Crowd-Sourced Funding Equity Raising

Crowd-Sourced Funding Equity Raising gives accounting firms a comprehensive framework for helping eligible SME companies investigate, prepare for and progress through an Australian Crowd-Sourced Funding equity raising.

The package includes 64 resources covering the complete advisory journey — from preparing your own firm and identifying potentially suitable clients through eligibility, company preparation, intermediary discussions, Offer Document support, due diligence, engagement management and post-capital-raising considerations.

The resources are designed to help your firm turn what can be a complex capital-raising enquiry into a structured professional advisory engagement while recognising the regulatory role of the licensed Crowd-Sourced Funding intermediary.

A Structured 12-Step Crowd-Sourced Funding Road Map

At the centre of the package is a Procedure Control Form and 12-step road map that provides a framework for coordinating the different stages of a Crowd-Sourced Funding engagement.

The road map broadly supports your firm through:

• Identifying potential Crowd-Sourced Funding opportunities
• Considering company eligibility
• Assessing preparation and disclosure readiness
• Understanding investor and intermediary requirements
• Preparing the company for the proposed raising
• Supporting preparation of the CSF Offer Document
• Undertaking appropriate due diligence
• Working with the selected licensed intermediary
• Supporting the company as the offer progresses
• Considering the requirements that follow a successful raising

This gives your firm a repeatable framework without requiring advisers to develop their own equity-raising process from the beginning.

Prepare Your Firm to Offer the Service

The package includes introductory and supporting material to help partners and team members become familiar with Crowd-Sourced Funding before approaching clients.

These resources can help your firm understand:

• The role Crowd-Sourced Funding can play in SME capital raising
• The broad regulatory framework
• The role of the licensed CSF intermediary
• The level of company preparation involved
• The professional work that may be required before an offer is ready to proceed

Introduce Crowd-Sourced Funding to Suitable Clients

Marketing and client-communication resources are included to help your firm introduce Crowd-Sourced Funding to appropriate clients and prospects.

The material can support:

• Website content
• Client articles
• Social-media communication
• News and promotional activity
• Seminar or webinar discussions

This can help your firm proactively identify capital-raising opportunities rather than waiting for clients to ask about equity crowdfunding themselves.

Identify Clients with a Potential Capital Requirement

The package includes client-identification resources that help your firm consider where Crowd-Sourced Funding may warrant further investigation.

Potential situations can include businesses seeking capital for:

• Expansion and growth
• Business acquisitions
• Product or service development
• Commercialisation
• Strategic investment
• Changes in ownership
• Other significant business-development initiatives

This provides a useful starting point for determining whether a more detailed capital-raising discussion should take place.

Consider Potential Company Eligibility

Before substantial preparation work begins, the resources help your firm investigate whether the company may fall within the Crowd-Sourced Funding framework.

Eligibility tools and supporting guidance help advisers consider the company’s circumstances and identify matters requiring further verification.

Because eligibility requirements and regulatory thresholds can change, current legislation and ASIC guidance should always be checked before advising a client to proceed.

Assess Disclosure Readiness

Eligibility alone does not mean that a company is ready to raise capital.

The package includes company-preparation resources that help directors understand the level of financial, commercial, management and risk information that may need to be assembled and disclosed.

This creates an important early decision point: management can determine whether it is prepared to undertake the work required before significant Offer Document preparation begins.

Prepare the Company for Capital Raising

A dedicated Company Preparation Guide helps your firm work with management around the broader readiness of the organisation.

Preparation can involve areas such as:

• Corporate information
• Financial information
• Business operations
• Management and key personnel
• Business risks
• Ownership and capital structure
• Future plans
• Supporting commercial documentation

This can identify weaknesses or missing information that should be addressed before the company approaches the market.

Understand the Role of the Licensed CSF Intermediary

A licensed Crowd-Sourced Funding intermediary performs a central regulatory and operational role in the raising.

The package contains material to help your firm and the client understand:

• The intermediary’s broad responsibilities
• The services an intermediary may provide
• The importance of intermediary selection
• The relationship between the company, adviser and intermediary

This helps the client approach intermediary discussions with a better understanding of the process.

Compare Potential Intermediaries

Intermediary comparison resources, including an Intermediaries Scorecard, provide a framework for discussing the characteristics of different potential providers.

This can help management compare intermediaries more systematically rather than making a selection based on limited information.

Any intermediary lists or provider information should be checked for currency because licensing, services and market participants can change.

Investor Categories and Investor Protection

The package includes resources introducing the different investor considerations and protections that can apply within the Crowd-Sourced Funding regime.

This helps your team explain why the type of investor participating in an offer can affect the regulatory requirements surrounding the raising.

Current legislative and intermediary requirements should always be confirmed for the proposed offer.

CSF Offer Document Support

One of the most substantial areas within the package is support for preparation of the CSF Offer Document.

The resources include:

• Offer Document guidance
• Structured working papers
• Company-preparation resources
• Risk and disclosure material
• Supporting documentation resources

These provide your firm with a framework for helping the company organise the financial and commercial information required for the Offer Document while working within the requirements of the selected licensed intermediary.

Organise Company and Management Information

The Offer Document resources help management bring together information about the company, the people responsible for it and the proposed capital raising.

This can involve broad areas such as:

• The company and its business
• Directors and management
• Ownership and capital structure
• Financial information
• Business operations
• Material risks
• The proposed use of funds
• The terms of the proposed offer

The detailed working papers and disclosure requirements remain within the subscriber resources.

Director and Management Documentation

A collection of supporting forms assists with the documentation required from current and proposed directors, senior managers and other people involved in the Offer Document process.

These resources help your firm establish a more organised approach to gathering the required declarations, confirmations and supporting information.

