InvestSMART

Investment Preferences


You have the option to set up a Regular Contribution Plan for your investment account.

This can be done online here under Regular Contribution Plan.

Above: Screenshot of Regular Contribution Plan setting

What is it?

The Regular Contribution Plan is a monthly direct debit payment from your nominated bank account. The minimum amount is $100 and the maximum is $6,000. 

How do I activate it?

During the initial application process or online here under Regular Contribution Plan once your PMA has been opened.

How does it work?

Funds are drawn via direct debit on the 15th of each month or the following business day. If you have insufficient funds, our administration team will contact you to facilitate the transfer at another date, or you can just skip the payment for the month. 

How are the funds applied?

The funds are applied to the existing investment model split inside your PMA. So, for example, if you have three model portfolios, Growth 50%, Ethical Growth 30%, and Interest Income 20%, your regular contribution will follow the same split.

Unfortunately, you cannot customise or choose where you would like your regular contribution to be allocated.

If you wish to make contributions to a specific model portfolio, please see How can I add funds to a specific portfolio?

Step by Step

If you are already invested with us and would like to get a contribution plan started please take the following steps:

  • Click My Account and select My Investments
  • Select Investment Preferences
  • Adjust your Regular Contribution Plan i.e. toggle on/off and specify amount
  • Click Save Settings Select your Verification Method - Email or Mobile - to complete the change

Please note that there will be a delay between the funds being drawn and your contribution and transactions being reconciled in your Portfolio Manager. We recommend that you consider up to five business days. See Why is there a delay with regular contributions?

So:

  1. you've set up your regular contribution, 
  2. the funds have been direct debited from your bank account, 
  3. but you can't see them in your Professionally Managed Account (PMA).

Why is that?

There will be a delay between the funds being drawn and your contribution/transactions being shown in your Portfolio Manager. This delay can take up to five business days.

This delay is due to the direct debit process with the bank. Here is the reason.

When InvestSMART run direct debits, the bank immediately credits our account with the funds requested. This crediting happens before the bank contacts other institutions to draw the funds from our client's accounts. 

The bank contacts those institutions and attempts to pull the funds. If there are insufficient funds, the bank will try again in the next two business days. If they can't pull the funds, the direct debit is rejected, and the bank claws back the cash they sent through to us. 

Because of this, we wait for that rejection process before transferring the amounts to client accounts. 

Then, there is a 24-hour delay in our reporting on the website. 

This is why there's a delay with funds appearing to be drawn from your bank account to when they are visible in your InvestSMART PMA.

You have the option to set up a Regular Withdrawal Plan for your investment account.

This can be done online here under Regular Withdrawal Plan.

Above: Screenshot of Regular Withdrawal Plan setting

What is it?

The Regular Withdrawal Plan allows you to a set dollar amount to draw down from your portfolio each month. 

How do I activate it?

During the initial application process or online here under Regular Withdrawal Plan once your PMA has been opened.

How does it work?

Funds will be deposited into your nominated bank account on the 15th of every month or the closest business day after that. A regular withdrawal may require some holdings to be sold to free up cash.  

Step by Step

If you are already invested with us and would like to get a regular withdrawal plan started, please take the following steps:

  • Click My Account and select My Investments
  • Select Investment Preferences
  • Adjust your Regular Withdrawal Plan, i.e. toggle on/off and specify an amount
  • Click Save Settings Select your Verification Method - Email or Mobile - to complete the change

 

If you wish to amend your income preference at any time please take the complete the following steps:

  • Click My Account and then My Investments
  • Select Investment Preferences
  • Toggle the Income Sweep
  • Select Save Settings
  • Click Verify Request
  • Choose Email Verification or SMS Verification
  • Complete Verification Process

It's a setting that, when turned on, transfers out all of the cash from dividends and interest to your bank account. When turned off, the cash from the dividends and interest goes into the cash component of the portfolio and then we use it to buy more stocks. This is like our version of a reinvestment plan.

If you have the income sweep turned off, then any distributions and dividends will remain within your investment account. It will therefore be available to purchase additional holdings across the portfolio whenever it is deemed that a rebalance of your account is necessary.

If you have the income sweep turned on, then any distributions received during a calendar month will be accrued and paid out in the following calendar month as per the above.

You can check or change your income sweep settings under Portfolio Actions > Investment Preferences or here

You can change your bank account details online here.

Or login and go to My Account > My Investments > Portfolio Actions > Investment Preferences.

You can also check your current bank account details.

Please note: We have an enhanced level of security when changing bank details.

To change these bank details:

  1. Enter the last four (4) digits of your current bank account number.

  2. Add the name of who holds this bank account in New Account Name

  3. Enter the BSB

  4. Enter the new account number

  5. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save Preferences

  6. You will be asked to verify using a code sent to either your mobile phone or email address.

Security Process for Changing Bank Details

After you have completed the steps above, please follow this additional security process to ensure the safety of your account:

  1. Send a copy of your bank statement showing the account holders name(s) and the BSB/ account number.

  2. Email the statement to invest@investsmart.com.au, making sure that the name of the bank account holders matches the PMA holders.

  3. We'll give you a call on your registered phone number to confirm that you're the one requesting the change.

By completing these additional steps, we can further ensure the security of your account when changing bank details.

Regular withdrawal plans require the client to specify a dollar figure ($) to be paid monthly from their Professionally Managed Account (PMA) to the nominated bank account listed. Dependent on the size of the dollar figure specified InvestSMART may need to sell down investments to fulfil your request. Please be advised that if this is the case that brokerage will be incurred for the necessary transactions.

