How does FICAtrac assist the law firm in complying with the Act?

The Act defines information and verification requirements, based on the client’s entity (i.e. Company, CC, Individual etc), and what type of transaction is being entered into, that require to be met, by being collected, captured and recorded and in some cases reported as suspicious transactions.

With FICAtrac software, the system will be aware of the requirements and thus uses a wizard to prompt the user for all the information that is required to be collected, verified and stored. The capturer proceeds through the software screens, capturing the required information and confirming whether the required documentation has been collected and verified, or not.

Once all the prompted questions are answered, the software then creates a document in MS Word that can be e-mailed, or faxed, to the client to inform the client of the documentation requirements.

The capturer can print a report at any time, which will show him/her what information requirements have not yet been met, thus assisting the firm or compliance officer to gather the outstanding information and/or documentation and fully comply with the FICA requirements.

What are the risks of non-compliance with the FICA Act?

‘Provision is made for large fines and long periods of imprisonment which vary from 15 years or R10 million to 5 years or R1 million’.

How can the required client documents be stored?

(i.e. CM1’s, CM29’s, ID documents of the shareholders exercising control over 25% or more of the company’s voting rights, etc. in the case of a registered company.)
The system interfaces with a scanner to scan the required documents and then store them as images linked to the client. At any stage, reports are available to the compliance officer to see which documents (if any) are missing, or which documents still require verification.

What are the hardware requirements?

For small firms (less than 20 users):

1. A PC to store images is required with a minimum of a PC Pentium III 1GHz or faster, 256 MB RAM Minimum (512 recommended)
2. Twain compliant scanner
3. Large hard drive for image storage

1. A SQL server will be required if many fee-earners are to access image database
2. The system will install MSDE (Microsoft Data Engine) for the data store on firms that do not have a SQL server.

Can multiple users scan and verify documents simultaneously?

Yes, the system is fully multi-user capable, and will only depend on the available hardware.

Can multiple users scan and verify documents simultaneously?

Yes, the system is fully multi-user capable, and will only depend on the available hardware.

Can the system be customised?

By design, a SQL data store is used which means that you may add triggers to the system to manipulate data as it is updated or entered into the database. The tables are fully documented for clients that have SQL skills.