Rounding out an unusual and memorable year, our CTO, Stephen Jackel hosted the final What’s New at myprosperity webinar of 2020 on Tuesday 15 December.

Participants were given valuable insights into how several firms have embraced technology over this unprecedented year, in particular the myprosperity features that streamlined the transition from in-person to online services. And a snapshot of what myprosperity Partners can expect in terms of the platform in the year to come.

Stephen noted, “One of the key takeaways (from this year) has been that a lot of firms looked to speed up their technology roadmaps, looking to embrace that technology and really bring it to bear.”

Drawing on data gleaned from the platform, Stephen shared the most used features by accountants and financial planners in 2020. Digital Forms, e-Signatures, Report Comms, Balance Sheets and Doc Storage were among the top five most used features for accountants this year, with Stephen noting that “It’s interesting to see that these are some of the areas firms have been focusing on. Particularly, you can see that a lot of it comes down to how firms engage with their clients both in terms of efficiency and also in delivering a better and faster experience.”

“Digital forms and moving away from paper or PDFs and leveraging all of the live, rich data in the platform, often to automatically fill in forms”. This saw a massive takeup during the height of the pandemic, with an increase of 15,540% since the feature launched last year.

Digital Forms was again among the top five features used by financial planners in 2020, alongside e-Signatures, Balance Sheets, Goal Tracking and Cashflow.

Through live data feeds, Digital Forms, Doc Signing and Rooms, the myprosperity platform continued to grow and integrate data across the platform in 2020. “This year we laid a lot of the groundwork for growth in some of our integrations for next year”, Stephen explained, delving into the in-progress integrations including Salesforce, MYOB, iress Xplan and Xero.

In the Partner Spotlight, Stephen shared snapshots of our in-depth partner case studies. Increasing revenue, efficiency and client engagement were prevalent key areas of focus for many of our partners in 2020 and beyond, despite differences in firm size, service offerings and types of clients.

Stephen extended a warm welcome to myprosperity’s latest mobile-first partners, including Cutcher & Neal, Fin Choice, Gillett & Associates and Financial Lifestyle Managers, who each developed branded apps to offer clients an enhanced and personalised customer experience.

Looking forward to 2021, we are focusing on enhancing the functionality of Rooms and expanding our integrations. Stephen elaborated, “We’re going to be going a bit deeper on different types of Rooms. We’re seeing a lot of takeup across a range of different areas, such as firms that are using Rooms for their tax planning, tax returns, fact finds and different types of services such as estate planning, investment planning and super. We’ll be making them more specialised so that in these different types of Rooms, the appropriate types of digital forms or next steps will become available.” This will include deeper integrations in these Rooms across different types of systems, for example, Xero, Salesforce and Xplan.

Finally, Stephen encouraged those who haven’t watched the second episode of the WoWcrowd webcast, led by former Melbourne Football Club captain, Garry Lyon, to tune in for some great insights, valuable tips and light entertainment. Lyon shares his journey through sports and media, and how backing himself with a trusted financial team allowed him to kick some major wealth goals. A star studded panel of experts followed, including Jason Cunningham, Co-founder & Director of The Practice, Kim Payne, Founder of 9Rok, and Matthew Rowe, CEO of Countplus. They delved into the value of forming deeper relationships with clients and good advice.

Watch episode two and register for future WoWcrowd episodes at wowcrowd.myprosperity.com.au

Watch the full episode here.

Our focus in 2020 has understandably been consumed by the community health crisis caused by COVID-19 and the resulting global economic impact. As we were all forced away from the office to work from home, it seems many people and businesses have let their guard down and cyber criminals have been taking advantage of the situation.

Last week SmartCompany reported that small businesses in Australia had experienced a rise in cyber attacks throughout the course of 2020, with 4,255 reported incidents of email scams in the 2019-20 financial year alone. This increase in cyber crime has reportedly cost businesses over $142 million, according to the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC). As a clear sign that this activity is on the rise, the prudential regulator (APRA) has also weighed in on this issue and last week unveiled its cyber-security strategy for 2020-24, which seeks to lift security standards and introduce higher accountability where companies fail to meet their requirements. To date it must be noted that no APRA-regulated bank, insurer or superannuation fund has suffered a substantial cyber attack, but APRA executive board member Geoff Summerhayes has warned a lack of awareness among the higher ranks of companies will only make it a matter of time.

