Knowledge Details

Placing an order is as simple as clicking Order Now or selecting the order type from the menu headers! Once you have logged in (using your registered email address and password) you will be able to place as many orders as you need completing our user friendly online forms. If, for instance, you're ordering a trust with a new corporate trustee, you can order the company, add it to your Cart and then order the trust. The company details will be stored in our system, making the trust form easy to fill out and you can process both orders through the Cart together!

If you are more comfortable with paper forms, please contact us and we can send to you via email. These PDF forms can be directly typed onto and then emailed to us for processing. Please note that an administration fee applies to paper forms that can be ordered online and online orders will be processed in priority to paper forms. If your order is urgent then we recommend ordering online (and you'll enjoy the cheaper prices!).

If you make an error in an order the best thing to do is not panic! Contact us as soon as you notice and we'll be able to advise on the best course of action, depending on the situation for the particular order.

Unfortunately, in instances where a mistake has been made in a registered company, any correction will need to be made directly with ASIC. More information about mistakes in companies here.

Avoid errors by ensuring you complete a thorough review of all information before submitting an application. You can also download a checklist and email it to your client to check prior to submitting; your order will stay in Draft status until you're ready to continue.

Please note that we primarily provide a service of setting up new business structures; i.e., new trusts, companies, partnerships and superannuation funds. We also may assist with some small changes to existing structures.

We do not and cannot assist with the general day-to-day running of the business structure after it has been set up. We do not provide legal advice.

However, the documents that we send out should assist with the general running of the particular structure. It is expected that all of the parties to the relevant documents have read them and are familiar with them (e.g., a trustee should know what is in the trust deed). In particular, the process for effecting a change to the unit holders of a unit trust, the partners of a partnership, or the shareholders and directors of a company, are provided in the relevant unit trust deed/partnership agreement/company constitution.

We can assist with:

• Certain changes to companies (including changes to officeholders, shareholders, addresses, names, and adopting a new company constitution);
• Transfer, issue or redemption of units;
• Changes in the trustee or appointor of a trust (via a deed of appointment and/or removal), or very minor changes to the trust deed of a trust (via a deed of variation; e.g., adding a power to the list of powers exercisable by the trustee);
• Vesting of a trust;
• Changes to the name of a trust or SMSF; and
• Changes to the deeds of superannuation funds.

We do not provide stamp duty advice, and it is best that you obtain your own advice before instructing us to do something on your behalf. However, we can provide the following links to the various State revenue authorities to assist you with your enquiries:

ACT: http://www.revenue.act.gov.au/

NSW: http://www.osr.nsw.gov.au/

Northern Territory: http://www.revenue.nt.gov.au/

Queensland: http://www.osr.qld.gov.au/"

South Australia: http://www.revenuesa.sa.gov.au/

Tasmania: http://www.sro.tas.gov.au/

Victoria: http://www.sro.vic.gov.au/

Western Australia: http://www.osr.wa.gov.au/

Stamping is an archaic State government requirement, but still a necessary one. Certain documents, such as trust deeds, can't be relied on until they are stamped, and trust deeds must generally be stamped within 3 months of being made (some states require stamping within a shorter period) or else a penalty applies (note that deeds can still be stamped after that time, although a penalty may then apply).

We provide a stamping service for Victorian and New South Wales Trust deeds, check out our trusts page for more information;

Yes - no problem. Once the trust exists, a bank account can be opened (provided the bank doesn't require the deed to be stamped first).

An agreement between two or more parties generally requires valuable consideration (e.g., money, or property) to be provided by each of the parties to be legally enforceable.

However, a document executed as a deed can be enforceable, even if one or more of the parties to the deed do not provide valuable consideration.

To be a deed, the document needs to state that it is a deed, and it needs to be executed by stating that it is being "Signed, Sealed and Delivered" by any individual parties (although the requirements for the execution of a document by a company are contained in the Corporations Act 2001, and the company's own constitution). This is a technical requirement, and a throwback to when people actually need to affix their "seal" to a deed to make it valid. Even though seals are not now required, the deed still needs to state that it has been sealed.

Also, all signatures on deeds by individuals generally need to be witnessed by an independent adult.

No - a person under the age of 18 is considered to be under a "legal disability" and lacks capacity to sign and be bound by a deed. Their legal guardian can enter into these kinds of arrangements on their behalf.

We do not "replace" trust deeds of existing trusts (except for superannuation funds) as this is highly likely to resettle the trust.

When a "resettlement" occurs, the old trust is considered to come to an end and a new one begins. This generally happens where the trustee undertakes to do something (a new "trust") not considered when the trust was first established by the original settlor - therefore, the trust has been "resettled". Effectively, the old trust disposes of all of its assets to the new trust, giving rise to CGT and stamp duty issues.

It is commonly accepted that small changes to a trust deed, such as the addition of a trust power, will not resettle the trust, but that a change to the beneficiaries, and especially the adoption of an entirely new deed, can resettle the trust.

Unfortunately, due to the risk of resettling the trust, if you have lost your trust deed we cannot simply issue you with a new deed (except for superannuation funds). However, you may be able to do one of the following:

1. Look everywhere for the deed (under the bed, behind the fridge, etc).
2. Contact any banks, partners, lawyers, accountants, etc, who may have come into contact with the trust and who may have kept a copy of the deed.
3. Contact the original lawyers who drafted up the deed. Even if they don't have a copy they may be able to provide you with a time frame that it was created and from there they may be able to provide you with a copy of a standard deed from that time frame. There is RISK in doing this. As it is not the exact deed and there are no schedules, it may not be accepted as the trust's deed.
4. Final option: it may be possible to apply for the court to have the deed "reconstructed" by the court. This will be costly, and will probably involve giving evidence to the court about what the parties to the deed remembered it contained. This may be difficult as the original trustee or settlor may have since died. If it gets to this stage you will need to seek professional advice.