Whereas, choosing your income setting to be "paid out" will see any distributions or dividends received from the underlying investments within the calendar month retained, accumulated and paid out in a single lump sum to your nominated bank account in the middle of the following calendar month.

If you've got an existing account with us and wish to check or amend your current settings for either options referenced above please go the My Account section.

Related topics

You can view and manage your InvestSMART PMA online. 

If you are already invested, visit the My Account section of the website and select My Investments to view:

  • Investment Summary
  • Current Holdings
  • Transactions
  • Dividends & Interest
  • Deposits & Withdrawals
  • InvestSMART Fees 
  • Allocation Preferences
  • Investment Preferences

Your portfolio data is updated daily. Please note, you will always see the previous days closing values.

You can switch between Model Portfolios or alter the combination of Model Portfolios on which your portfolio is constructed at any time. Your instruction will generally be acted upon during the next rebalancing date after receiving your request online.

You can submit this request by taking the following steps:

  • Click My Account and My Investments
  • Select Modify Allocations
  • Click Adjust My Allocation
  • Provide New Allocation Breakdown by Percentage (%) and then select Next
  • Select Verification and use preferred option - Email or SMS
  • Complete Verification

If your request requires additional funds to be transferred then the details will be shown in accordance with what you need to contribute along with the BPAY details unique to your investment account.

If you require assistance, please contact our friendly team via the chat function in the bottom right corner.

We are commonly asked by new clients browsing their holdings in the Portfolio Manager why they have physical cash sitting in their investment portfolio. Surely it should be invested in more shares? 

There are four reasons why this may be occurring: 

Cash Component

As referenced in our Product Disclosure Statement, every Professionally Managed Account (PMA) will hold, at the very least, 1% of the total account value in a cash component at all times.

InvestSMART draws upon this cash component to cover management fees and brokerage costs (if required), removing the need to unnecessarily sell down investments to cover the aforementioned expenses, which would be counterproductive to the progress of your investment. 

Portfolio Manager Discretion

At any point in time, the Portfolio Manager of any Model Portfolio has the discretion to adjust the holdings and weightings held, including physical cash. While this is more likely to impact active stock-picking portfolios rather than our capped-fee investment portfolios, it's not unusual to see 5% physical cash held by some models. 

Balanced Portfolio Allocation shown

Contributions or Income 

Over time your investments will pay dividends or distributions with the proceeds deposited into your cash component, and dependent on your income setting, it will either be accumulated and paid to your nominated bank account or held for reinvestment at the next rebalance. 

Contributions are also held similarly. They will be initially deposited into the cash component until there are enough available funds to trigger a rebalance of your holdings. 

The myth of "Full Investment"

Lastly, there is a common-sense reason why there might be a little more physical cash in your account. We aren't able to necessarily deploy every cent we'd like to due to the fluctuations in the price of underlying holdings on any one day, i.e. if we want to purchase $500 of ABC to rebalance your portfolio but only have $100 available, then we will have to hold fast for the time being. 

Remember:

This is a Professionally Managed Account (PMA), meaning that we manage this for you. Any trading, readjusting, rebalancing is done automatically by InvestSMART.

If you have any further questions or want clarification on the above topics, then please feel free to email us at invest@investsmart.com.au 

We sometimes get asked, "Why does portfolio performance differ from the model performance?"

Your account is designed to track the InvestSMART model portfolios you have chosen to invest in. We operate model portfolios with specific percentages assigned to the holdings and invest in the same holdings for your account to mirror the model. When the model holdings change so to will your account holdings.

Here are some common reasons why your investment return may differ from the model portfolio you are tracking:

Income sweep: If you have the Income Sweep turned on you are having the dividends paid out to you, therefore removing that cash from your portfolio. This may make it seem like your returns are lower than they are.

Your inception date: Our published model performance figures are based on month end values. For example, model performance may be +5% from 30 November to 31 December. If you established your portfolio on the 5th November and attempted to compare performance, your return may look quite different.

Adjusting/changing investment models: If you adjust your model weights during the performance reporting period, your returns may differ to our published performance. By adjusting models during the period, it becomes more difficult to obtain a like for like comparison against model performance returns.

Adding or withdrawing funds: Adding or withdrawing funds will see InvestSMART needing to buy or sell securities/shares in your account during the month. This will see you purchase or sell securities/shares at a price that may differ from the end of month price.

Size of portfolio balance: Our models operate off percentages. The larger the size of the portfolio the easier it is to match those percentages. Some accounts holdings may vary to model security weights as the high dollar value of a security (E.g., $100-600 depending on the ETF) means we can’t buy as many as is required to get close to the model weight. These residual amounts are therefore held as cash which has the effect of dampening returns when securities are going up. Of course, where securities fall, this has the effect of improving returns relative to model.

     

Actual Weight

 

 

Price per unit

Model Weight

$1m Portfolio

$100K Portfolio

$10K Portfolio

 

 

AAA

$50.07

14.00%

14.00%

13.97%

13.52%

IAF

$109.35

22.50%

22.49%

22.42%

21.87%

IFRA

$21.77

2.75%

2.75%

2.74%

2.61%

IOZ

$30.32

21.00%

21.00%

20.98%

20.92%

VAP

$93.00

2.75%

2.74%

2.70%

1.86%

VBND

$47.43

12.00%

12.00%

12.00%

11.86%

VGS

$105.04

24.00%

23.99%

23.95%

23.11%

CASH

$1.00

1.00%

1.02%

1.24%

4.25%

   

100.00%

100.00%

100.00%

100.00%

Brokerage: The investment models do not factor in brokerage. If you add funds, withdraw funds, or change investment model’s transactions occur and so do brokerage costs.