company, Trust, Super Fund and Contact data inside CAS 360. Perfect for that next client meeting where you need to discuss their corporate structure.
To see the ChangeGPS integration in action – watch our video 👉
LightYear Docs
The integration between LightYear Docs and CAS 360 is now live. This will allow you to connect CAS 360 to your LightYear Docs account and push newly registered companies from LightYear Docs to CAS 360.
To see the LightYear Docs integration in action – watch our video 👉
Trust Improvements
This update continues on our previous releases around trust management, we have released 23 improvements to Trust Events, as well as adding a new Trust Report allowing you to prepare a full report for each and every trust. We have also released Trust Distributions for New Zealand trusts.
Interface Improvements
We have updated the icons used in the left hand side panel to give a greater feel, we have also improved every table view in CAS 360 from the Company Selection screen, Annual Review / Return screen and the Shareholders screens. We have also improved all the popovers in CAS 360 for better feel and performance.
Other new features
A range of other new features have also been added, with improvements to the registers, improvements to the share / unit transfer forms and new merge fields for document customisation.
Oh, and one last thing...
We have released our electronic filing of the Singapore company annual return with ACRA from inside CAS 360.
This includes the whole box and dice for Singapore Annual Returns with integration with CorpPass, support for the Singapore jurisdiction across the CAS 360 application, a new Singapore Annual Return screen, with the ability to prepare the Annual Return, sent it to your client, and then file the Annual Return, and make the payment to ACRA all from within CAS 360. It’s Brilliant.
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