www.microgenfs.com
[email protected]
Microgen 5Series is a comprehensive software product that supports the primary business operations of trust
administrators and corporate service providers. A key feature is its user-configurable workflow which can be used to help manage and automate key business processes and daily activities, for example, client on-boarding, KYC, automated client risk scoring, FATCA reporting and year-end accounts production.
The combination of highly flexible software and powerful in-built workflow capabilities results in a solution that can be quickly tailored to meet specific business requirements, thereby providing high levels of operational control and efficiency that can free up valuable staff time.
Key Benefits
• Improve efficiency: Increased automation and integration improves operational efficiency and reduces errors and costs associated with day-to-day activities.
• Improve control: Workflow processes guide staff through the necessary steps to complete key business processes and provide management with a clear picture of the status of each person’s / department’s / business unit’s work in progress and outstanding tasks.
• Improve flexibility and agility: React quickly to changing market demands and compliance requirements through system-wide, flexible configuration.
• Improve customer service: Achieved through enhanced management control, reliable and consistent data and comprehensive reporting.
• Increase profitability: Increased automation enables existing staff to focus on value-add activities, in turn allowing the business to grow without the need to recruit additional staff.
Entity Management Investments Accounting Time & Expenses Billing Client Web Portal WORKFLOW COMPLIANCE
Microgen 5Series Software
for Trust Administrators and Corporate Services Providers
Helping your business be informed, compliant and efficient
Dynamic Client Relationship Diagram
Entity Management Module
Microgen 5Series provides a rich repository of information for client and entity records. Pre-defined data fields for persons, joint persons, trust, company, fund, foundation, bank, third party (non-personal), third party (personal), asset, liability and policy entity types are supplied as standard. To tailor the system additional entity types, data fields, relationship types and other user configurable options are available.
Due diligence information can be captured and saved. Related documents can be attached to entity records, e.g. scanned images of passports, correspondence, etc.
Both prospects and live clients can be maintained including details of client contact, together with any follow up actions. When a prospect becomes a client the historical information is retained.
Client Relationship Diagrams
Client structures can be viewed via a relationship diagram which is dynamically created using data from the underlying database in real-time, either as at the current position or as at a date in the past. Various options
are available to select diagram format and the entity and relationship types to be included. Document and Minutes Production
Microgen 5Series produces documents and minutes on demand using configurable Microsoft Word templates. These documents are automatically saved to the relevant client folder or into a document management system.
Client Risk Scoring
Microgen 5Series allows trust and corporate services providers to configure their own client risk scoring questionnaire, with each question having a user-defined ‘pick-list’ of answers, with an associated score if relevant. The questionnaire is configured within workflow to ensure that all questions are sent to and answered by the relevant administration personnel. Where Microgen 5Series can interrogate data and answer questions or update data automatically as part of this process it will.
Accounting Module
The multi-entity, multi-currency, Accounting Module provides a general ledger facility to hold accounting information for a wide range of entity types, for example, companies, trusts and foundations.
The chart of accounts, reporting formats for balance sheets, profit & loss statements, capital accounts and income statements are provided as standard, but can be modified or replaced with user-configurable definitions. Multiple reporting formats can be defined and then assigned at an entity level to enable reporting to be customised according to differing client requirements.
Transactions can be posted manually, via electronic import processes or are posted automatically by other processes in Microgen 5Series such as Billing or Investments. When capturing transactions, selected general ledger accounts can be designated as requiring “sub-accounting” information. This “sub-accounting” enables transactions to be recorded at a detailed level, for example, to identify the specific bank account being posted to when inputting to a general ledger account designated as “Bank accounts”. This then enables the transactional and balance information to be viewed and reported at the general ledger account level or the more detailed sub-accounting level. There are multiple sub-accounting types that can be supported to enable the different types of analysis that trust and corporate service providers typically require.
Automated Final Accounts
Draft and final accounts can be generated automatically in Microgen 5Series and multiple template formats can be used as described above. This final accounts production facility includes items such as Directors’ or Trustees’ reports, details of key officers and other statutory information and the generation of notes to the accounts, as well as the core financial information.
Investments Module
The Investments Module captures details of investments held by any entity in the database. Each entity can have their assets assigned to a single portfolio, or split between multiple portfolios. Investments are categorised into 4 main types:
• Stocks – investments which have a profile and are usually traded on an exchange. This includes equities, bonds, options and funds. The configuration options available allow for a wide range of instruments.
• Contracts – deal based investments, typically fixed term deposits or loans and spot and forward FX deals.
• Assets – investments which are not usually traded on an exchange such as property, land, art, valuables, yachts, vehicles etc.
