The Queensland accounting context
Brisbane has a deep concentration of mining-services and resources-sector accountants, alongside the broader SMB and family-office cohort. Both clusters frequently provide designated services that bring them into Tranche 2: company formation for new mining ventures, trust setup for family-office structures, controlled-monies arrangements for development projects.
Compliance-only accounting (tax returns, BAS) remains outside scope. The boundary is service-defined, and most Brisbane practices will need to walk through the scope test once before settling on whether enrolment is required.
Risk patterns worth planning for
Two patterns are visible in AUSTRAC's published typology work that are particularly relevant to Brisbane practices. First, mining-sector beneficial-owner obscuration where ownership of a new project entity is layered through offshore vehicles. Second, family-office discretionary-trust arrangements where the natural-person controllers are deliberately not named in the trust deed.
Both scenarios need careful beneficial-ownership capture and ongoing monitoring. Caltury's customer form does not let you progress until the natural-person owners at every layer are recorded, which prevents the most common form of under-capture at intake.
Operational fit for a Brisbane practice
A typical Brisbane practice of 3 to 6 staff sits on the Practice tier (A$249/mo). Time to set up averages 6 to 10 hours over a fortnight, with the bulk of that time in the customer-form configuration and the CSV import of the existing client book. Once live, the ongoing operator load is light: the system handles screening cadence, retention clocks and report drafting on its own.
The full feature set (enrolment, Program, CDD, sanctions, reports, records, training, audit log) is included on every tier. There is no feature gating between Starter, Practice and Firm tiers; the price reflects the user count and the practice size, not the obligations covered.
Common questions
We are 50 percent compliance accounting and 50 percent business services. How does that work?
If any meaningful share of your work is a designated service (company formation, nominee, trust, client-money, structuring), the practice enrols as a reporting entity. The whole practice has a Program. The Program covers how you identify which engagements trigger AML and which do not; it does not exempt the compliance work because compliance work was never in scope to begin with.
Does Caltury cover Tax Practitioners Board obligations?
No. TPB obligations under the Tax Agent Services Act are separate from AML/CTF obligations under the Commonwealth Act and remain with your existing tooling. Caltury covers the AUSTRAC side only.
What if a Brisbane client wants to remain anonymous behind a corporate structure?
AUSTRAC's expectations are that beneficial ownership is identified down to natural persons. A client request for anonymity behind a corporate structure does not exempt the practice from capturing that information. Caltury's customer form is built around this requirement.
Can multiple users access the same Caltury account?
Yes. The Practice tier covers up to 5 named users on the same account, the Firm tier covers up to 15. Each user gets their own login and the audit log records actions per user. Role-based permissions are on the roadmap.
This page is general information about Australian AML/CTF obligations. It is not legal advice. AUSTRAC has not reviewed this content. For situations specific to your practice consult an Australian-qualified lawyer or AML/CTF adviser.