March Update

In this update….

• OCDD: Ongoing CDD is Live and getting great feedback!
• PEP Checks for Manual IDV: They’re Live too!
• ATAINZ Conference: Another great event, this time in Taupo.
• Xero Practice Manager:  Help us improve our time-saving integration.
• Ongoing Records Management: Adding extra value with Renewals!
• 2Tips: A couple of tips to make 2Shakes even better for you.

Ongoing CDD is Live

At the start of the year we launched the first of a series of updates aimed at helping you with Ongoing Customer Due Diligence. (And we couldn’t miss the opportunity to call it OCDD!)

For easy access, we brought a lot of AML features under our new AML top level navigation, with the centre piece being the OCDD Report. Ongoing CDD allows our customers to monitor and record reviews of their Due Diligence, as well as help identify where changes have occurred  that will need their attention to maintain CDD.

For more info, you can read all about Ongoing CDD on our OCDD support page.

PEP Checks for Manual IDV 

Hot on the heels of the first OCDD release, we then deployed PEP Checks for Manual IDV.  This was a much-requested update, and we were very happy to deliver!

When carrying out CDD on a person, you need to verify their identity, verify their address, and check they have not held a politically exposed position overseas (i.e. they are not a Politically Exposed Person, or PEP).

We have found that when reporting entities are carrying out their own ID verifications, they can often miss the PEP check step.  The PEP check is needed to comply with legislation, so missing it does not go down well in an audit!  NB: Our Electronic IDV has always included Identity and Address verification, as well as a PEP Check.

If you have being doing IDV yourself and storing the information in 2Shakes as a Manual IDV, you can now carry out PEP checks in the application. PEP checks can be performed on current clients that have Completed CDD, as well as new clients you are verifying. And remember – you do not require the individual’s consent to perform a PEP Check.

We’ve had an awesome response to our PEP Check feature update, and we really do appreciate your feedback!  This is just the beginning of Ongoing Customer Due Diligence in 2Shakes. We are well underway, building the next OCDD features to help make AML compliance even easier.

And don’t worry, we are going to host an OCDD Webinar soon. Our webinar will help make the most of our OCDD features. More details to come.

ATAINZ Conference

At the end of February we were at the Wairakei Resort in Taupo for the 2020 Accountants and Tax Agents Institute of NZ (ATAINZ) annual conference. It was great to see so many existing and new customers who visited our stand at the conference. We always love the chance to discuss your experiences first hand, so it was great getting to talk to so many people! The conference itself was great, as always, and we learned heaps about being a Tax Agent in NZ today. All of that will help guide our development. Of course, a conference isn’t a conference until someone wins the prize draw! For the second year in a row the Star Wars Battle Drone landed in the Hawkes Bay. This time it was the awesome Leaine Jones of Jones Business Solutions who won the Tie Fighter: With last year’s drone over with Jacqueline Turner at SBA Taradale we are looking forward to some friendly Rebels vs Empire battles!

We hope to see you again at ATAINZ 2021!  In the meantime, for more information on ATAINZ please see their website here.

Xero Practice Manager

Since we launched back in 2016 2Shakes has been a Xero Connected App, integrated with Xero Practice Manager (XPM) and WorkFlowMax.

After signing up and carrying out AML CDD for a client, 2Shakes customers can just click one button to create the new client in XPM, saving lots of time and potential typos.

But we are not resting on our laurels.  Do you use the XPM integration and think…

“That’s great, I love it…but what if it also did…?” 

We want you to let us know what we can do to make the integration even better. We can’t promise what features will be included, but as always we can promise that the more of you that ask for a feature, the more we’ll prioritise what you want.  So please don’t be shy!

Ongoing Records Management

The 1st of February marked the introduction of the new Ongoing Records Management fee, applying to Pay Monthly and Pay as You Go customer plans.

The ongoing fee already includes all the Ongoing CDD and records management included for our AML customers.

We are also really pleased to announce that we will be including Agreement Renewals as part of the ongoing fee.  This was something quite a few of you have asked for, and we agree it is a great idea, thanks!

We still have to build the functionality within 2Shakes, but we wanted to let you know as part of giving you as much value as we can we will be including Agreement Renewals as part of the ongoing client fees.

2Tips

Automatic Attachments
Did you know you can automatically add attachments to the 2Shakes emails sent to your clients?

Whether you need to send your client some extra info, a quote or brochure, you can add attachments to either the signing or agreement emails from the Parties and Signatories page. For attachments you always use, you can add them in the Attachments section under Business Profile>Branding.

Specify when a client’s CDD was Completed.
When your AML Officer marks a client’s CDD as Complete, they can now choose the Completed date. The default is today’s date and can be changed to make sure the CDD goes into the correct reporting year.  This is useful when:

• If you have a lot of clients with AML Pending status, but they had been completed already (the AMLCO had just not marked them as such in 2Shakes).
• You are entering historic CDD records from a previous reporting period into 2Shakes. There are lots of clients coming to 2Shakes and entering previous CDD in to make audits, reporting and Ongoing CDD easier.