Transactions can be captured manually or can be imported electronically. Recurring transactions for asset type investments remove the need to re-key the same information on multiple occasions, for example, rental income. Bulk transactions for sales, income, stock income and stock movements can be applied to multiple portfolios from a single transaction input.
Reporting of investment transactions, positions and client valuations can be produced at portfolio, entity or client structure level. Latest securities prices can be updated manually or by imported files provided by information vendors such as Bloomberg.
Transactional activity automatically generates and posts the associated general ledger accounting transactions according to flexible, user-definable rules.
Time and Expenses Module
The Time and Expenses Module provides the facility for employees to capture both chargeable and non-chargeable time. Expenses or disbursements relating to client based work can also be captured on the timesheet.
Managers and supervisors can easily check that time sheets are up to date and review the time that has been recorded by the members of their team. Chargeable time and disbursements/expenses are automatically processed by the billing module when generating client invoices or fee notes.
Time projects
One or more projects can be established for each entity enabling the same activity to be allocated to multiple reporting lines for the same client. For example, a client may be receiving regular on-going services, but also have a special project in progress. Projects also define the valid services for each client, so when recording time the activity chosen is validated. Projects can be created from templates or can be customised for each entity.
Billing Module
The Billing Module generates fee notes, records payments, creates credit note and tracks debtor positions.
Each entity may have one or multiple billing profiles which define the frequency of invoicing and the different charges to be included on the invoice.
These can be a mixture of Fixed fees, Asset based or ad valorem fees (which can be varied by asset class), Recurring fees, Time based fees and Disbursements. Registration and renewal fees can also be processed including the application of penalty fees where appropriate and the production of reminder letters.
Microgen 5Series provides a comprehensive range of facilities to support the billing and debtor control process including:
• Draft invoices can be produced and reviewed. Authorised personnel can mark up/down, postpone, and defer fees, in the case of time charges such adjustments can be applied to individual time entries or to the time fee as a whole. In the case of the latter the individual time entries are adjusted automatically.
• Managers and supervisors can review and authorise invoices before they are generated and sent to the client.
• Payments can be recorded and allocated against multiple invoices/invoice lines. Credit notes can also be applied to invoices/ invoice lines or can be a “free” credit note which is independent of any invoices, e.g. a gesture of goodwill.
• Management information to track debtors and monitor client profitability.
• Transactional activity automatically generates and posts the associated general ledger accounting transactions for both the client and the master company books. Fees charged in advance can be automatically apportioned across the period to which they relate.
The automated billing process will create draft invoices for all due fees based on billing profiles. Charges on draft invoices can be adjusted, written up/down or deferred before finalising.
Workflow and Task Management
Historically trust and corporate service providers have had to rely on their staff to follow corporate policies and procedures and have had no system controls in place with which to enforce this.
As the financial services regulatory environment continues to broaden it is becoming increasingly challenging for trust and corporate service providers to comply with such regulations as legacy technology does not provide a solution.
Microgen 5Series is a modern and flexible solution that includes comprehensive workflow tools that will allow a business to define its key administration policies and procedures within the software. In this way, the system allows management to ensure that activities follow their defined corporate policies and procedures with no deviation by staff, and this can then be demonstrated to regulators to prove compliance.
For example, the activities associated with a client on-boarding process, annual review process, or distribution process can be setup within the Microgen 5Series Software. When such a process is then started Microgen 5Series automatically sends workflow tasks to the relevant staff to
complete or authorise in the sequence or process that management has determined must be followed.
Operational Control
• The use of Microgen 5Series workflow allows trust and corporate service providers to mandate the tasks, and the order in which they are done, that its staff have to undertake as part of a process.
• Management and staff have comprehensive search facilities to view completed, outstanding and future tasks and workflow processes.
• A workflow task and the workflow task reminder are one and the same. A task is automatically marked as completed once it has been executed.
• Processing logic can be configured into workflow processes to guide staff through the right set of tasks depending upon particular scenarios e.g. a high risk client may require more due diligence tasks to be completed.
• Workflows steps are audited providing a solid foundation for supporting regulatory compliance. Operational Efficiency
• Workflow will automatically route tasks to the relevant staff when due.
• Workflow can make decisions based on pre-determined criteria and automate the update of data within Microgen 5Series automatically.
• Workflow can send email alerts for example, when tasks or workflow processes become overdue.
Reporting
Microgen 5Series includes a comprehensive set of reports and enquiries across business functions including operational, audit, management and client reporting. Reports can be exported to a variety of formats including Microsoft Word and Excel and Adobe PDF. These can be stored or emailed as required.