Consent and Contributor Documentation

Where advisers, specialists or other parties contribute information or are referred to within the Offer Document, the package includes resources for managing the associated consent and documentation process.

This provides another layer of organisation around preparation of the raising without requiring your firm to create the supporting forms independently.

Comprehensive Due Diligence Resources

The package includes a substantial Due Diligence Checklist for reviewing the company before information is presented to potential investors.

The due-diligence framework extends across broad areas such as:

• Corporate structure and governance
• Financial information
• Management and employees
• Business operations
• Customers and markets
• Assets and intellectual property
• Commercial relationships
• Risk management
• Working capital
• Accounting and business systems

The objective is to help ensure that important company information has been examined and appropriately supported before the capital raising progresses.

Identify Investment-Readiness Gaps

The preparation and due-diligence process may reveal that the company is not yet ready to approach investors.

This can identify work required in areas such as:

• Business Planning
• Budgets & Cashflow Forecasts
• Market research
• Financial management
• Intellectual-property documentation
• Corporate governance
• Business valuation
• Share-price considerations

Where substantial additional work is required, those assignments can be separately scoped and quoted.

Business Planning

A company raising external equity needs to clearly explain where the business is heading and how the additional capital will support its plans.

The CSF preparation process can therefore identify a need for a more detailed Business Plan or an update to an existing plan before the capital raising proceeds.

Budgets & Cashflow Forecasts

Forward-looking financial information can also become an important part of the company's capital-raising preparation.

Your firm may identify a requirement for:

• Financial budgets
• Cashflow Forecasts
• Projected financial performance
• Funding assumptions
• Financial scenarios

Where these are not already available, a separate forecasting engagement may be appropriate.

Valuation and Share-Price Considerations

The framework also recognises that a company preparing to issue equity may require professional work around business valuation and the proposed pricing of its shares.

These are potential related assignments rather than automatically completed components of the Crowd-Sourced Funding package.

Progressing the Offer with the Intermediary

Once the company is appropriately prepared, the framework supports progression of the proposed offer through the selected licensed intermediary.

The intermediary remains responsible for its own regulatory processes and platform requirements, and the company may need to provide additional information or make amendments as the offer is reviewed.

Managing Changes and Issues During the Offer

Supporting guidance helps your team understand that a Crowd-Sourced Funding raising remains a regulated process after the initial Offer Document has been prepared.

Resources address issues that can arise if information changes or concerns are identified while an offer is being prepared or conducted.

Current legal and regulatory requirements should always be confirmed through ASIC guidance, the relevant legislation and the selected intermediary.

Closing the Capital Raising

The package includes guidance covering the transition from an active Crowd-Sourced Funding offer to completion of the raising.

This helps your firm understand the broad issues that need to be coordinated between the company and its intermediary as the offer closes.

Post-Capital-Raising Support

The advisory opportunity can continue after the company has raised capital.

Post-capital-raising guidance introduces areas such as:

• Shareholder administration
• Company records
• Corporate reporting
• Ongoing financial information
• Governance
• Other continuing company requirements

This can provide an ongoing role for the accounting firm as the company adjusts to a larger shareholder base and increased financial-management requirements.

Scope and Quote the Engagement

Dedicated engagement-management resources help your firm establish Crowd-Sourced Funding assistance as a properly defined professional service.

These include resources supporting:

• Work programming
• Budgeting and quotation
• Client proposals
• Recording work completed
• Assignment management

This is particularly valuable because a capital-raising engagement may expand as additional preparation requirements are identified.

Separate Core CSF Work from Additional Advisory Assignments

The resources help your firm distinguish between the core Crowd-Sourced Funding assistance and additional work required to make the company investment-ready.

This allows areas such as Business Planning, forecasting, valuation or Virtual CFO Services to be separately scoped rather than being absorbed into an undefined capital-raising assignment.

Marketing Resources for Your Firm

The package includes ready-made marketing material to help your firm communicate its Crowd-Sourced Funding advisory capability.

This can save considerable preparation time when introducing the service to clients, prospects or selected industries where equity capital may be relevant.

60-Minute Mentoring Support

The package includes a 60-minute mentoring session to assist an individual firm with implementation of the Crowd-Sourced Funding Equity Raising service.

This provides additional support as your team becomes familiar with the framework and considers how the service can be introduced within the practice.

Supporting Videos and Webinar Material

Product and webinar material provides additional background on Crowd-Sourced Funding and how accounting firms can incorporate the service into their broader business advisory offering.

Connect Capital Raising with Broader Business Advisory Services

The Crowd-Sourced Funding process can identify a much wider range of advisory needs within a growing SME company.

These may lead into services such as:

• Business Planning
• Budgets & Cashflow Forecasts
• Business valuation
• Virtual CFO Services
• Corporate governance
• Financial reporting
• Investment readiness
• Ongoing management reporting

A Repeatable Crowd-Sourced Funding Advisory Service

Together, the 64 Crowd-Sourced Funding Equity Raising resources give your firm a comprehensive framework for helping eligible SME companies investigate and prepare for an equity capital raising.

Your team can identify potential opportunities, assess preparation requirements, help organise company and Offer Document information, support due diligence, coordinate with the selected licensed intermediary and continue assisting the company after the raising.

This creates a substantial capital-raising advisory opportunity while providing a structured pathway into the wider Business Planning, forecasting, valuation, governance and Virtual CFO work that may be required to make the company investment-ready.

Crowd-Sourced Funding is a regulated activity. Eligibility requirements, disclosure rules, investor protections, intermediary obligations and company requirements can change. The resources should therefore always be used with current legislation, ASIC guidance, the procedures of the selected licensed CSF intermediary and appropriate professional advice where required.