BT Financial Group (BTFG) has finalised the components of its BT Panorama SMSF offer and has underlined the benefits of its modular approach, which aims to support SMSF advisory and accountancy businesses rather than redefine them.
“As of [last] weekend, our SMSF offer is complete and we’re open for business,” BTFG head of SMSF Craig Lawrenson told selfmanagedsuper.
“This is a great chance to support the roughly 1500 advisers that have already registered to use Panorama in terms of their SMSF business.
“One of the important elements of the offer is that it’s modular in approach and it’s all about the collaboration with the accountant or adviser.
“So we’re not saying that in order to get value add out of the BT Panorama SMSF solution you have to use all the component parts of the offering, from establishing the fund, to investing all the assets with us and also you’ll have to use our fund administration back office.”
Lawrenson stressed Panorama SMSF’s core fundamental proposition was not a one-size-fits-all offer.
“We want to reinforce that it’s not an ‘if you can’t use all of us, you can’t use any of us’ proposition,” he said.
“Use us for deed establishment if you want to. If you don’t, we’re happy to manage your assets.
“If you want to use us for fund administration because you don’t have accounting relationships, we can absolutely do that for you.”
He revealed cloud-based accounting software firm Class was the first provider to Panorama SMSF’s administration solution.
“A big part of the collaboration model is the role of data feeds with accounting software,” he said.
“What we’ve been focusing on, initially with Class and we’re working with others, is a way that we can pass our information to them and get information back to us so that at a Panorama level, you’re getting a complete view of the fund, notwithstanding that Panorama may not hold all the assets.
“Even before we had a deal on the table around who could provide our administration software, we said that part of the proposition for the accounting software was we wanted to collaborate and integrate because traditionally it’s been one-way information, us to them, but we wanted two-way information.
“So the first cab off the rank is Class and we’re open to all the others.”
The end-to-end solution allows for the establishment of an SMSF without the need for signatures or paperwork, investments and administration, but also features a document library to store, upload and download all related fund documents, as well as customisation for market news, ASX announcements and online corporate actions.
Further, Panorama SMSF captures and provides valuations for external assets in order to provide a whole-of-fund view.
“We’re looking for a long and strong relationship, which we’ve always had in some regards with SMSFs because 25,000 are already on our existing platform, so from an advisory perspective, there have been many SMSF trustees who have sought product solutions from us,” Lawrenson said.
“I believe in modularity and in complementing business models.
“It’s about enabling an adviser or an accountant to challenge their business model – can they do it better by using more of this Panorama operating system but equally being able to provide enough flexibility?
“It’s that type of conversation as opposed to one-size-fits-all and forcing them to change and to react to us.”
In November, BTFG announced it would bring an SMSF offer to market and launched the first phase of BT Panorama SMSF features in December.