So it is clear that the rise in online activity through the COVID period as a result of most of us having to work from home has created a perfect storm for cyber criminals. And to give you an idea of just how unscrupulous these scammers can be, during the month of March 2020 when community concerns about Covid were arguably at their highest, the Australian Cyber Security Centre received more than 45 pandemic-themed cyber-crime and cyber-security incident reports, while the ACCC’s Scamwatch received more than 100 reports of COVID-themed scams. Not very nice.

Whilst we often think about such computer hacking incidents as highly sophisticated breaches, the majority of cases involving individuals and business owners are based on fairly common vulnerabilities and are easy to avoid.

The most common scenario is where an individual uses a single password for different applications. It’s most often the unsavvy staffer that uses the same Facebook password as the rest of their corporate applications and email, so once hacked or phished, gives the scammer access to a treasure trove of highly sensitive information. After gaining access to the mailbox for example, the cyber criminal will usually assess a pattern of behaviour over a period of time (sometimes weeks) in order to gain an understanding of emails being sent and received, often with suppliers where they can tap into the movement of money.

It is often the case that at the end of a legitimate email thread to order goods from a supplier, the cyber criminal will send a final message to request that the payment is diverted to a new bank account. This diversion can also be achieved through online accounting software, particularly if the scammer has been able to gain access to a firms’ practice software. The perpetrator will often attempt to change bank account details on an invoice just prior to it being sent, or intercept payroll details just before a pay run is processed. To cover their tracks, they delete the message from sent and deleted folders, and if a response is received to acknowledge the change in bank account details, a mailbox rule is pre-setup to delete the response or move it to another folder, so the employee is not alarmed. Pretty scary stuff.

There are however, a few simple steps that greatly reduce the likelihood of these types of breaches.

1. Use applications such as myprosperity and Xero, that employ Multi-factor authentication (MFA) so that you can block most attempts of unauthorised access to these systems. MFA provides a safety net in case employee passwords are compromised and in the case of myprosperity, can be set up at the practice level as well as the client level. Note that myprosperity does not provide functionality where actual payments of money transfers can be performed, however, we are dealing with incredibly sensitive financial information so we highly recommend that you configure MFA regardless.

2. Ensure that passwords are strong and regularly updated. Never share passwords and educate your staff on best-practices in managing secure passwords. I recall years ago when I was at Xero that one accounting firm who got hacked had issued a common password for up to 20 staff in order to simplify team access to their practice software. Clearly not a great practice from a security standpoint. And if continuous changing of passwords becomes a drag for your staff you can also use password generators which allow the user to regularly create strong and random passwords. Products such as Avast, 1password and dashlane are good examples.

3. Finally, think about deploying an email security system that provides an anti-phishing defence solution allowing you to detect and prevent fraudulent emails being sent from legitimate email mailboxes. Companies like MailGuard and Mimecast offer good solutions that are cost effective and easy to deploy.

Case Study: PKF

Revenue: $20M+
Clients: 4,000+
Staff: 150+
Services PKF offer: Audit & Assurance, Business Advisory, Taxation, Forensic Accounting, Business Recovery & Insolvency, Corporate Finance, Wealth Creation, Superannuation (SMSF Administration), and Industry Sector Expertise.
Tech Stack: myprosperity, GreatSoft, Xero Practice Manager, FYI Docs, NowInfinity, Class Super, XPlan, Power BI, Tableau, NetSuite
Top focus areas in the business: Increase efficiencies and improved client engagement

Steve Meyn (Chairman of PKF)
Steve Meyn started with PKF’s Sydney/Newcastle practice in the late 1980s, so he’s seen many changes in the industry. That longevity with the business has given him an edge in spotting key trends and opportunities in the advice industry. In particular, succession planning across the mid-tier SME market is seen to have enormous growth opportunities.

“The next 10 years will see huge numbers of business owners seeking to transfer or exit the businesses they have spent their working lives building. At PKF we want to be the succession planning firm to help our clients with all aspects of that critical transaction and there is a multitude of services that are associated with this cycle.”

PKF knows the value of being across all aspects of a client’s financial world, both business and personal. “In getting to know the client better it was important for us to establish a central source of truth with the financial affairs of that client, in a central place where everyone in the team could have access in real-time.” Steve Meyn explains.

