Administration service provider SMSF Alliance has upgraded its portal and will now offer a data-matching service for trustees to identify unmatched documents and transactions to build a more complete picture of their portfolio.
SMSF Alliance practice principal David Busoli said the portal would be available to advisers and would reduce the time required to collect information they needed to provide advice to SMSF clients.
Busoli said the portal would prompt SMSF trustees to provide information and collect and retain it, but would not be involved in making direct contact with them.
“We will not be talking with an adviser’s SMSF clients or placing ourselves between them, but rather working behind the scenes for both of them,” he said.
He said the ability to match data had been offered elsewhere in the SMSF sector, but in this case advisers could use it as an additional fee-generating service with self-directed trustee clients.
“Advisers can use the portal to generate fees from an administration function that usually requires time and staff resources and produce a consolidated view of the trustee or member’s position for the adviser and the client,” he noted.
“It also overcomes the need for advisers to extract information from accountants, which may not be received on time or not sufficiently up to date, to respond quickly to a client’s advice needs.”
The service was akin to an investment wrap account providing up-to-date portfolio information and there had been demand for a similar service from clients who wanted access to all their transactions, statements and accounts in a single place, he said.