Yes! All orders placed on our website are stored in your account area in PDF format so you can login and download the documents whenever you need.

As long as the company is remaining as trustee and has only changed its name, you should keep a copy of the company name change certificate with the trust deeds. 

If a third party (such as a bank) insists on this being updated in the trust deed, we can prepare a deed of confirmation to show that, although the company has changed its name, it still remains trustee of the trust. It is rare that this will be required; keeping the name change certificate with the deeds is usually sufficient.

Our website was built to support modern browsers, so we dropped support for certain ones that just can’t provide the same web experience that other browsers can. To support those older browsers would mean not being able to provide an enhanced customer experience - lower progress, less progress, and in some places, no progress.

We wanted to make sure the experience is the best it can be for the vast majority of our customers, so supporting them would have held us back.

We realise this can be annoying, so here’s a link to some recommended compatible browsers to help you upgrade. You may find this helps speed things up on other websites, too!

Yes! When you register a company with us we can set up the company in your CAS 360 software without you needing to rekey the information. Simply authorise us in App Connect in your account and select Push to CAS 360 when registering the company. Once the company is registered we will push the information to CAS 360 and send you an email link to the newly created company.

Note: At this stage we can only connect with one CAS 360 account per organisational login.

We also create a .CMY file of company information for all companies that we register. If you use the desktop version of CAS simply upload this file to the software to create the new company record in CAS.

Yes, you can use the Google Authenticator app for multiple websites.

Each website will create a new item in your app and have a unique code. Just be careful to enter the code corresponding to the correct website, which will be described in text below the code.

Unfortunately, no. Our service operates by taking instructions from members (generally financial planners or advisers) who have already considered all of the issues relevant to your situation - unfortunately, we do not and cannot provide legal advice, and you may wish to seek advice from an accountant or solicitor.

We provide very competitively priced business structures, and rely on providing standard form documents to accountants who know enough about what their clients need to simply complete our instruction form and send it in. The documents are checked by lawyers, but our agreements with them do not extend to providing legal advice.

If anyone needs anything more complicated, we normally advise them to seek specialist advice.

No, we do not provide any kind of legal advice, including tax advice.

Once you are registered with Docscentre you can login using your email address and password. If you have forgotten your password, you can reset it by clicking on 'Forgot Password' Please call us on 1800 700 666 if you need any help logging in.

If you have not yet set up an account, you can choose your preferred supplier, and register here.

You can login and update your profile here at any time.

Export new company registrations and trust establishments to CAS 360

When you establish a company or trust with us we can create the structure record in your CAS 360 software, without you needing to re-key the information. Simply authorise us in App Connect in your account and select Push to CAS 360 when placing your order. Once finalised, we will push the information to your CAS 360 account and send you an email link to the newly created record!

Import from BGL 360 for SMSF form completion

You can connect to BGL 360 to import fund details (name, trustees and members) into our SMSF establishment, Deed of Variation (Update), Change of Trustee, Change of Fund Name, Account Based Pension and Transition to Retirement Income Stream forms. Authorising us in the forms is easy, saves time and reduces errors in rekeying the fund information.

We are working on developing further integrations with other accounting software in the near future. Please let us know which software integrations would be valuable to your practice.

Yes, there is. When you login, click on My People under the My Account area.

Under My People, you will be able to Edit, Delete and Add New people, to help keep your records up to date. Making changes to My People will affect future suggestions on the forms, but will not update any existing orders.

Yes, you can see a timeline in My Products, under My Account, displaying different orders (if you have organised them through us) in chronological order.

As an example, you may have established the Orange Family Trust with us in 2012, then changed the trustee in 2016 and finally wound the trust up in 2018. These will appear separately under My Orders as a trust establishment, a trust amendment and a deed of vesting.

However, the overall view in My Products assists accountants and advisers to see the big picture of their clients' structures at a glance and easily access the relevant documents, without needing to dig around.

Here's what ASIC says:

A ‘trading name’ refers to an unregistered name that businesses could use before the introduction of the National Business Names Register on 28 May 2012. It is not a registered business name.

A business name is a name under which an entity conducts a business. Businesses are required to register their business name if they carry on business within Australia and are not trading under their own name.

If you’re currently operating your business under an unregistered trading name, to continue using it you need to register it as a business name.

Exceptions to this include:

• if you are operating as an individual and your operating name is the same as your first name and surname
  
  
• if you are in a partnership and your operating name is the same as all the partners' names, or
  
  
• if you are an already registered Australian company and your operating name is the same as your company's name.

For example, if your name is John Smith and you’re operating your business under the name ‘John Smith’, it doesn’t need to be registered. If the name you trade under is ‘John Smith & Co’, then you must register the business name ‘John Smith & Co’.

The Australian Business Register and ABN Lookup still display unregistered trading names. From November 2023, trading names will be removed and only registered business names will be displayed.

A transition period is in place from 28 May 2012 to 31 October 2023 to allow businesses affected by the removal of trading names sufficient time to inform their customers, suppliers and other stakeholders of any changes to the name that they use to conduct their business.

Find out more on ASIC's website.

Whether or not legal documents can be executed electronically is complicated and the effectiveness and legality of electronic execution differs between states (and territories) and the Commonwealth. Documents that need to be witnessed personally (such as deeds) may be witnessed through the use of an audio-visual link in some states (and territories). It is essential to check whether this is permitted in the state of execution before documents are signed or witnessed electronically.