Class named one of Australia’s most innovative companies

Class launched Class Trust to simplify the trust accounting process. There are more than 1 million trusts in Australia – including 530,000 investment trusts. They are the second-largest investment vehicle after super.

Most trust accounting had been managed in Excel, but Class Trust leveraged Class’s expertise in SMSF administration to bring its market-leading automation and integration capability to the growing space of discretionary (family) and unit trusts.

Class’s development of Class Trust took a customer-centric research approach, including a closed pilot with more than 30 accounting practices. The work addressed the typically complex and time-consuming process of administering different types of trusts.

Some of the data and customer feedback from the pilot showed:

• Jobs could be processed in half the time
• There was an average savings of three hours per trust
• In one case, the pilot saved an estimated 17 hours of processing time.

“Class Trust is the solution to a significant problem, with 92 per cent of respondents still using Excel for their manual accounting of trusts,” The Australian Financial Review wrote when publishing the results.

As part of the growing Class product suite, Class Trust is an Australian industry-first solution in cloud-based trust accounting and administration. It proudly addresses a major technology gap for administering investment trusts and helps accountants and advisers achieve greater efficiencies.

“Based on research conducted by Class Limited, there were previously no solutions that specialised in accounting for investment assets that are commonly held using a trust structure to maximise tax effectiveness.”

The awards reflect the work Class is undertaking as part of its three-year Reimagination strategy.

“Our Reimagination strategy has been focused on growing Class into a multiproduct business that provides automation solutions in numerous markets,” Class CEO and managing director Andrew Russell said. “Being recognised at the AFR BOSS Most Innovative Companies Awards is testament to the work we are doing. The goal for the third year of our strategy is Make our Mark, and these awards help us know that we are achieving that objective.”

The AFR BOSS honour continues Class’ success with awards this year. It has also been named SMSF Software Provider of the Year and Administration Platform of the Year at the SMSF Adviser awards.

In addition to those achievements, at the inaugural Australian Digital Technology Awards, Class took home the award for Wealth and SMSF Established Business of the Year, and NowInfinity was awarded Wealth and SMSF Mid-Range Business of the Year.

Class Super was number one in the Wealth and SMSF Rankings, NowInfinity was second, and Class Trust also ranked in the top 10, despite being in the market only since October.