How are buy / sell costs calculated?

IPS

There are no Buy/Sell Spread Reports out of IPS that can be generated and merged into the document, it can only be done via WealthSolver. If you are only using IPS you will need to add the buy/sell costs manually and we are unable to merge this data into the SOA.

Wealthsolver

Fund Managers almost exclusively quote investor's balances using exit prices. That is, if I hold Platinum International, the current quote (as at their latest declared unit price date of 14/06/2019) of 2.0340 is the exit price. So when the values are imported into WealthSolver from IPS, the balances are already inclusive of the sell spread. Taking that into account, any redemption should not add a sell spread. On the other hand, using the exit price as a reference point in WealthSolver (where it doesn't use unit prices), any additional funds into this investment needs to add back in both the sell spread and the buy spread to indicate the costs of investing.

This is representative of what happens when, using Platinum International again, you buy into a fund at $100,000 where the entry is $2.0422 and the exit is $2.0340. Your $100,000 will give you 48,966.80051 units (100,000 / 2.0422) but immediately quoted at the exit price of $99,598.47 (48,966.80051*$2.0340).

This is, based on feedback directly from numerous fund managers and platform providers, consistent with their approach to reporting. That is, they consistently report balances on a net of spread basis.

For further information on buy and sell costs please refer to the document WealthSolver Buy and Sell Costs via the left menu  > WealthSolver > Knowledge Base > Reference.