PKF implemented myprosperity in 2015 to capture their clients’ financial data and keep it updated through live data feeds powered by the platform’s growing list of integrations. The ability to collaborate on the same set of client data has opened up many revenue sources for the firm, with Steve pointing to how it has helped establish a framework of collaboration with other firms such as legal, financiers, and even other accounting firms. Now a more holistic approach to servicing clients has been made possible.

For Steve and his leadership team, the value of myprosperity extends to improving practice efficiencies also.

“We want to streamline everything that we do across the business. A big part of that is using technology to facilitate the capture and storage of current client data, with systems doing the heavy lifting and eliminating double-handling of that data.”

Automation of processes and how data is managed and maintained is now of paramount importance and so, myprosperity has been mandated for use with every client across their wealth division.

Leaving the collection and flow of data to myprosperity means staff are spending more time analysing and understanding what the data says about a client rather than spending their time collecting or re-entering data.

As PKF looks to the future, Steve sees going digital as an important branding exercise that demonstrates they are an innovative organisation. Recently, ‘PKF Digital’ has been adopted as a key element of their branding strategy. This has also influenced their approach to recruitment, whereby they have supported their highly experienced advice team with new hires with a technology background to accelerate their digital competency.

“For clients, it means giving them tools like myprosperity to simplify how they interact with us, including the mobile app and digital documents signing.

When they see how we use technology they often ask us how they can use similar solutions for their business and that opens up a whole new conversation that goes well beyond the numbers.”

Want to know how myprosperity can help your business. Book a demo today!

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As someone who’s not a rampant Twitter user, I sent out a tweet a few weeks ago after reading about a new startup, BeforePay, that allows people to get access to money before they have earned it. This was the tweet. The sentiment certainly seemed to resonate because it received just under 2,000 impressions in the Twittersphere.

Just to clarify, we’re not lamenting startups like this. In fact, they have an important and innovative service to offer the market, but it does make you wonder if younger generations are grasping the concept of consumer debt? I’ve expressed concern about the “want it now” generation before and how easily young people on low salaries can access credit that racks up debt as instantly as their desire for goods and services they can’t afford. Perhaps the best balance lies somewhere in the middle but it starts with a clear understanding of the impacts of debt, and the risks of getting in too deep that result in paying much more for something just for the satisfaction of having it now, over the traditional mode of waiting and saving.

And if you think it’s being alarmist, Smart Company recently reported that 20% of AfterPay customers were actually skipping meals to keep up with payments. So the likes of BeforePay could lead to a scenario where a young person gets access to funds they haven’t earned and then uses it to purchase goods worth four times the value of that amount. To us, and I am sure many advisers, this is a scary scenario.

We’ve seen AfterPay and Zip come under increased scrutiny by ASIC due to the impact that BNPL is having on those who are struggling to keep up with payments. This plays into the conversation around how BNPL products should be regulated, and whether they’re good for the consumer or not. In a report issued by ASIC it was noted that there are regulatory changes on the way, with design and distribution rules coming into effect in October 2021. Until now, the industry has been engaged in self-regulation, so only time will give us an indication of its impact.

When it comes to basic household budget management and how to handle consumer debt through payday lenders, credit cards and the new burgeoning BNPL space, there doesn’t seem to be much advice readily available to consumers; simply because there is not much in it for Advisers. Most of the debt advice our industry engages in is much further up the scale with debt refinancing, where there are more services and revenue on offer for an adviser.

As with any kind of change of behaviour or perception, greater education from the formative years is needed to develop and instill an understanding of cause and impact; in this case, poor consumer debt management. We recommend, and certainly would prefer to see education play a key role in changing money management behaviour ahead of regulators stepping in and protecting consumers who seemingly can’t help themselves.

Firm snapshot
Revenue: $1-5M
Clients: 2,000+
Staff: 21-40
Services: Investment, taxation, business advisory, superannuation, accountancy, lending services, risk & estate planning.
Tech Stack: myprosperity, Xplan, Supermate, MYOB AE, NetWealth, Macquarie Wrap, BT Wrap, Employment Hero
Top 3 areas of focus in your business? Increase Revenue; Increase Efficiencies; Improved Client Engagement

Sovereign Financial began using myprosperity in 2016 after a comprehensive technology search to identify a client portal platform that they could use within their advice business. Back when they started to use the platform, Director and Head of Wealth for Sovereign, Sarah Connolly, said that they were looking for technology to help with streamlining the way they worked with clients in order to help scale the business. A key objective was to enable advisers to manage larger numbers of clients.

