Picture a world where you receive a message every morning from your robots that have already done most of the procedural work for you and have even gone as far as letting clients know the status of their work. Seems fanciful? Well, it’s coming faster than you think.
Last month, we worked on coming to terms with how clients truly perceive us, and we’ve got a pretty good understanding of what remarkable experiences are. The next question we need to ask ourselves is “What’s next?”.
Before we can steer the ship, we must first build the boat! This is where your Customer Experience Strategy comes into play. Call me a CX nerd, but I absolutely LOVE this part of the process as it’s where creative freedom is your friend and you start to bring CX to life.
The CXPA defines the CX strategy as “… our intended Customer Experience, how it links to our overall organisation strategy and objectives and how it aligns to our brand values and attributes.” This will build the foundations of your approach to customer experience and give your team direction.
We need to create our vision, values, and branding, centred around CX and aligned with the business direction. This will build a foundation for realistic expectations of experience for your staff and your clients.
For some inspiration, The Ritz Carlton Hotel penned their CX vision as “We are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen”. When I read this, I would assume that as a customer of the Ritz I could expect an experience of a glamorous standard, to be wined and dined. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Hector Elizondo from ‘Pretty Woman’ was there, ready to teach me which fork goes first. I drew this conclusion from one sentence, powerful right?
Once you have your vision, you can build on this with values. These are generally short points outlining the core values that support your vision and sets a standard of what you might look for in potential applicants that join your team in future. For example, if I were tasked with writing the values that underpin The Ritz Carlton’s vision it would comprise of words such as:
Now that you have your vision and values, we need to consider what implicit and explicit promises your business is making to the wider audience. Below are some questions to ask internally and externally – Remember, we can never assume we know the answer ourselves!
Now you are armed with this information, the boat won’t build itself! Block out some time to meet with your team and brainstorm how you could approach this.
”Simple Invest 360 is a ‘game-changer’ in terms of time-saving, cost efficiencies and overall administrative cohesion across both of our core divisions
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.
I have not written for a while about the depressing situation in Victoria. For those in the other states, believe me when I say “depressed” is an understatement of the way people in Victoria feel. Angry, frustrated, over it – I could go on and on.
The question I keep asking myself is how did it get to be this bad? How did Melbourne go from the world’s most livable city to the world’s most locked down city, and why or how did we let this happen?
Well, let’s look at the how first – how did this happen? Last night our Chief Health Officer (CHO) Brett Sutton told us he had no choice but to lock Melbourne down for 246 days. Really? No choice? Then why did the CHO’s in 1,170 cities (with populations of more than 500,000) not feel they had no choice but to lock down their cities? Why only Melbourne? I think the record lockdowns have more to do with your competency than anything else. YOU could not find other solutions. YOU only had one card in the pack – lockdown. lockdown, lockdown. You have destroyed Melbourne. All the things that were great – sporting events, theatre, restaurants, shopping – all gone – under YOUR watch. That will be your legacy as CHO
And then there is SlugGate. For those who are not aware of SlugGate, Sutton closed down a food business because a slug was found in their food kitchen. However the slug appears to have been planted by a council Inspector. The matter is before the courts but check out the link for more info. If these charges are proven, and it looks like they will be, Sutton will be remembered not only for being incompetent and totally out of his depth (obviously) but also corrupt.
But Sutton would not have been able to lock down Victoria for 246 days, without the complicity of our Dear Leader. Sutton and Andrews will both be remembered as the people who destroyed Melbourne and killed 802 Victorians through their bungled hotel quarantine. Everyone seems to forget that according to the Victorian Health Department Organisational Chart, Sutton was in charge of hotel quarantine. Why was he not sacked? Does he know too many dirty little secrets?
Why has Andrews not resigned? Gladys Berejiklian resigned when an inquiry was announced – that took guts. Andrews has no guts. He does not take any responsibility for anything, yet he is the man in charge. All this happened under his watch. 246 days of lockdown. 802 + deaths. The most cruel and debilitating restrictions in the world – restrictions that make no sense and some that even help spread COVID-19.
