At a glance
Solution
Co-Create
Delivered with Cevo
D6 capability
Design
Project Management
Business Analysis
Industry
Financial services
D6 Consulting was engaged by Fiduciary Financial Services, in collaboration with Cevo, to develop accountantsGPS. The platform was designed to streamline self-managed super fund management for accountants, offering an efficient, user-friendly solution. D6’s multifaceted approach encompassed effective project management, comprehensive business analysis, and the development of an engaging user interface and experience, ensuring a seamless and successful project execution.
The customer
Fiduciary Financial Services (Fiduciary) is a leading provider of financial advice and education services in Australia. Their advice services are commonly provided through various channels, including digital advice, chatbots, seminars and video conferencing.
Business challenge
Fiduciary recognised the challenges accountants face in managing self-managed super funds (SMSFs), particularly the time-consuming and complex tasks associated with data analysis and report generation, and set out to create a revolutionary solution for the financial industry.
The primary challenge was to develop a system that seamlessly integrates with BGL, a prominent SMSF management platform widely used by accountants in Australia. The solution needed to streamline the importation, analysis, processing and categorisation of SMSF data from BGL. The platform needed to foster a positive user experience, with an intuitive user interface that was easy to navigate, as well as engage users during the sign-up process while they fill out initial survey questions.
Fiduciary had a clear vision and overarching concepts for the solution, requiring a partner with robust technical expertise to transform these concepts into reality.
Solution
In late 2022, Fiduciary engaged D6 and Cevo to revolutionise SMSF management for accountants through the development of a scalable solution called accountantsGPS.
In partnership with BGL, accountantsGPS is designed to transform the landscape of SMSF management for accountants via a subscription platform where accountants can access SMSF reports via monthly or yearly plans.
Guided by Fiduciary’s vision and concepts for the application, a team from D6 and Cevo utilised the Co-Create framework to help build a resilient, user-friendly, and scalable platform on AWS, underpinned by a DevOps-led foundation. D6 oversaw the accountantsGPS project, ensuring consistent communication with Fiduciary to determine the project scope, create clear expectations, address challenges and risks, and report progress and milestones. D6 introduced an agile framework and plan for efficient program management.
The first phase, ‘Define’, focused gaining a deep understanding of the problem Fiduciary was trying to solve, and designing the roadmap for accountantsGPS. This was done via product ideation workshops, mapping of the user journey, and careful consideration of the user experience. The team also identified and validated the key business challenges by conducting workshops and interviews with several stakeholders. This helped to collaboratively address technical limitations and develop solutions, resulting in the creation of a future-state user journey map.
These workshops also helped D6 identify and construct personas of likely users of the platform, which aided with the design and improved their understanding of the user journey. D6 created several prototypes for the accountantsGPS interface, and conducted usability tests with the determined personas to validate and iterate on the prototypes.
The project then moved to the ‘Deliver’ phase, where Cevo’s development team created the technical implementation. D6 continued to support throughout implementation sprints. For more information about the technical implementation, read more here.
D6 also developed a new design library and visual user interface designs based on Fiduciary’s brand guidelines to differentiate it from the already-produced, moneyGPS.
An integral part of the project was the integration with the BGL API. This required significant mathematical calculations and formula adjustments to handle BGL’s unique data format, ensuring accuracy and compliance.
Outcomes
The successful completion of the accountantsGPS project led to several benefits for Fiduciary and the accounting community:
- BGL integration with scalability: Fiduciary now boasts a fully integrated platform that seamlessly processes SMSF data from BGL, which allows for the opportunity to cover approximately 60% of SMSFs in Australia.
- Simplified billing with Stripe Integration: accountantsGPS collects payments from Stripe upon sign-up to the platform, which simplifies billing for accountants while ensuring accuracy.
- Streamlined journey with SMSF user flow: The platform features a streamlined user journey with accountant authentication, fund owner selection, data retrieval from BGL and report generation. Accountants are able to initiate, save, and complete SMSF check-ups with ease.
- Instant insights: With accountantsGPS, accountants can now receive an instant overview of their client’s SMSFs and the changes that should be made to optimise their fund allocations and determine their best investment opportunities. This overview includes a comprehensive report that reveals insights, graphs, statistics, business forecasts, and calculations based on data.
- Accessible advice for accountants: Accountants using accountantsGPS now have the ability to provide expert SMSF advice much more efficiently, resulting in improved client service.
- Time and cost-savings: The platform drastically reduces the time accountants need to spend on SMSF calculations, where they would typically be looking through financial statements, transactions, investments and expenses. This reduces the time they spend from days to instant overviews.
D6’s approach to user experience design, project management and business analysis also resulted in the following benefits:
- Engaging sign-up process to enhance user adoption: A user-friendly interface during the onboarding phase ensures new users find the process enjoyable and straightforward, enhancing user satisfaction and retention.
- Intuitive user interface: A user-friendly interface allows for a seamless experience while using accountantsGPS, resulting in higher user engagement and overall customer satisfaction, making the platform more appealing and efficient for accountants.
- Production of reports: Reports grounded in best practices enable accountants to gain a deeper understanding of their clients’ SMSFs, empowering them to provide more informed and valuable advice.
- Effective project management: Consistent communication, a structured framework for project management and the implementation of agile methodologies resulted in a smooth and efficient project.
accountantsGPS has revolutionised SMSF management, and has since earned recognition in the technology sector, when the platform was named as a finalist in the 2023 Technology Scale-up Awards.
By simplifying SMSF management for accountants and offering instant insights, accountantsGPS empowers financial professionals to deliver exceptional value to their clients.
