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Your financial world live, secure and in 1 place.

Connecting your accounts enables you to get a complete view of your money that will help you understand where you really stand. Connect bank accounts, credit cards, loans, mortgages, superannuation and even loyalty cards.

Connect to more financial institutions

Most of us have more than one financial institution, with the Otivo-Surmount Money Management tool you can get the complete picture without changing a thing. Connect to over 200 financial institutions with the security of Yodlee – a global leader in banking technology.

Set your Money Priorities

You are in charge. Whatever your Money Management asirations, we can give you support to help you make the best decisions. The tool can tell you how much you have spent at McDonalds, Dan Murphys or uber eats over the last 12 months with the minimum of effort. Once the tool recognises a transaction it will update all transactions

Simplify your banking

With the best banking setup, you can reduce fees and take more control. Our unbiased recommendations are designed with simplicity in mind to save you time and money.

Categorise Transactions

Transactions are The foundation of everything in the Otivo- Surmount Money Management Tool. As you connect accounts, transactions automatically come through and get categorised !

Managing Bills (plan, pay and compare)

Another fundamental building block is bills. We automatically detect your bills and remind you before they are due, and if they have been paid or missed to ensure there is always enough money in your accounts and you avoid any pesky fees.

Create budgets that suit you

Keep it light or delve into the detail, the choice is yours. A budget helps you decide where to spend your money.

No excel spreadsheet required!

Our budget is automatically calculated based on your past spending – no boring data entry – and gives you a month by month view of your money. It’s also flexible enough that you can plan for changes to the money that comes in or out.

Never forget to claim an allowable tax deduction again

No more trawling through bank statements at the end of the year. Now you can set your occupation, answer a few questions about your work expenses and the Otivo-Surmount Money Management Tool will find all your transactions that might be allowable tax deductions. You can confirm the ones that are and attach images of all your receipts to help you meet your record keeping obligations. Use the same process to make claims in your salary packaging arrangements.

Provide your accountant or tax adviser with all the details

Keep track of all your tax-deductible expenses during the year, download the details and send them to your accountant or tax adviser at the end of the year. Tracking your tax deductions has never been this easy.

Personal insights

Our unique alerts system will help you make the best decisions by keeping you up to date with what is happening with your money, and ways to improve it. Just sit back and let the Money Management Tool do the work!

Keep track

Easy to use charts show your performance as you go. Get simple overviews of your budget, cash flow and savings.

Reward yourself

Don’t forget, life is to be lived. Rewarding yourself is important and now you can do it with confidence knowing your other expenses and goals are under control.

The very first step is to ask the question “can I work my way through this” or “do I need to seek help”.

Consider the old saying about solving problems “you have to eat the elephant one bite at a time”. At surmount we understand that out of control is a description used to often but out of control as a reality means something totally different where very specific actions need to be taken.

Let’s look at the worst-case scenario.

If you are being contacted by debt collectors, regularly fail to make loan repayments and struggle to have any excess cash left over you need serious help so either contact us or find someone close by with the right credentials. Seriously, bankruptcy is a very last option. If that is not your world (thankfully) then let’s get serious about your money management.

Back to the elephant? By using the Surmount money management process you can pull all your data into 1 easy to read place that summarises, compares and highlights differences. For most people the thought of a pencil, a piece of paper and the last years receipts is enough make question time in parliament look interesting.

Surmount can tell you how much you have spent at McDonalds, Dan Murphys or uber eats over the last 12 months with the minimum of effort. Once the app recognises a transaction it will update all transactions.

“So what ?” I hear you say!

Many of our clients have said “ I did not realise how much I spent on ………..(insert your weakness here)! Obviously, there were other words in that sentence that needed to be omitted. By using an app process to classify your spending history simplifies the hunt for problems.

Once you see the issue you can find solution. Sorry to burst your bubble but after that issue is dealt with another one will appear.

I always remember that advice where you put your credit cards in a bowl of water in the freezer. The argument was that by the time the block of ice melted the urge to spend would have passed! This method is not recommended by surmount.

If you have been provided the surmount money management app by your accountant, financial adviser or employer then we will be able to identify areas that you may be able to salary package and approximate benefits of engaging with your work salary packaging program.

Salary packaging is an exciting component of the Australian tax landscape, but it can also appear to be quite complicated. The Australian tax system works simply: – you go to work and get paid as a reward for your effort. Before you actually receive any cash your employer takes out income tax. The tax amount is sent to the Australian tax office and the balance is what you have to live on until next payday.

Salary packaging simply looks at paying certain expenses before the tax is taken out. Your salary stays the same but this timing difference could lower your tax burden.

The process is simple

Not packaging

• you earn your income

• you pay tax

• the balance ends up in your pocket
• you spend the balance in your living expenses

Packaging

you earn your income

salary packaging allows you to pay bills before tax dollars

you pay tax on what’s left after packaging

imagine reducing the amount of tax simply because your employer can pay certain bills on your behalf

At 30% you pay $300 tax on every $1000 that you earn.