Query Tool designed for Business Users
Microgen 5Series is supplied with a range of standard reports and queries, most of which allow for filters to refine the data selected. Customers can also create their own custom Crystal Reports and add these to the Microgen 5Series Reports menu structure. Customers may also want to quickly produce queries which are not supplied as standard without the need to create a Crystal report.Microgen 5Series includes a query tool that allows business users to run queries across the Microgen 5Series database as required. Queries can be saved so that they can be run again in the future, shared with other business users and the results can be exported to Microsoft Excel or XML format. In addition tasks and workflow processes can be assigned to one, some or all entities within a query results window.
This query tool is typically (although not necessarily) used to respond instantly to requests and allow business users to construct lists based on previously unforeseen criteria. No technical or in-depth database knowledge is required to build and run these queries.
There is clear visibility of which workflow tasks are due or overdue.
Dashboards and Key Performance Indicators
Microgen 5Series includes dashboard and KPI functionality. These graphical dashboards can be used to provide clear visibility to
management and other users of activity across a business’s operations. With key business insights only ever a few clicks away, the dashboards feature intuitive graphics, drill-down capability and enable users to view information, make better decisions and react faster.
Microgen 5Series users are able to define KPIs relevant to their role (or have these pre-defined for them by their organisation) and choose relevant dashboard gauges and dials to display these within Microgen 5Series – so information appropriate to each user can be displayed in the format that the user finds most insightful. Clicking the gauges and dials then drills down to the underlying data.
Typical graphical dashboard examples might include: displaying the current workload across the business; tracking new business performance across markets, products, teams etc.; presenting a summary of staff timesheets; analysis of fee / billing information; monitoring key compliance processes and statuses; displaying a graphical summary of an individual user’s outstanding work, categorised by type (for example by due date, by importance, by customer, by type of activity).
Document Production and Management
Microgen 5Series produces documents and minutes on demand using Microsoft Word templates. In addition to the standard document templates provided, service providers can add user-defined document templates, as required to meet changing requirements.
Documents produced by Microgen 5Series can be automatically saved in the relevant client folder / sub folder.
Microgen 5Series can link directly to documents stored on a network, typically in a client folder structure, or to documents stored within a document management system. Microgen 5Series allows documents to be stored either at entity level, or against pieces of data on an entity record e.g. a passport can be stored against the passport data fields within an entity record.
Microgen 5Series integrates with Microsoft SharePoint Foundation (provided as standard with Microsoft Windows Server 2003 onwards). Microgen 5Series also includes a document management interface that allows direct integration to other third party document management systems. This is especially useful for those customers that already have a document management system in place.
Flexibility
Microgen 5Series is designed with flexibility in mind, enabling organisations to configure the software to meet the way the business wants to operate, both today and in the future.
User-defined Entity Types: Organisations can create additional entity types, and entity subtypes to complement the ones provided by Microgen as standard.
User-defined Entity Data Fields: Organisations can create additional user-defined fields for entities, bank accounts, relationships and portfolios. The following types of user-defined fields are supported: Boolean, Date, Decimal, File Path, Integer, List of Values, Path and String.
User-defined Relationship Types: A comprehensive set of relationship types is provided as standard. In addition, Organisations can add additional relationship types.
User-defined Registers: Organisations can add user-defined registers. Registers are a collection of related user-defined data fields, which may have multiple entries recorded e.g. a trustee decisions register, a complaints register.
Positioning of User-defined Data Fields: Unlike most competitor systems that only allow user-defined fields to be added at the end of an entity record, Microgen 5Series allows user-defined fields to be interspersed between Microgen supplied fields.
Microgen Supplied Data Fields: Organisations will be able to rename and/or hide many of the Microgen supplied data-fields
Global Tax Reporting
Microgen continues to invest and enhance Microgen 5Series to provide organisations with a comprehensive solution to support both the regulatory and internal compliance of the growing Global Tax reporting requirements, including US FATCA, UK CDOT and OEDC Common Reporting Standards (‘CRS’). Whilst it remains Microgen customers’ responsibility to ensure accuracy of submissions to global tax authorities, Microgen 5Series provides comprehensive functionality to support global tax reporting as detailed below.
Client and Entity Data
Microgen 5Series provides a rich repository of information for client and entity records, which contains the data required by FACTA and the other Tax reporting regimes. Additional user-definable data and other user configurable options are also available.