Let me name a few – golf, fishing, boating, tennis, lawn bowls, playgrounds, skate parks, outdoor exercise equipment – all shut down? Why? What’s the logic? Yet building workers can play on their sites throughout the whole pandemic (save 2 weeks)? Why? Because Andrews needs money from the building unions to get re-elected. And why are we forced to wear masks outside when your risk of catching COVID-19 outside is so low? When governments enact stupid laws or regulations the people eventually say – enough is enough. In Victoria this has taken far too long.
And then along came Victoria Police. When I grew up, I was taught to respect the police. I was taught the police were there to protect me. Boy how things have changed. The Victoria police have become bullies. They have lost the respect of the community. When police throw little old ladies to the ground and then spray them with pepper spray, brutally throw citizens talking to police to the ground, swarm and attack protestors with rubber bullets and tear gas, they lose the respect of the community. I know not all police are like this but there would appear to be a culture of brutality in the Victorian police that I have never seen before in my lifetime. When the police are being used as political enforcers’ by Andrews to enforce dumb laws enacted by an incompetent CHO, their ability to police disappears. And this has happened in Victoria. The people of Victoria no longer respect the police and this, I think, is a real problem for our future.
The incompetence and ineptitude of Andrews and Sutton was certainly the main cause of the Victorian devastation – but the other complicit organisations are the media. Where is the media scrutiny we expect in a democracy? Where is investigative journalism? Most of the media are just cheerleaders for the incompetents. They should be the ones out there questioning how thes 2 incompetents have handled COVID-19 in Victoria not sucking up to them to get the next exclusive. And why is the Andrews government the only government in Australia that does not provide transcripts of press conferences? Isn’t the reason obvious? This way he can’t be fact checked.
I mentioned earlier there were two things I think this inept state government did or didn’t do that actually contributed significantly to the spread of COVID-19 in Victoria. The first thing is the curfew. The curfew forces people to all go out at the same time meaning more people are compacted in more places to spread the virus. Look at the crowds in the parks (not a problem) and the supermarkets. And then there is the total inability of this hopeless government to implement a contact tracing system that works. Contact tracing in Victoria has not worked since day one. This is the No. 1 reason Victoria is in the mess it is in today. This is why the case numbers have gone up. Contact tracing is at least two weeks behind – so yes – it is absolutely useless.
The other thing that concerns me is the scare, scare, scare. Everything still seems to be about case numbers. Case numbers are irrelevant as 99%+ of people who get COVID-19 have no or mild symptoms. Less than 1% of cases end up in hospital or the ICU. (PS: Remember the 4,000 ICU beds Andrews promised in March 2020 – searching, searching, searching – can’t find them? Neither can I).
Apart from the lack of honesty, integrity and leadership from Andrews, the thing that annoys me the most is the lack of accountability. Everything is everyone else’s fault. It is like a child in the playground – he did it, he did it – not me, When the numbers go up it is because we had Grand Final parties (BTW: with contract tracing two weeks behind, there was NO evidence Grand Final parties spread the virus) or we didn’t follow his inane rules. Always everyone else’s fault. Real leaders take responsibility. All of you do in your businesses.
The lockdown policies in Victoria have been a complete failure. The incompetence of Andrews, Sutton and the government is breathtaking.
A quick comment about vaccinations. I am fully vaccinated but I strongly oppose mandatory vaccination. How dare these government officials tell me or you what to put in your bodies.
I am really scared for the future of my children. One son already lives in the UK and another is thinking of joining him. They don’t want to live in Victoria like the 43,000 other now ex-Victorians that have left between the start of the pandemic and 31 March 2021. Many more will leave once they can – and I will probably be one of them. Who wants to live in a place that is so depressing when you have a choice?
So where is the future? I do not think Victoria will recover until Andrews, Sutton and Sally Capp (Melbourne’s Lord Mayor) are all gone. No one has confidence in any of them. Capp has destroyed movement in and out of the city with crippling bike lanes, removal of 1,000’s of parking spaces and a proposed new access fee. This on top of the parking space tax. Andrews and Sutton have destroyed business in Melbourne. So many empty shops and restaurants and how many other businesses that will never return.
There will be no change unless YOU are prepared to make it happen. Most of the media are complicit. It is time for you to take a stand!
Divided we fall. United we stand.
We have all heard these words. I believe them to be the very fabric of what makes us, our families, friendships, organisations and society great.
