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!
Read More
“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!
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.
BGL announces integration with LightYear Docs – one of Australia’s most advanced legal, tax and superannuation document creation and strategy automation engines.
“We’re thrilled to launch this new service with LightYear Docs”, said Ron Lesh, BGL’s Managing Director. “LightYear Docs is an industry leading provider and has been part of our Ecosystem for a while now. This seamless document integration represents a huge time saver to our clients by enabling them to create companies, trusts and super funds as well as other documents from within the LightYear Docs platform and then send the data and documents to CAS 360 with the click of a button. It has never been so easy to prepare documents – It’s just simple and quick!”, added Lesh.
LightYear Docs CEO Grant Abbott said, “We have spent the last year building strategy automation, with our longest being our comprehensive estate plan of more than 10 documents bundled into the one interview, plus we continue to instal a new document or strategy every week. With our low maximum $99 per single document pricing we have seen many accountants comparing what they spend and making the move. The next and most important step has been our BGL integration and we thank Ron and his team for making it happen. Strategy just got that much easier.”
“When software talks seamlessly to each other, it is a win-win for BGL, LightYear Docs and our clients”, stated Lesh. CAS 360 and Simple Fund 360 now support over 350 integration partners including banks, brokers, wraps, platforms, registries, practice management solutions, actuaries, document providers and many more.
Many people think business is all about numbers. But it’s not.
Business is really about people. Business is about building a great team and supporting that team through thick or thin.
BGL has great people who have built absolutely extraordinary computer software products. CAS 360 and Simple Fund 360 are sensational software solutions and are clearly #1 in their classes. Let me repeat that: Clearly #1.
They are #1 when it comes to numbers but they are not #1 because of the numbers.
They are #1 because they solve many problems for our clients in innovative ways and with software that is of exceptional quality. They are #1 because we listen to our clients and we put into our software what our clients want.
And because we look for new ways to help our clients be more efficient. Accounting workpapers, BGL SmartDocs and digital signing in Simple Fund 360 are examples of unique features only available in our software solutions. Automation, reliability and ASIC compliance are exceptional features in CAS 360.
Passing 750,000 entities in the cloud is a fantastic achievement. My team should be incredibly proud of what they have achieved over the past 6 years. BGL set its BHAG of connecting 1,000,000 people to our products by 2020 in 2014. This was a big hairy audacious goal when at the time we had maybe 10,000 connections. We would never have thought in our wildest dreams that we would reach this target – and reach it 1 year early – but we did. We did because of the contribution of every current and past member of the BGL Team.
Our new BHAG is even more audacious. But I am confident that working together with the right people in the right seats on the bus, the right culture and the right focus we will achieve this too.
The past 6 months have been pretty depressing in Victoria. And I hope by now our team realised they have done nothing wrong. They have not caused this mess. They have done the right thing all the way through this government caused disaster.
I am really proud of what we have achieved working together so far this year. We have won many awards for our software and the national Australian Achiever award for our customer service. Providing first class customer service has always been a priority at BGL so it is fantastic see a 99%+ CSAT (Customer Satisfaction) score across our support services.
But none of this happens without leadership. I am really proud of how the BGL leadership has worked together through this time to ensure our team are happy, healthy, safe and productive.
We will get out of this mess soon. And we will come out stronger for the experience. I have always been an optimist. It is a shame my optimism does not extend to our politicians – what a sad and (not) sorry bunch they are. I am confident about BGL, our business and our country eventually getting out of this mess caused by a plethora of incompetent politicians and public servants. These people are simply out of their depth.
To my Team, a HUGE thank you. You are a great bunch of people and you thoroughly deserve all the success and rewards that have come and will come your way.
And guys, please do check out our 750,000 entities commemorative video on YouTube
Recent Comments