By Legal Futures Associate Exizent [1]
Lawtech firm Exizent [2] has confirmed the sign-up of two new accountancy clients to its online bereavement administration platform. The news follows the announcement of a new probate authorisation framework for accountants which sees regulation move from the ACCA to CILEx regulation, and could enable eligible accountants to offer a wider range of probate services.
McCabe Ford Williams and Anavrin Ltd are the latest accountancy firms to have signed up to the Exizent platform, which enables users to capture all of the estate information around a deceased person, upload and securely store documents, personal details, assets and liabilities, generate and populate forms and run data searches to quickly fill missing information.
Designed for probate practitioners, Exizent’s executry platform puts everything in one place, enabling users to streamline administration and case organisation, leaving them more time to work with their clients directly and provide a high quality and efficient service. So far, the platform has primarily been used by law firms, but with an increasing number of accountants now delivering probate services , Exizent has seen increasing interest from the accountancy sector.
Rob Griffiths, Managing Director at Anavrin Ltd said: “We found that even the most ‘straightforward’ cases can take months, even years to complete. This is due to the numerous parties involved in the process, and the time it takes to manually gather all the relevant information which can be very emotional and stressful for those involved.
“Going forward, we were determined to leverage any data and technology available to make the process as easy as possible for our staff and our clients. This is why we are hugely excited to incorporate Exizent’s platform into our daily work; the innovative tech, which brings together the data, the different people and the services involved, will prove to be transformative for those working in estate administration. Plus, we’re delighted to have no more spreadsheets!”
And with the changes in regulation which could broaden the amount of probate work eligible accountants can be authorised to do, the number of accountancy firms looking to invest in probate technology could increase even further.
Nick Cousins, CEO and founder of Exizent explains: “In a statement last October [3], the ACCA said that under the new framework, there will be a pathway for eligible practitioners to achieve reserved legal activities authorisation beyond non-contentious probate work. This was confirmed by a CLR statement [4] that ACCA members will now have the opportunity to apply to become licensed as Alternative Business Structures (ABS).
Nick adds: “These changes could enable accountants to diversify their service offerings within the probate space, and as a result we expect to work with more and more accountancy firms as they capitalise on these new opportunities.”
Exizent launched a year ago and, thanks to continual developments within the platform and a new partnership with Experian, is able to address some of the major challenges faced by probate practitioners, a key one being identifying banking assets and financial liabilities associated with an estate. Firms using the platform now have access to data about a deceased in minutes, a process that often takes a solicitor or accountant many weeks to complete.
Nick concludes: “We recently announced that we have signed up more than 50 clients to our platform in just a year. While most of our clients are legal firms, we have a growing number of accountancy firms using the platform and we expect to see more and more of these now that there is an easier and more supported framework under which they can become authorised for probate.
“Going into 2022, our key focus will be to continue to develop our links to financial institutions so that we can identify assets and financial liabilities – particularly those not known to relatives or executors – faster and more reliably, and make the probate process as easy as possible for professionals and families.”
If you would like to learn more about Exizent’s innovative platform and how it can benefit the bereavement process, get in touch today [5].