Never have these words been more relevant, real and alive. Just look at the events taking place across every area of this great nation and the people who chose to call it home. Never have I seen such division and hatred amongst fellow Australians.
So much for the “We are ONE and free” in our national anthem. Words proudly sung, but sadly have not foothold in the heart.
So often I hear words uttering the importance of inclusion. Dishing out high fives for embracing diversity and taking a stance against discrimination. Model citizens everywhere. Yet, division has never been greater over what in the end will be trivial matters.
In speaking to so many people, I have heard of many great stories and also many heartbreaking stories. To hear of great examples of people extending a hand to those in need has inspired hope and brought out the best in humankind. From people paying for coffees for a day at the local cafe, to those dropping off food parcels and care packs to those in need, these actions have given me a great sense of hope that we can bounce back and do so strongly.
I have also heard of heartbreaking stories. People going hungry, not being able to pay their bills, being stripped of their pride and dignity. The list tragically goes on and on.
The most difficult one for me to understand though is the ending of lifelong friendships. Friendships brought to an end over differences in opinions and personal choices. People quarrelling with the very friend(s) they have done life with for so long. The very friend who stood by them in the times of adversity and celebrated alongside them for special milestones and achievements. I simply do not get it.
People should be doing all they can to protect and preserve their friendships. Instead they allow senseless matters to destroy them.
The time will come when we look back at this and reflect on these times. My view is that it won’t be too long before we will look back AND say to ourselves, “What was all of that about?”. We will question the friendships we ended. The choices we made. The time we lost that we will never get back.
For some of us, we will be more isolated and alone than ever before because we didn’t stand for what is important. We will ask ourselves, to what avail? Let me tell you, none!
For me, my friendships have never been more important and or more valued. I simply would not be able to do life without them.
Please work to be united with your friends and loved ones. Don’t allow what is going on to divide you.
At the end of this, we want to be able to stand tall and united, surrounded by those dear and important to us.
”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.
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.
Never before has there been such a perfect storm leading to potentially either a goldmine or a nightmare for accountants. In this post, I will attempt to explain why accountants need to be prepared, how we got here and how you can turn a possible disaster into a goldmine for your firm.
It has been written and talked about ad nauseam – the world has changed. Ever since March 2020 we were told to go home: it’ll only be a few weeks and then we can all go back to normal. As weeks turned into months and the months into years and the situation spiralled out of control, many of us struggled with what to do with all this extra time we had on our hands. We were no longer distracted by social activities, ferrying kids around to various sports or being forced to go on holidays.
It was finally here. This was our chance. We were home when not eyeing people off suspiciously at the supermarket, or trying to hold in a cough at the chemist (just a dry throat, I swear). And then the storm hit. The formula looked something like this:
Increased time at home + technology at our fingertips + low brokerage fees = we could all be the Wolf of Wall Street.
Finally living the dream. Sitting around in pyjamas, a bowl of corn chips resting on our enlarged bellies, phone in one hand while keeping an eye on whatever it was Netflix told me everyone else was watching so why aren’t you. And within the phone the power to trade across time zones, across markets, derivatives, options, CFDs, crypto… Endless opportunities to make your millions, or quietly realise a loss that would never be spoken about.
This scenario may sound familiar or chances are you know someone that went down this path. Some people were just passing the time with a flutter, others legitimately trying to build wealth. Either way, we know that a lot of Australians did this.
According to SelfWealth’s (a flat fee retail share trading platform) Annual Report, active traders on their books increased by 105% during FY21 and the total number of trades increased by 147% for the same period¹. The reduced costs associated with working from home and lack of alternatives meant people had a surplus of cash and now that cash became seed capital for their own private hedge fund.
While the popularity of ETFs is growing, only 15% of investors choose this investment type compared to 58% of investors directly holding Australian shares (ASX, 2020)². A key area to watch is the number of investors dipping their toes (and sometimes up to their neck) in the ever-expanding galaxy of cryptocurrencies. According to the AFR, 1 in 5 Australians is likely to buy cryptocurrency in the next 12 months³.
We are now seeing investors using multiple brokers and exchanges to take advantage of sign up offers and referral programs. This may make sense for the investor looking to capture the highest return possible, but it does mean that they may end up with poor records and difficulty in tracking their investments.