“We wanted to increase revenue without increasing staff. We had heard through other advisers about myprosperity, and when we looked into it closely we realised that this was a platform that could not only help us to better engage with our clients but also manage how we collect much needed financial information and keep it up to date.”

Like many advisers who start out using myprosperity, understanding the change management required to deploy new technology was a critical lesson. Sarah admits that in the early stages of rolling out the platform, they treated the onboarding of each client as a product sale and focused on the benefits to the client.

“Yes, many clients see the benefit in using the wealth portal, particularly the peace of mind of knowing that everything is in one place, but we soon realised that this was actually a tool for us. Myprosperity is a platform that allows us to really know our clients and enables us to meet our obligation to provide informed advice.”

Amongst many benefits, Sarah has found the ability to gather insights into all assets and liabilities, not just those that are under management by Sovereign, as key to building a complete profile of clients that allows her and her advisers to easily prepare for client meetings.

Initially, Sovereign experienced reluctance from some clients in making the move to digital but we’re happy to see a 50% uptake in the first wave of rollout of the technology to their client base. “This is something you need to persist with. Many clients embrace the new digital led approach, but you always find some that resist and so you need to train them on the new way of engaging. It’s definitely worth the effort because the benefits to us in terms of efficiency gains are substantial.”

Onboarding of new clients is now completed in an initial 30-minute meeting, usually over Zoom, where the client portal and their entire personal balance sheet is completed on the spot.

“Clients love it when they can leave that meeting with everything set up properly and working on a mobile app. It certainly makes our lives easier as well.”

Sovereign is then able to keep client data updated with the use of a digital fact find which has been customised and branded for Sovereign and made available in the Advisor Portal for all their advisers to use with their clients.

“We have also just recently rolled out a digital Tax Checklist which our accountants love using.”

Like many other advisers, Covid-19 has certainly helped fast track adoption and in addition to completing digital forms, the uptake of digital signing has also seen a substantial increase across the entire client base.

Sovereign’s focus going forward is to identify referral opportunities amongst their tax client base, where they can offer other services provided within the wealth arm of the firm and according to Sarah, myprosperity is an integral part of this.

“Accountants are typically reluctant to raise new opportunities with clients. With the insights we have across the various client portfolios using myprosperity we are now able to run analytics across our whole client base to identify these new leads.”

As an example, Sovereign are able to review mortgages that may not have been looked at for three years or more and can execute a marketing campaign to generate leads for refinancing.

“If anything changes in our client’s financial world we are the first to know, and it means we can offer the right services at the right time.”

myprosperity and HUB24 have announced that from this week advisers who use the HUB24 platform and myprosperity for their clients will be able to use myprosperity’s integrated digital signature capability to sign HUB24 client documents.

This initiative will provide further support to advisers by leveraging digital capability which advisers have increasingly embraced during the COVID-19 pandemic, to facilitate more efficient client onboarding and streamline other processes which require a client signature.

The partnership will leverage HUB24’s open architecture approach and extend integration with myprosperity beyond investment data feeds to allow advisers to digitally sign HUB24 documents. Australian households are rapidly moving online with one recent McKinsey study suggesting clients’ use of digital solutions has progressed 5 years in 8 weeks during the pandemic, meaning digital solutions which enable advisers to collaborate online with their clients is becoming increasingly critical.

This is the first of several upcoming integration announcements between HUB24 and myprosperity, all aimed at helping advisers to thrive in a post COVID-19 world.

Jason Entwistle, Director of Strategic Development at HUB24 commented on the news, ‘Demand for digital solutions that enable the efficient delivery of advice has been growing for some time and accelerated as a result of the pandemic. We are pleased to be working with myprosperity to deliver effective digital solutions for advisers that support the advice process.’

The combination of HUB24’s award-winning platform and myprosperity’s market-leading whole of wealth client portal provides a powerful solution for advisers and their clients to stay connected and engaged with their investments.

‘We have seen an explosion in usage from both Advisers and their clients. Digital document signing, online custom fact finds, and app downloads are at record numbers highlighting the rapid change in how we are all doing business. We are thrilled to build on our long-standing partnership with HUB24 and look forward to further investing in features that will help our mutual partners thrive into the future,’ says Peter McCarthy Founder and Managing Director of myprosperity.