Technology Migration As An Internal Audit Of Your Wealth
Indian company law prescribes statutory annual audits for all registered companies. The primary objective of the audit is to assess and report whether the balance sheet provides an accurate depiction of the company’s performance and current value. The secondary objective is to detect and prevent mistakes and fraud.
Many families have wealth far exceeding that of small and medium-sized companies. Their wealth is often managed by a small, close group of chartered accountants and financial managers who churn out periodic reports and comply with government regulations such as income tax, statutory filing, etc. Family wealth rarely gets subjected to a thorough verification or audit, unless a family member spots and questions a discrepancy, or the income tax department sends a query or begins investigations.
Privacy and confidentiality are the stated reasons for avoiding any form of cross-checking. Though, with a manual system, the time, effort and complexity of such an exercise is the bigger deterrent. But the by-blows of avoiding a thorough inspection range from oversight and unintentional errors to mismanagement and siphoning of funds.
For data security, Asset Vantage technology is provided on a private cloud server, accessed through an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) site. Your privacy is ensured as Asset Vantage has no access to your data.
Helping hundreds of families to migrate to the Asset Vantage system has proved over and over again how this migration acts like an internal audit for your family’s wealth. To begin with, Asset Vantage’s on-boarding team trains wealth owners’ teams to ease and accelerate the data transfer process. The document list provided by Asset Vantage helps wealth owners’ teams gather all financial and investment data, for the whole gamut of asset classes. The ease of data syncing and compatibility with multiple input formats avoids repetition or duplication of effort, wherever data was already computerized. A checklist helps avoid pitfalls and cross-check data accuracy. For example, Demat statements, physical shares and bank statements showing dividends received are cross-verified to ensure that all equity holdings are accounted for and that the dividend from all equity holdings is being received.
While migrating, some families have found investment holdings in shares, bonds and sometimes even mutual funds they didn’t know they had, others have unearthed and recovered lapsed dividend warrants and one client found that a large holding showing on his books had been sold several years ago.
Switching to technology is also an opportunity for some mundane but much-needed housekeeping. This includes registration of nominees for all assets wherever possible, revaluing unlisted assets like real estate, creating an inventory and valuing other assets like jewelery, art, etc.
A specialized wealth management system like Asset vantage helps record and track liabilities as well as assets. Any mortgage or lien can and should be recorded against their respective asset. The system also tracks repayment schedules on loans and sends automatic payment reminders.
Digitization helps consolidate family wealth and gives a clear picture of total assets and total liabilities. This is a chance for the family to regroup and evaluate investment strategy. It is also the perfect opportunity to record family agreements and document the ratios and process of wealth distribution.
And the rest is simply smooth sailing!