Throw into the mix buybacks, stock splits, DRPs, demergers as well as the even more complex world of crypto yield farming and come tax time there will be either underreporting (non-compliance) or a heap of work for someone to reconcile the data and make sense of all the transactions.
While excel has been one of the greatest fintech solutions since Lotus 1-2-3, it does have limitations. Excel formulas can be error-prone, time must be invested for compliance changes and reconciliation back to any data source is limited or non-existent.
Luckily for today’s accountants there exists a whole new world of automation: an ecosystem of data feeds, AI and automated processing that will drastically reduce the amount of time required to keep track of CGT records, produce financials and arrive at a reliable tax optimised position.
The perfect storm has enabled trading and wealth creation for a whole new generation and now this generation needs your help to make sure they do not give it all back with poor tax planning and compliance issues.
References:
Hello all and welcome to Spring! We have another BIG CAS 360 update for you!
Don’t forget to join the conversation about this release and so much more on the BGL Community >>>
Let’s kick off with Company Incorporations. Now you can start using CAS 360 for Company Incorporations, the previously required digital certificate has been removed, all that is required now is a direct debit account with ASIC.
All company incorporations from CAS 360 are done for the ASIC fee only. It has never been faster or easier to incorporate companies.
While CAS 360 does not currently have a constitution, we will soon, keep your eyes open.
Next, we have made some big improvements to our minutes and resolutions. Share and Unit transactions now show more information about each transaction, including effective dates. We have also added thousands separator commas to all Director, Trustee, Member and Unit holder minutes / resolutions. Share and Unit certificates have also been improved.
Security is an important part of all software applications these days and CAS 360 is no exception, we have now added system wide file scanning on all uploaded documents. From this update, every uploaded file will be virus scanned, and you will be notified if the document is marked suspicious.
Reports have been updated with the People group report now showing more trust relationship information, the Address Usage report now showing all addresses, with the ability to filter the new address types. The Companies Listing report options are now dynamic to your firm’s data (i.e options that are not relevant won’t be shown)
Last and certainly not least we have made a number of interface changes to improve how CAS 360 works.
Now all screens that have a table (Company, Documents, Annual Reviews etc.) have a sticky header. This means that as we scroll down the page, the headings will stay visible, this is a great improvement.
We have also redesigned the company notes screens in company selection with a new modern look, and also the SMS messages conversation box has been updated with a fresh new look.
Artificial Intelligence, or AI, has been through a hype cycle in the last few years. This will be the first of my attempts to reduce some of this hype and best explain AI in terms relevant to Accountants and Planners.
CX has been around for decades however, it has commonly been mistaken for customer service and pumping valuable dollars into the latest and greatest technology. Although these are contributors to CX, it’s just the tip of the iceberg. The expectations from our clients to deliver on CX is growing day by day.
CXPA refers to Client Experience as “the perception that customers have of an organisation – one that is formed based on interactions across all touchpoints, people and technology over time”.
I interpret this as an emotional connection you form with a business based on your experiences with them on all levels. It’s that heart-fluttering nostalgia you get when Mr Whippy drives by playing music, in the middle of summer – Doesn’t that take you back to some fun memories? And Mr Whippy generally drove a beat-up old van and his ice cream machine was probably older than your parents, but the experiences and memories that it gave you evoke a fuzzy feeling every time.
The first question to ask yourself is this: How do our clients perceive our business?
Many of us have been guilty of drawing off assumptions however, the key to CX is facing the hard facts of what clients really do perceive or feel when they think of your business. The biggest mistake business owners make is assuming their business is perceived a certain way and implementing changes based on this. This is self-sabotage!
Hearing and seeing hard facts or data on this matter can be a hard pill to swallow for some but if you have a genuine understanding of your client’s perception, you’re already on the path to CX success and can start implementing meaningful change.
I could go on about CX for hours and hours and don’t worry, I will! But before I flood you with what I have learnt about the six competencies of Client Experience (and work to convert you into a CX superstar!), I’d like you to think about the following points:
Let’s make a start on this journey together and pick one point from this post that you can apply in your everyday life. It will make a world of difference and allow you to get a feel for what it is to live CX.
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