Manual client onboarding carries a cost that most firms have never fully quantified. When identity checks, corporate searches and file setup are completed across separate systems, each new client absorbs staff hours that could otherwise go toward advisory work, before AML/CTF obligations are even factored in.
Why this is now a compliance problem, not just an efficiency one
From 1 July 2026, firms providing a designated service under the Anti Money Laundering Counter Terrorism Financing Act [DS2.1]must verify a client’s identity, identify beneficial owners, screen for politically exposed persons (PEPs) and sanctions, and document the purpose of the relationship, before the designated service is provided or within a defined window afterwards. Every one of these steps needs to be evidenced. AUSTRAC does not accept that a check was probably done. It expects a record showing it was done, correctly, and by whom.
Firms managing this manually across email, spreadsheets and separate verification tools carry the cost in three places: staff time spent re-entering the same client details across systems, the price of standalone verification tools bought to cover a single step, and the ongoing overhead of keeping records in a form that would hold up if AUSTRAC asked to see them. That cost is not the price of Tranche 2 itself; it is the price of doing Tranche 2 without a system built to carry the load.
What a consolidated platform changes
InfoTrack Accounting brings identity verification, ASIC and PPSR searches, and AML/CTF compliance workflows into one platform, built on the same data infrastructure already used by law firms, conveyancers and financial institutions across Australia. Every check run through the platform is logged automatically against the client file, so the audit trail is a by-product of doing the work, not a separate task someone has to remember to complete afterwards.
For a firm onboarding clients, this is the difference between recovering hours of staff time per client and having a defensible compliance record the moment AUSTRAC, or a client, asks to see it.
See how InfoTrack Accounting brings client onboarding into a single platform, and explore the AML/CTF Compliance Centre for accountants here.