Consider these advantages

1. reduce your taxable income

depending on the industry and sector you work in you could be eligible to pay for a range of expenses with your pre-tax salary

2. Increase your disposable income

if you earn the same amount, pay less tax then you could end up with more disposable income

3. choose how to spend or save your tax savings

our first recommendation would be to go to your money management App and look at what is your budget priority.

• extra superannuation
• credit card repayments
• put it against the home loan
• save up for that holiday
• You decide!

About 20% of Australian credit card owners are in financial stress due to the total debt they carry. Believe it or not people feel that if they don’t have a credit card debt it’s as good as money in the bank. That is the danger!

Forget about the ridiculous interest rates, the interest free period and the bonus points you get as you borrow money. It (the debt) has to be paid off.

Credit cards have always been overused by accident. Sometimes it’s the pressure to keep up with your friends. Other times it’s a simple solution to a short-term problem. But importantly it will hang around until the next short-term problem turns up, as they always do.

20% of Australian cardholders are stressed due to excessive debt. Either don’t get on the merry-go-round or immediately put in place a process of escape. The banks don’t want you to escape, they want you to continue paying 15% 20% 25% interest from now until eternity. You could put your credit cards in the freezer, cut them up or mentally erase your PIN number. None of that matters is you follow the 3 step Surmount process

• 1. If you have more than one card consolidate. Preferably with a zero interest..
• 2. Keep the payments up and build a $1000 safety stash.
• $1000 might be too much but find a number that works for you
• if you can’t trust yourself then organise a direct debit from your pay

3. Be kind to yourself! You some of your safety stash to reward yourself

4. Not a trip to Bali, maybe a meal out and a nice bottle of wine with your favourite co-drinker.

It took you a while to get into debt and it will take you a while to get out that the wonderful thing is you will feel stronger every step of the way. Surmount will identify when you make those payments so expect a nice fluffy email from us.

Get stuck in.

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At Surmount money management we set you on a journey. At this point in time neither of us have any idea how many steps it’s going to take.

Generally, the rule is to take the first step and then take the next step. Sometimes it will be 2 steps forward and 1 step back but that is the nature of this journey.

Our definition of money.

I find most sensible to look at the note, the coin or the bank statement represent stored time.

If you earn $20 an hour and have $100 in your pocket, then in its simplest form that’s 5 hours of your work. Yes, if someone earns $100 an hour then it is 1 hour of their work.

Flip this around.

If you put $100 on your credit card, then you are basically promising “someone” to work for five hours to replace the $100 that you just borrowed from your credit card provider.

So, let’s deal with our next step.

Step 1 – Using “my time” as a context, use the money management app to work out how many stored hours you own, you owe or you could spend on a night out.

But please do not panic, if you need help you can ask Surmount for help or Surmount can send you some simple hints. Remember we are not dealing with a bad haircut here, it’ll take a time to get things right.

Step 2 – if you go through the exercise of looking at your history you will see the future more clearly. Why? Because if you grab 2 cappuccinos every day at work you would have spent $1600 by the end of the year – that’s why! I’m not saying don’t drink cappuccinos. I am saying look at your financial history and it will help you predict your financial future.

Maybe that Ferrari can wait until I’ve paid off the pushbike.

Feel free to imagine. A $200,000 Ferrari at $20 per hour means that you only have to work for 6.25 years to own it. Then add a few extra hours to register and put petrol in it.

Basically, you need to look at your world, your needs and what you see as being important to you.

Step 3 – congratulations you are already working out the framework of your financial plan.

As you advance your way through the money management app you’ll start to ask questions about;

• something you’d really like to do – a goal
• an amount should like to have in your back pocket just in case – your safety net
• you know what bills you gotta pay – living expenses
• you know what the bank wants off you every month – debt repayment

Step 4 – you know how to put together a jigsaw? This one’s a financial jigsaw but still a jigsaw!

Remember, Surmount is here ready to assist, if you need help. Where do you start? Look at your expenditure history and GYST! (Get Your Stuff Together).

Step 5 – what part of step 3 do you want to get started on first.

Forget what you want at this stage and take action what you need to do first.

Human beings are very predictable when it comes to trying to do something they don’t want to do. Human beings generally find something they would like to do, in this case, it may involve spending money. So be honest and identify what is urgent.

Step 6 – now that you have your first priority let’s deal with it!

<pStep 7 – let’s deal with the next priority next……

If you’re anything like the average person, an electricity bill is a confusing document.

The Otivo-Surmount Money Management tool can use the data on your bill to see if there are cheaper available options. How do you do that I hear you ask? We can compare your bill to a database of all electricity and gas plans available in Australia.

Did you sign up with no real comfort that you are getting a good deal?

Why not have a go.

Firstly set up your bills in the manage my spending dashboard.

Next provide the additional information about tariffs and usage levels from a recent bill.

Then relax, we will find five alternatives that based on the information you’ve given should be cheaper. When we find them will send you a notification and you can check them out.

If you want to change, let us know, and we will get the necessary documentation emailed directly to you.