Shares & Funds BGL Simple Invest 360 or Excel for share portfolio in a trust

Hi All,

I have set up a family trust and looking to regularly invest in shares / ETFs over the next 5-10 years via an online broker such as Pearler. The investments will generally be a long term hold but depending on what I invest in, I may be selling down shares in the future as opposed to relying on dividends. So something that easily tracks the cost base of the shares would be great and something that assists with tax return preparation is also ideal.

I have seen the recent release of BGL Simple Invest 360 software and it looks promising. Any experience? It's $400 in year 1 and $200 per year after that. It sounds like BGL is fairly popular for super funds so do you think there will be longevity with this company / software?

Alternatively I could just manage it all in Excel but that may get messy if I have a large number of holdings after dollar cost averaging over the next 10 years.....

Any other good options?

Thanks,
Mark

 

i use BGL for smsfs and the product is superb.

you wont be disappointed with any of the BGL products. and the customer support, it is truly amazing.

its not just fairly popular with the accounting profession its immensely popular.

its been around for over 30 years. the company isnt going anywhere.

 

Excellent. Thanks Mike! I actually watched a YouTube video on the new offering and it looks amazing. Well worth the investment IMO.

 

I just stumbled across Simple Invest 360 myself. Does it replace the need for an accountant if you hold simply shares and managed funds in a discretionary trust with a bucket company beneficiary?

 

Simple invest is basically the SMSF product with some features stripped out. esp tax and some reporting and the member area. You will need:
- A supported broker / wrap or other platform
- A dedicated investment bank account for that purpose and nothing else (data feed use)

Its one of many options. Some brokers provide very comprehensive full feature reporting for a trivial costs that is ....higher brokerage. Simple invest will handle corporate actions, return of capital and splits, demergers and AMIT very well....If the user is proficient. If they are not it will be a mess. Its one downside is you must share a login with an adviser as it cant be a shared access file. You can use 2FA to limit their access to a specific time and event of course. by telling them the 2FA code over phone. And then reset password.

BGL are the pacesetter for accounting industry "best practice" and are continually improving product each month and have been since I first used it 24 years ago. They make others look like children eg MYOB, Xero, Quickbooks etc. Nobody is close. Their support is first rate and its all in Melbourbe. No cheap offshore support or product development work. So the one you speak to knows it fine details. I love that about Handisoft and BGL. If you have a problem within a month or two they have a new feature and you often find it by chance. I was at a practice that asked why there was a transaction and member limit on desktop all the way back. They didnt know it did. They rewrote it for us that many times. There is no other software for such funds but wasnt all the way back then and BGL worked fine. They had to turn off the member limit and I think you can still ask. And when we had more than 1000 funds they also fixed that so we could support a major client (bank) allowing us to take on many more so the software was stable. We started with banklink and they adapted it to what is now "datafeeds".... It was CSVs they would write code for timport but they adapted that to datafeeds and now that is also mirrored with registry feed that cross check and VERY smart AI. . And that gets better by the month. The one area it isnt yet poliched in crypto and foreign currency related matters but that is a problem bigger than BGL. You cant data feed it !!

They are the ones that Class aspire to be and seem to have copied almost down to the font. Its a private company and Ron wouldnt have it any otherway. I'm sure he has been offerred a lot of $$$ to sell.

 

Thanks Paul, very helpful!

I am currently using Pearler which I do not believe is supported at this stage so that's something for me to look into. Maybe I will need to move to SelfWealth.

 

Remember these tools are a third party reporting platform only and some of them can be pretty ordinary. BGL on the other hand is a full blown accounting system with intricate tax elements integrated. The user does need to be proficient or its done badly. Trusts still need to account annually and regularly for all income and outgoings, assets and liabilities and so investment reporting is a part of that.

I have had people hand me self wealth reports for their SMSF and I wont use them. Cant use it. I also have certain broker reports people send thinking they are complete. They arent eg Commsec.

 

Any update on this @Mark202, did you go down the BGL Simple Invest 360 route? Or other individual investors using it for their trust management?

Just stumbled across it today, looks interesting and much more value for money and useable features than Sharesight..

 

Sharesight is ok. Not great. The value of software choices is more apparent with transaction volume and complexity in etfs etc

 

I use a discretionary trust purely for share investing. Have been using gnucash for my accounting needs as you will need to do financial statements too. Pretty simple to use if you are familiar with double entry accounting.

 

Thanks @Paul@PAS. Family trust debt recycling using ETFs, VAS, VEU & VTS, large lump sum purchases to begin and then DCA'ing over the years. So I guess that would get more complex as time goes on with ETFs and regular additional purchases...

Cheers BB5 and will look into GNUcash, never heard of it.

 

Simpleinvest is a full blown accounting package and can even produce tax and lodge for a trust. This tax function requires the user is a practitioner that also is a BGL user so the client doesnt see the tax functions but I do. . We have several Simple Invest clinets. They do 85% of the work and we review, check, correct and complete. Its very cost effective that way. Its better than most accounting software and is specific to investmnets. You cant combine different entities however. Its a single entity product. In theory it could cater to billions of dollars invested and ANY investmnet can be reported. MOST will be automated but some wont and those that cant can be manually addressed eg a unlisted family company holding etc.

It can also cater to non financial investmnets such as property and rent etc and handles multi currency. Its a product built on the BGL Simple Fund SMSF software. It can handle trusts, partnerships and other entities but sometimes the tax element may not be complete. This poses no issues for a tax adviser as the tax form data can be easily entered into other software. The accounting is VERY good and easy for a non-expert to use with some very simple guidance. Generally I wouldnt recommend no adviser support. It means no other financials must be maintained. Typically we find a trust annual fee that may be $1300+ can be halved where the client has maintained to a good standard.

