StrategyOne owner and Managing Director Virginia Heyer has never been one to settle for her lot. After finding herself divorced with three children, Heyer returned to her long-held passion for financial planning as a way to provide for herself and family. Over the years, Heyer has built that passion into a formidable financial planning empire, buying four businesses, including the one where she started her career as a receptionist in 1985.

“I loved dealing with financial matters and most of all, I loved seeing the impact we had on helping people and how powerful that was,” said Heyer.

StrategyOne advisers pride themselves on providing bespoke solutions for their clients, but their real competitive advantage is the diligence with which they explain that advice and bring their clients on the financial planning journey.

Part of bringing clients on the journey is ensuring the products and providers Heyer hand-picks are easy for them to understand and interact with.

“Since the beginning, Macquarie and their passion for putting their clients’ interests first has meant they’ve been able to deliver financial solutions time after time that make our clients’ lives easier,” Heyer said.

Heyer’s preferred cash solution for clients is the Macquarie Cash Management Account (CMA).  She really values the visibility and transparency it affords both clients and staff.

“If clients have their distributions paid somewhere else, we usually can’t see what’s accumulating in cash in their bank accounts at any given time. Particularly at time critical periods like June 30, where you might need to make a decision fairly quickly about what to do.”

Using Macquarie’s CMA as a cash hub means clients and staff have full visibility so they can make decisions quickly.

“It helps us, and clients, decide what needs to be invested versus what should be used for other purposes, whether it’s to help their child buy a new car or to come up with a home deposit,” she said.

Heyer sees the ability for advisers to initiate payments on a client’s behalf as a major strength of Macquarie’s CMA.

“Many of our clients are living the dream – they’ve established their businesses so they’re able to take time away from the office, travelling with their family for example. In the event that they need something done while they’re away, we can do it because we’re able to transact on their behalf.”

Macquarie recently added a new layer of security to this process. Whenever an adviser initiates a payment on behalf of their client, the client receives a secure code to authorise that transaction.

Macquarie’s CMA also integrates seamlessly with over 70 software programs, adding to its ease of use.

“We have data from Macquarie and other providers feeding almost daily into our X-Plan software. It’s so useful getting the daily account balances when we have to review clients’ accounts,” said Heyer.

And with the release of more features via a much-improved adviser portal this month it’s no surprise that the Macquarie CMA is the cash solution preferred by one in three SMSFs¹ in Australia.

For more information please visit Macquarie.

¹ Source: Macquarie Bank Limited data, ATO Self Managed Super Fund Statistical Report.