Overview

Clients and partners can be linked to other entities such as companies, super funds or trusts.  In terms of Xplan there are two motivations for doing this.

1/ To visually record a Relationship between entities in a ‘tree’ structure.

2/ To form a Client Group of related entities.

Creating a Client Relationship allows you to specify how the client entities are associated.  There is a field to choose the type of Relationship.  E.g. Mother, Family, Business Partner, Deceased Partner, Trust etc. You can expand the related entity to view the sub-relationships.  A Client Relationship is shown in the tree structure but has NO tick.  Relationships have no effect on any reporting in Xplan.

Creating Client Groups also allows you to specify how the client entities are associated, but these clients are included in group-based reporting. Partners of the Client are always treated as members of a client’s Client Group.  Client Group members can be included in Portfolio Reporting, entity selectable wizards etc, whereas Client Relationship clients cannot.  Group membership is one directional, i.e. Disney Super is in Minnie Mouse’s Client Group, but Minnie Mouse is not automatically added to Disney Super’s Client Group.  Members of a Client Group are shown in the tree structure with a tick. 

To create and edit these relationships go to menu Groups -> Client Group.  The difference between 1/ and 2/ is illustrated below.

You can see a tick is required to form a client group otherwise it remains a client relationship only. [1] 

Understanding the ‘Is Master’ field

A client’s ‘Is Master’ status is viewable on the Groups -> Client Group page here:

By default before making any client group changes the client has ‘Is Master’ set to Yes as pictured above.  Single clients or other entity types such as a companies, super funds or trusts also default to ‘Is Master’ = Yes.

After ticking a relationship and forming a client group the ‘Is Master’ status of the entity next to the tick will change to from Yes to No.

So after ticking this box Disney Super is not a Master entity, Minnie Mouse is the Master entity.

Forming a Client Group and using the “Is Master” field is useful.  It allows a user to synchronise Contact Details between the Master entity and Group members.  Users can also choose to set an Investment Profile for all entities across a Client Group.  There is also the ability to copy across the FDS/Opt-in details from the Master entity to the Group members.

When the new Lumen system checks Xplan for ‘Fees for no service’ it looks for evidence of services provided to the client (and partner) with ‘Is Master’ set to yes and looks into any linked entities below in the ‘tree’ structure.  To avoid problems here are some best practice tips: -

Realize the Client-Group ticks matter!

Only create client groups (i.e. tick the relationship checkbox) if you need to for group-based analysis and reporting purposes.  In the example below Daisy and Donald are friends of Minnie.  Minnie and Mickey are also clients, however, they have separate financial affairs.

In the correct example (left) there are two client groups meaning that Xplan and Lumen will look for services provided on both Daisy’s and Minnie’s client groups.

In the incorrect example (right), there is a client-group relationship linking Daisy and Minnie. This means Daisy is the only master ID of the entire group and Minnie along with her partner will be incorrectly excluded.  This can be corrected easily be unticking the checkbox relationship thus making Minnie ‘Is Master’ = Yes again.

Avoid Circular Relationships

Once you’ve linked a client to related entity there is no need to re-create the same relationship in the opposite direction.  In the example we’ve been using Minnie is a member of ‘Disney Super’.

If we switch to the Super entity and view the client groups in reverse we get the page below.

Note there is no tick on the relationship to Minnie.  This is OK because the Superfund is not the master entity in this case.

Do not add a new relationship to Minnie as this creates a circular reference that will also cause the Lumen reporting to fail.