Superficially, all investment strategy document tools use the same approach. They provide you with a template that documents the investment strategy you have already decided upon – couched between appropriate extracts from SIS. In almost every case, these templates are notable for what they don’t say. They contain a significant amount of blank space for you to construct the strategy detail and its argument. Our tool takes a different approach.
We have witnessed a huge range of SMSF investments over the years from cash & shares to private loans, businesses and start ups, from widely diversified to single asset funds. In an ongoing process of addition and refinement we have created a range of relevant phrases around an ever-increasing set of investment variables which allow you to choose a particular investment or investment type and to be prompted with a variety of wordings you may wish to include in your strategy. By simply selecting from the list you can populate the strategy with appropriate content rather than having to construct it from scratch. You can also add your own original material as the documents you receive are produced in Microsoft Word for final editing.
Naturally, all the standard asset sectors are catered for with a description of their characteristics and the reason why you have chosen to invest heavily, if applicable, in them. If your exposure is weighted to a certain asset, a direct property perhaps, a range of reasons you believe that this is acceptable and how you will deal with this lack of diversification is presented for you to select from.
Appropriate wordings for gearing, pensions, life insurance, investments in different types of private loans, bullion, cryptocurrency and start-up entities is included. In line with current audit practice, we have taken a look through approach to investments in private trusts and companies, including business activities.
If the fund holds derivatives a risk management statement, as required under SIS, is produced. If the fund holds collectables a storage statement, which is similarly required, is created as well. A separate risk statement for cryptocurrency is not required at the moment, but we have included one just in case.
The result is that, using your predetermined strategy or Statement of Advice as a guide, you can create a detailed, bespoke investment strategy document for a quite complex fund, in about 10 minutes, that will not only satisfy the increasingly stringent audit regime but also provide some investment clarity to your trustee clients.
In short, this particular investment strategy documentation tool has no peer – and it continues to evolve!
It is available free to our Alliance Partners.