The software uses data feeds with banks, brokers and registries etc and links and some AI to take some but all the guesswork out of accounting. It suggests the accounting for purchases/sales and income and may get it right and then you confirm this. You can track more than one holding too eg Husbads trading v wife's. It does add to complexity but we have found ways. We receive rare client questions and happily assist. Then at year end its important that all ETF tax statemnets marry up to the income. This usually means the Q4 income is shown as receivable. Foreign income often needs some editing for withholding tax deducted. The tax statement elements must also be checked eg tax deferred, AMIT adjustmnets, franking credits, discount CGT etc. The ETF tax statemnet will easily assist that.

Then after year end the income distribution can be finalised. I do recommend tax adviser support as this is easily done badly and there will be technical issues. Its designed to be difficult as it is a complex issue. eg streaming or proportionate etc. Then there can be considerations like family trust elections etcbut tries to be and only offers reporting which may also be incorrect.

Sharesight on the otherhand isnt accounting software and if the two dont agree it can be extra work and even add to costs. Accounting generally works on cost / money values but these can have tax adjustmnets which ONLY affect tax. In traditional accounting this is manually adjusted aftre the accounting and adds time. BGL is simple. It reconciles and handles the lot. Yet the sharesight reports show the changed or altered values which complicate accounting. . And can also be incorrect. The income adjustmnets indicated above from tax statemnets add complexity that must be manually resolved. Sharesight also has some reporting issues which create problems. I am quite critical of the "minimise CGT" reporting which can actually create issues that affect the subsequent year. I had a clinet who did this and he saved a few hundred in tax then realised the next year he had NON-DISCOUNT gains if he sold. We revised his sharesight based on manual sales and then he had discount gains available in exchange for a tiny extra sum of tax. Messy and easily missed. He wanted to take large profits.

For the cost I would recommend simple invest above sharesight. I do know that clinets will save at least as much as the BGL fee. If not more.

 

Thank you very much for such a detailed response @Paul@PAS much appreciated! Haven't been able to find much on it online apart from some mentions on here and whirlpool, so your response is great to hear. Certainly sounds like it's a great bit of and very useful software. Your final comment of "For the cost I would recommend simple invest above sharesight. I do know that clinets will save at least as much as the BGL fee. If not more." certainly paints a good picture of it! Time to watch a few of their videos and sign up I think. Cheers and thanks mate, appreciate your time and effort on the response!

 

Implementation of existing trades and holdings can complicate it a little. Can be imported. I did a client this year where we imported the prior year. In that process we found the old accountants made a mess of it. Using traditional software. They have a lot of DRPs and purchases monthly of the ETFs and this really helps. Once we got to the 2022 year it was simple.

I dont know of any other product like it. It does things specific to investments. Made in melbourne. Big firms like Xero and MYOB have asked to buy it and been rejected. They do monthly updates and its a continual path of improvemnet.

 

I haven't used SF Invest but have tried pushing for it at work (without luck) ever since they released the ability to generate ITRs similar to SF360.
I'm sure it would easily half the WIP for an entity that has multiple ETFs and managed funds, as balancing a tax rec manually in excel can be quite annoying - literally takes 5 second per investment in BGL and direct share holdings usually data match too!

SF360 is a very good product and well worth the price.
If I managed my own investment trust it's what I would use.

 

My view entirely. If you know Simple Fund its like the old days of an actuarial calc. It would take a LOT of time. In Simple Fund its a click of a button. That same functionality is like Simple Invest. It does all the tax elements and can cater to streaming and much more. Has market val revals like simple fund and more. It functionally the same product. The part where it gets tricky is the distribution elements. Its a bit clunky. But you can undo and redo. Its a step by step process that is a bit confusing the first few times. You have to close things a few times and if you dont complete it to the end it needs to be repeated. The tax return is produced at the end. And distributions posted. LIke create entries you can undo it. Despite it being closed its not closed until aftre you lodge then close the year. We were also in beta initially and they were responsive with feedback and bugs. I hit one with a rounding variance of 1c. Another with rounding of $1 in CGT schedules so the schedules didnt agree to the main return

Also has a decent workpapers module and enables review and other issues to be tracked and cleared.
All contracts and most distribution / div notices also (can) import into software. (data feed)

I recommend any practice offer it for clients and despite what BGL say it doesnt need a license bundle. It uses a simple fund license. . A BGL firm can do it differently...EITHER 1. The firm owns the license and issues use to each client OR 2. The client owns the file (Investor ediition) and invites the firm. Its then full function for the firm but the client cant lodge etc. Ony difference is each clinet is a choice when you login that way. The firm adds its BGL lodging authority in RAM. Easy. Non trust clients presently need manual entry to tax in practice software

 

Hi Hemsy

I have nothing to add on top of Paul’s amazing response. My response was going to be that it’s a very powerful tool and relatively easy to get you 95% of the way there, especially if you have some accounting knowledge. My issue is that I needed someone to help me complete the final 5%. I didn’t have the time to work out how to do distributions etc and I think it would be too hard for a non-tax accountant to use it perfectly. Sounds like I need to contact Paul….

In summary, it’s a fantastic product and very good value for money but you would want an accountant who know how to use it as well. My accountant didn’t which means he was able to lodge my tax return based on the output but can’t easily help with finishing off the distribution elements in the actual software.

 

I would agree with Mark on that. This cost is substantially reduced depending on how well its finalised. Review and check tax elements etc and then check distribution is consistent with resolutions etc Prepare trust tax and FTE ? and lodge etc.