Australian tax, accounting and audit firm CCH has made a play for the institutional market, partnering with the IQ Group to develop the first in a series of products to deal with Stronger Super reforms.
Its CCH Integrator platform — already in use by hundreds of clients for their tax reporting to the Australian Taxation Office — has been optimised for super funds and third party providers to meet the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority's (APRA's) increased reporting requirements.
The consultation package released in September increased the data items required in APRA reporting from about 400 to 4000, a task that would be time consuming and arduous using spreadsheets, IQ Group chief executive Graham Sammells said.
Client forecasts of the impact to their business and costs included an increase in staffing requirements from two to five following the introduction of the reforms in July 2013, Sammells said.
First Super signed on to CCH Integrator last November, but the partnership with the IQ Group has allowed it to leverage the consultant's scale in terms of market penetration and implementation, said CCH corporate reporting solutions director Jim Edwards.
He said the IQ Group had built the adapters to streamline the process and pool data automatically from the source's administration systems.
Once funds had implemented the solution, it could be utilised for after-tax reporting as well, Edwards said.
CCH will roll out a risk-management module off the back of its Integrator Platform early in 2014. Edwards said it would enhance governance and make sure super funds and relevant parties were aware of their legal obligations. It would provide a check-list and workflow for integration into the APRA reporting process, Edwards said.
