Verne compliance refers to a business process that forces an entity to comply with a specific registry requirement or obligation. This typically involves taking a prescribed action within a prescribed time-frame. The entity must meet its obligations to avoid consequences, such as removal from the register. Regulatory compliance is driven by legislation and regulations with the business process ensuring that entities on the register are aware of and take steps to comply with it. Non-regulatory compliance imposes a requirement that is not driven by laws and regulations, however, is supported by a similar business process.
Verne compliance can be configured to send courtesy and overdue reminders, and where necessary automated removal of entities that fail to comply with the requirements.
These compliance functions enforce legislative requirements such as Annual Return or the handling of liquidations etc. Compliance is controlled by a series of events; an alert will fire at a pre-determined time and trigger an event. Compliance processes are setup as a result of the submission of an application, for example the registration of an entity. Availability of a Verne Business Service that completes the required filing, can be controlled based on due dates, entity status, user roles etc. When restricting the availability of a business service Verne can either not show the menu item or show the menu item and display a message to the user advising them the service is not currently available.
Compliance Business Process
Verne Compliance is a tool that is used to automate any business process of a compliance nature. Business processes must fit the following description:
- the process requires its subject or other interested parties to take certain action within the outlined time-frame to comply with a specific registry requirement.
- the required action is usually represented by an online Verne business service.
- the process requires communications to be scheduled based on the compliance time-frame and issued to its subjects informing of the status of the process.
- if compliance action is not taken within the outlined time-frame, the registry manager may apply some form of remedial counteraction, which usually results in changing details of the compliance subject, e.g. removing an entity from the register.
- the process could be a one-off event triggered every time the subject needs to comply or could be a recurring process happening with a specified frequency.
Examples of compliance business processes are:
| Business Requirement | Example Compliance Process |
|---|---|
| Annual return | Every company must file an annual return every calendar year, a company is removed if it has not filed within 2 months after the nominated filing anniversary date. |
| Renewal | Every business name must file a renewal every 3 calendar years, a business name is removed if it has not filed within 2 months after the nominated filing date. |
| Financial statements | A company must file financial statements at the end of each financial year, the company is removed if it has not filed within 3 months after the nominated filing date. |
| Quarterly reports | A Financial Services Provider must file a financial report within 30 business days of the end of each 3 calendar months, if not filed the entity is suspended and investigated. |
| Active director rule | A Company must have at least 2 active directors, a company is removed if a director is not appointed 30 days after another active director is removed. |
| Mandatory directors consent | Every active director of a company must lodge a consent form within 10 days of incorporation, otherwise the entity is removed. |
| Public must have no objections to a company removal | Members of the public have 30 days to object after a company requests removal, removal is finalised if no objections lodged. |
Compliance Engine
The Verne compliance engine has the ability to run an automated process of a compliance nature. It is fully based on the Verne workflow engine.
To be able to automate a compliance business process the Verne compliance engine needs to know the following:
- how to detect when an entity becomes a subject of this process.
- how to detect when an entity is no longer a subject of this process.
- what communications to send regarding this process, to whom and when.
- how to detect when an entity has complied.
- how to detect when an entity has not complied.
- what changes to apply when an entity has complied.
- what changes to apply when an entity has not complied.
- how to detect changes that might affect the details of the process.
All of this information must be collected by the business consultants and described as a set of compliance events using the compliance routine template. The compliance routine template is then transformed into configuration and is used by the Verne compliance engine to run the business process automatically.
The sole purpose of the compliance engine is to execute predefined compliance events at the right point in time.
A compliance event describes the trigger that would set if off and the actions that must be applied should it be executed. The compliance engine would then:
- listen for triggers.
- identify corresponding events.
- and execute their actions.
The compliance engine is in fact, fully enabled by the Verne workflow engine:
- Compliance cycle is a workflow instance.
- Compliance cycle status is a workflow step.
- Compliance ad hoc event is a workflow listener.
- Compliance scheduled event is a workflow event.
Compliance Cycle
The Compliance cycle is one of the key concepts in Verne compliance along with compliance event and compliance routine. From a business point of view, the compliance cycle is the time interval when an entity must meet the compliance requirements of a specific compliance routine once. From a technical point of view, the compliance cycle is a workflow instance created for the Verne workflow engine to run the associated automated business process. A workflow instance representing the cycle is used to track compliance progress, to schedule and execute appropriate events and to listen for user activity that can affect the compliance process.
Below is an example of a compliance workflow for a standard annual return filing routine:
