Many people realise that they need a Trust to safe-guard their family's assets - but too often, due to the mystique and jargon surrounding them, people have felt obliged to use lawyers or large institutions to set them up. Trusts On-line has been put together by accountants, lawyers and computer professionals. Amongst our ranks we have many years of experience in setting up and administering Family Trusts, and many years Information Technology experience. We decided it was time to bring our experience to bear, so that all families could share in the benefits of a Family Trust, without the expense. Plus we decided it was time to harness the power of the Internet, so that your Trust can be set up and maintained when you want - not when someone else feels like it. So that's our philosophy - a quality product, a great price, and a service that can be used whenever you want.

Why we set up Trusts On-Line.
Over the past decade or so we have constantly found a gap between lawyers and accountants when it comes to Family Trusts. The lawyers write minutes; accountants prepare accounts; and the lawyers prepare the gifting. There is often no link between these parties, which can potentially be disastrous. In the last few years we have witnessed many narrow escapes, where families who thought they were protecting themselves and their families have come perilously close to losing a great deal. In most parts this has been due to lack of connection between the accountant and the lawyer. For example: Gifting has been made on money previously withdrawn from the Trust; Accounts have been prepared still showing houses sold up to 4 years earlier.

The primary aim of Trusts On-Line is to permit the generation of accounts based on minutes, and therefore more accurately produce information from the Trust minutes and, in the case of the Trust having an accountant, to give that accountant accurate information of the minuted activities of the Trust, without losing control of the minute book. This in turn permits more control of gifting, as often lawyers preparing the gift statements are not aware of day-to-day transactions such as lump sum withdrawals or accounting transactions that result in a drop in the loan to be gifted. [We heard of one such problem in early 2003 which cost one giftor c.$8000 in penalties from the IRD, for a minor problem caused by gifting timing (current New Zealand laws surrounding gifting is extremely harsh on oversights, with large percentage based penalties and no provision for the IRD to overlook these penalties even for slight timing issues).]

While setting up Trusts On-Line we were requested to allow everyday people to set up Trusts themselves, directly from the website, in such a way as to cater for each individual's circumstances. This we believe we have achieved.

As a result of all this, The Trusts On-Line website not only allows you to set up your Trust, but helps you to administer it too; you can produce minutes, add and remove Trustees, generate gifting documents, buy and sell assets, produce balance sheets, and so forth.

Our Challenge.
When establishing Trusts On-Line, we set ourselves the challenge to generate a Trust Deed, in plain English, which non-legally trained people could read and understand, using the same base questions as lawyers ask. We realise that Trustees need to understand the Trust Deed to be able to administer it properly; not everyone has the time (or money) to go to a lawyer each time they want to do something on behalf of the Trust. So the Trust Deed was written to give what we feel is maximum power to the Trustees to benefit the Beneficiaries.

We have also been asked about wills and charitable trusts. The capabilities of Trusts On-Line is being added to all the time; we expect to be able to generate wills and support charitable trusts soon.

We are also looking at hosting a number of seminars countrywide, for two reasons: so we can assist people in making informed decisions about their Family Trusts; and so we can find out first hand what people want from our on-line service. Expect to hear an announcement about our seminar series soon.

Quality.
We seek to provide a quality product, that provides everything you require to maintain your Trust. Need something we don't provide? Tell us, we will add it if we deem it of use. Is something not explained properly? Tell us, so we can improve it.

To measure how we stand, we entered the 2006 Computerworld Excellence Awards, where we made it to the final three. This gives us a yardstick to help us measure our performance compared to others. We continually strive to improve.

Trusts On-Line and the Community.
As Trusts On-Line has developed we have also looked at how we can benefit the community. We offer fundraising facilities for clubs and schools and are involved in charitable donations as a percentage of profit to a project helping educate less fortunate children in the pacific region. Our seminars will also be in conjunction with charitable organisations. Please feel free contact us if you want to know more about our fundraising work or the charitable organisation we deal with, or would like to see if Trusts On-Line can assist you in your fundraising efforts.

Introducing…

	Alistair Gauld Chartered accountant, East Auckland Alistair is originally from central Taranaki . His work with Family Trusts began in 1995, when he became a qualified Chartered Accountant. Alistair is responsible for much of the financial and accounting expertise behind Trusts On-Line. His other work involves all aspects of Chartered Accountancy, including business structure, Trust work, tax, budgeting and asset protection.   Alistair Gauld
Paul Jerrom IT Consultant, West Auckland. Born in London, Paul has been involved in the computer industry for over 20 years, and has assisted some of the largest companies in New Zealand over the past 12 years. Paul is responsible for coordinating the database and programming effort that is behind the Trust On-Line websites. Paul was keen to be involved with Trusts On-Line for personal reasons: a number of years ago he set up his Family Trust through a lawyer at a cost of thousands. Thereafter he received no help or information about what to do next - and assumed to his own cost that he needed do nothing! So much of what Trusts On-Line offers is built on personal experience and requirements from a Family Trust owner.			Paul (2nd left) and the lovely Genny with Kim and Corbett of More FM Auckland for "The Battle of the Sexes".