Documents
Microgen 5Series enables documents / images to be attached to entity records, e.g. Due diligence related documents, e.g. passports, correspondence, self-certification forms. ARR related documents e.g. election self-certifications
Client Structures and Entity Relationships
Client structures are maintained using data from the underlying database, with the relationships between entities within a structure identified using the concept of ‘roles’. Microgen 5Series uses these relationship links to identify those entities and ‘persons’ whose classification, roles, etc., brings them within the scope of FATCA and the other tax reporting regimes. The classification associated with an entity determines what further analysis is required in order to identify reportable accounts, account holders and Controlling Persons, who are ‘specified persons’ of the US, UK, CDOT and OECD countries. Once a reportable account has been identified, Microgen 5Series determines what information is required for reporting purposes, including consideration of the specific requirements of such categories as ‘Trustee Documented Trusts’, ‘Sponsored Closely Held Investment Vehicles’ and ‘Sponsored Investment Entities’.
Workflow for Identification and Classification
Standard workflows will assist the identification and classification of client and entity records under FATCA and the other Tax regimes and with the identification of ‘changes to circumstances’ that may have an impact on the tax categorisation of an entity. Indicia
Specific reporting is available to assist organisations when conducting their US, UK, CDOT and OECD Indicia searches. Reportable Transactions and Balances
Microgen 5Series’ multi-entity, multi-currency Accounting Module provides the accounting information required to calculate the majority of the reportable tax values. The Microgen 5Series Accounting and Investment modules provide links to appropriate Final Accounts or Entity Valuations to identify the overall Entity value. Account ledgers and individual cash and investment transactions can be identified as required for inclusion in the appropriate section of the tax reporting for the relevant ‘reporting’ entity. Selected general ledger accounts can be designated as requiring “sub-accounting” information, which enables transactions to be recorded at a detailed level, for example, to identify the value of the distributions received during the reportable year by each ‘Discretionary Beneficiary’ of a Trust. Microgen 5Series will use the relationships identified within a client structure to determine the correct calculation method for the specific ‘equity interest holder’ category applicable to the reportable person, e.g. Settlor, beneficiary, Shareholder, etc. Users will have the added ability to manually enter the required reportable values against the entity.
Production of Reports for submission to Tax Authorities
Microgen 5Series will produce files as required for US FATCA, UK CDOT and CRS, in the appropriate .xml or other format, for submission to the Tax Authorities in the major jurisdictions where Microgen 5Series is used by our customers. Where these tax authorities have introduced specific variations to the standard, e.g. Guernsey, these will also be catered for by Microgen 5Series. Microgen 5Series provides the ability to record information required by the UK Alternative Reporting Regime, e.g. Record details of Client Elections. Identify journals for inclusion in ARR reporting.
Security
Microgen 5Series provides comprehensive functional and data access controls, enabling service providers to define which users have access to which system functions and client records. Individual entity data fields can be marked as containing Confidential Client Data (‘CCD’), which will then be visible only to authorised users and masked for those that are unauthorised.
Microgen 5Series also provides functionality that delivers high levels of security in the following areas: User Log-in; Database Encryption; Secure Sockets Layers for data in transit between the database and users’ PCs; Context Switching to protect access to the Microgen 5Series database from applications other than the Microgen 5Series software.
Standard Data Imports
Microgen 5Series includes a set of standard data imports to allow the following data to be imported into Microgen 5Series: Accounting Journals, Bank Statements (Auto-reconciliation), Cash Accruals, Cash Reconciliations, Contract Accruals, Contract Reconciliations, Contract Transactions, Custom Fields, Exchange Rates, Forward Rates, Interest Rates, Stock Accruals, Stock Prices, Stock Profile, Stock Reconciliations, Stock Transactions. -The following file formats are supported: XML, CSV and TSV.
Data Take On (Migration) Tool
Microgen 5Series includes a comprehensive standard data take on tool to assist customers in migrating historic data from one or multiple data sources.
Client Web Portal (Optional Module)
Microgen 5Series Client Web Portal is a secure online client servicing tool that provides an online view of wealth holdings and associated documents to clients, intermediaries and relationship managers. Developed specifically to meet the online needs of the international financial services sector (including private banks, fund managers/administrators, and trust and corporate service providers), it provides a solution that can be delivered rapidly. Using robust security measures to ensure client protection and open standards, it is platform-independent and integrates with both Microgen and third party systems.
Secure Internet Access for Clients and Intermediaries
www.microgenfs.com
For more information about any of Microgen’s products, solutions or services
call +44 20 7496 8100 or email [email protected]
Copyright © Microgen Wealth Management Systems Ltd 2015 Microgen ® Microgen plc
All rights reserved Publication No: pf-5series-trustadministration-7.9-111115
