Case Study

Lantana Private Wealth is a high functioning, multi-disciplined firm located in Malvern, Melbourne. With both a public practice taxation division operating in cohesion with a fully self-licenced financial planning and wealth management service offering, clients are provided with a genuinely bespoke ‘one stop shop’. With the firm priding itself on maintaining a highly personalised client experience and results-driven advice process, the firm has grown into an award-winning and highly respected professional services group.

As the Director of both our taxation and wealth management division, Brett was looking for a software package that could be used for both ATO tax reporting and client-facing performance and valuation reports. Some of the initial challenges included the time in having to set up equities and cash account data feeds, particularly given as he wanted to proceed with a bulk set-up of non-SMSF entity types.

“These concerns were quickly overcome, with BGL always providing me with support from a senior product manager with a rapid response every time, invariably in less than a few hours!”

Brett was also concerned about client take-up considering how time poor many are. He found, however, that with the intuitive self-guided initial setup (including secure MFA), “…the delivery of Simple Invest 360 has been both seamless and critically enjoyed by clients.”

“We had previously been using BGL’s software offering for SMSF preparation (Simple Fund 360) and were already well aware of BGL’s abilities in this space. Being able to extend the taxation works for non-SMSF entity types, while simultaneously eliminating the then duplicated client reporting software, was a ‘game-changer’ in terms of time-saving, cost efficiencies and overall administrative cohesion across both of our core divisions.”

When looking for a technology stack solution, Brett and the team at Lantana Private Wealth focused on cost; speed of implementation; ease of implementation; reliability; support and overall, both internal and client user experience.

The speed with which a new entity can be set up plus complete data feed configuration were integral to the decision to use Simple Invest 360. “The last thing our office wants to be doing, nor our clients’ spending their time on, is having to fiddle around with clunky back-end processes and then having to test the veracity of these.”

“Clients now have the ability to view their investment entities in fully APESB quality, ‘24/7’ via the web and/or via BGL’s secure mobile application (Engage by BGL). This has further increased clients’ transparency over their investments, particularly by our many HNW clients, understandably demanding higher than ever visibility over their FUM.

The fact that the taxation team, wealth management team and client are working off or viewing the same data file has saved a vast amount of time and cost in managing a secondary system, otherwise required for client reporting purposes. This is especially relevant for our firm as our wealth management division is and always has been off-platform, designed to reduce as many client-costs as possible.”

The fact that both our accounting and wealth management divisions are viewing the same data file, in tandem with clients, promotes ever-desired transparency and assurance across the entire spectrum.

With the efficiencies gained from using Simple Invest 360, Brett and the team now have more time to spend providing higher value work for their clients, without having to manage multiple systems. This includes being able to spend more time speaking with clients face-to-face or virtually, if preferred.

After gaining experience at Deloitte and with a series of boutique advisory practices, Brett founded Lantana Private Wealth with a sole focus on individual, family groups and SME client types. Brett holds undergraduate and postgraduate qualifications from Monash University, where he was also a resident lecturer and Scholarly Teaching Fellow for four years. Brett is a registered Financial Adviser, Tax (Financial) Adviser, SMSF & direct securities specialist; and Responsible Manager of the Group’s AFSL. In Brett’s spare time, he enjoys photography, learning different languages and travelling back to Gippsland where he grew up.

Clarke & Brownrigg is a full service Chartered Accounting firm specialising in family businesses, professionals and wealth administration for clients, with two partners who have been in partnership for over 20 years. The original practice (prior to the retirement of an initial founding partner) had been in business for a further 20 years. They have family groups who have been with the firm for up to 40 years. During that time Clarke & Brownrigg have provided professional, high quality work to a vast client base. The firm has a proud history of staff stability and can boast staff members employed for up to 25 years.

Prior to Simple Invest 360, the team at Clarke & Brownrigg used a very basic Investment Register System that had received limited updates over 20 years. As a member of the Simple Invest 360 beta testing program, the Clarke & Brownrigg team found it challenging getting useful information out of their old system to export into Simple Invest 360, but Simple Invest’s new features are making it much easier.

“The BGL SmartDocs software enables AI conversion of some reports directly into the software, plus there is a very efficient data entry screen which also uses AI to read the data and make intelligent decisions on investment account codes to add unit quantities and include the appropriate acquisition dates.

The input of source information has many different options you can use. It is impossible not to save time. It is possible to scan bank statements which the BGL SmartDocs AI technology can read, import CSV files and the best practice going forward will be a direct bank feed into the software. The Corporate Actions function is so simple and almost does everything for you. Compared to our previous manual system for accounting for demergers and company reconstructions, it is fantastic!

Machine Learning is making the most of the many transactions it “sees” and will continue to improve. The tax reporting is now developed, and the year-end processing functions are state of the art. With trusts, Simple Invest allows for automation of distributions, including streaming of classes of income and preparation of tax reconciliations out of the accounting system, with user editable adjustments for tax purposes. The input of managed fund data is so much easier than it has ever been prior to BGL. They are even producing beneficiary distribution statements for trust clients when you need to provide information to external beneficiaries. All of the above information would previously have been done manually using Excel spreadsheets or Word documents, which are prone to error and need much more user interaction.”

“When considering a technology stack, we look for ease of use and seamless integration. BGL is a very innovative software company, and we highly value their training and updates to assess what should be in our technology stack. The BGL ecosystem of bank feeds, wraps, client financial statement accounting software, minutes and workpapers is a complete accounting solution.”

“Our clients are very keen to utilise the investment reporting, including time weighting of investments and the unrealised gains by parcel reporting to make specific investment decisions, which was not available in our previous Investment Register Software without manual intervention. Having daily market prices is very valuable. We will be encouraging use of the mobile app (Engage by BGL) and trustee/client access to help them engage more with us. Simple Invest 360 will be an important part of enabling our clients to track their wealth outside of the SMSF space.

We are very excited to be able to present a double entry accounting system with full investment register capabilities to our clients. It will save processing time and allow us to take on more clients. The investment reports are first class and continually improving. It is also important to us that the presentation of reports can be consistent across all entity types. For the small outlay per client it is very easily recoverable in time saved.”

Linda is a Senior Accountant at Clarke & Brownrigg and has been with the firm since 1999. She has a special interest in Self-Managed Superannuation Funds, but also has extensive experience with investment and business entities. Linda prides herself on personal service, including prompt responses to client communication and building long term client/accountant relationships. She is excited to see where the future of technology can take the accounting profession.