Matter Management
Use matters to link customers, KYC cases, transactions, and reports to specific business activities — giving AUSTRAC auditors clear context for every compliance action.
A matter is a lightweight business context container that ties together all compliance activities for a specific engagement — such as a property sale, trust establishment, or company formation. Matters answer the question AUSTRAC auditors will ask: "Why did you perform these compliance actions?"
Design principle: Matters are not a replacement for your industry CRM (Rex, LEAP, Xero Practice Manager, etc.). They capture only the minimum business context needed for compliance. You continue managing your day-to-day operations in your existing tools.
Creating a Matter
To create a matter, navigate to Matters and click New Matter. You'll provide:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Matter type | Pre-set by your industry (see below) |
| Description | Free text — e.g. property address, case reference, client name |
| Expected transaction amount | Estimated total value (AUD) — used as a baseline for transaction monitoring |
| Key dates | Start date and expected completion date (e.g. expected settlement date) |
Matter creation is optional — you can still create customers and KYC cases directly. However, Verifia recommends starting from a matter to automatically link all compliance artifacts.
Matter Types by Industry
| Industry | Available matter types |
|---|---|
| Real Estate | Residential purchase, Residential sale, Commercial purchase, Commercial sale, Property lease management |
| Legal Profession | Conveyancing, Trust establishment, Company formation, Trust account management, General legal matter |
| Accounting | Company registration, Tax return lodgement, Financial audit, General accounting service |
| TCSP | Trust establishment/management, Company formation/management, Registered agent service |
| Precious Metals | Precious metals transaction, Gemstone transaction |
Your Compliance Officer can add custom matter types in Settings > Matter Types.
Linking Participants
Each matter can have multiple participants. When you add a customer to a matter, you assign their role:
| Industry | Available roles |
|---|---|
| Real Estate | Buyer, Seller, Agent |
| Legal | Client, Counterparty, Beneficiary |
| Accounting | Client, Related Party |
| TCSP | Client, Managed Entity |
| Precious Metals | Buyer, Seller |
The same customer can appear in different matters with different roles. Adding a customer to a matter automatically triggers designated service registration and the CDD workflow.
Automatic Compliance Linking
When you create compliance artifacts from within a matter, they are automatically linked:
- Customer profiles (with role annotation)
- KYC cases — each participant's CDD case links back to the matter
- Designated service records — the service that triggered CDD obligations
- Transactions — recorded or imported transactions can be associated with the matter
- Alerts — monitoring alerts for linked transactions appear in the matter view
- Reports — TTR/SMR/CBM reports filed in connection with the matter
You can also manually link a transaction to a matter when recording it.
Matter Compliance View
The matter detail page provides a single-screen compliance overview:
- Participant status — each linked customer with their KYC completion status
- Transaction summary — total recorded amount vs. expected amount, with variance highlighting
- Linked alerts — any monitoring alerts triggered by matter transactions
- Linked reports — TTR, SMR, or CBM reports filed in connection with this matter
- Compliance timeline — chronological view of all compliance activities for this matter
From the matter view, you can jump directly to any linked KYC case, transaction, or report.
If a matter has incomplete compliance tasks (e.g. a participant with pending KYC, or an unresolved alert), the matter card displays a warning indicator.
Matter-Level Risk Signals
While risk ratings are calculated at the customer level, matters provide additional compliance signals:
| Signal | Description |
|---|---|
| Expected vs. actual transaction deviation | Alert when recorded transactions significantly exceed or fall below the expected amount |
| Related party detection | Prompt when multiple participants in the same matter appear to be connected entities |
| Compliance completeness check | Before marking a matter as completed, Verifia verifies all participants have completed CDD |
| Stale matter detection | Matters open for an extended period with no KYC activity are flagged on your dashboard |
Matter Lifecycle
Every matter follows a simple lifecycle:
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Active | Work in progress — compliance activities ongoing |
| On Hold | Temporarily paused (e.g. deal delayed) |
| Completed | All work finished and compliance tasks resolved |
| Abandoned | Matter cancelled or did not proceed |
When a matter is marked as Completed or Abandoned, all linked records are automatically archived to the Compliance Vault. Matters cannot be deleted — only their status can change — ensuring full audit integrity.
Verifia will automatically remind you about matters that have been active for an extended period with no recent activity, prompting you to update or close them.
Future: External System Integration
In a future release, Verifia will support automatic matter creation from external systems via webhooks and API:
- Real estate CRMs (Rex, Agentbox) — new listing or transaction triggers a matter
- Legal practice management (LEAP, Actionstep) — new legal matter triggers a Verifia matter
- Accounting practice management (Xero Practice Manager) — new engagement triggers a matter
For now, matters are created manually — typically in under 30 seconds.