Business Structure Advisor is a ChangeGPS module that helps accountants recommend optimal business structures to clients. A guided decision tree walks through the client's circumstances and recommends one of seven entity types — or you can manually select a structure directly. Once a structure is recommended, the module captures the business purpose, family group details, and builds a fee proposal for the implementation services required. It then generates a professional recommendation report (blueprint document) for delivery to the client.
Business Structure Advisor is available in Australia.
What Business Structure Advisor does
The module guides you through a decision tree questionnaire covering the client's business circumstances, objectives, and risk profile to arrive at the most appropriate structure recommendation.
Alternatively, you can bypass the questionnaire and manually select a structure directly from the seven available types.
Business Structure Advisor captures the business purpose, family group composition, and other contextual details to support the recommendation.
A built-in fee calculator with a preset services library allows you to build a complete fee proposal for the implementation work — trust deeds, company registration, shareholder agreements, and more — alongside the structure recommendation.
The module generates a professional blueprint document containing the structure recommendation, rationale, and fee proposal for delivery to the client.
Who should use Business Structure Advisor
Business Structure Advisor is designed for accountants and financial advisors who conduct business structuring reviews for clients starting a new business, purchasing an existing business, or considering a restructure of their current arrangements. It provides a consistent, repeatable framework for structuring advice and ensures the recommendation is supported by a clear rationale and professional documentation.
The seven structure types
Structure | Best suited to |
Individual / Sole Trader | Simplest structure; no legal separation between owner and business |
Company | Separate legal entity with limited liability; suitable for most commercial businesses |
Discretionary Trust | Flexible income distribution with asset protection benefits |
Unit Trust | Fixed entitlement structure with proportional distributions to unit holders |
Hybrid Unit Trust | Combines features of discretionary and unit trusts |
Managed Partnership of Trusts | Partnership structure with trust entities as partners |
Partnership of Discretionary Trusts | Partnership of discretionary trusts for complex arrangements |
Key features
Five-step wizard — Client details, structure assessment, business details, services and fees, and preview.
Decision tree assessment — A guided questionnaire that evaluates the client's circumstances and recommends the most appropriate structure automatically.
Manual structure picker — Skip the questionnaire and select a structure directly if you already know what you want to recommend.
Business purpose options — Buy an existing business, establish a new business, commercial property investment, or other purposes.
Family group configuration — Add family members and related entities to the assessment with ownership percentages.
Fee calculator — A preset services library covering Trust deeds, Company documents, Partnership agreements, and Advisory services with default fees. Add services from the library or enter custom items, and the total fee is calculated dynamically.
Blueprint report — A professional recommendation document generated per structure type, ready for client delivery.
CIM client import — Import client details from CIM to pre-fill Step 1.
How Business Structure Advisor fits into ChangeGPS
Blueprint (visual) — After completing a structure recommendation, use the Blueprint module to create a visual diagram of the recommended entity structure for the client.
Tax Plan — The recommended structure informs the Tax Plan — once entities are established, they can be modelled in Tax Plan to show the tax benefits of the new structure.
Trust Distribution — Once a discretionary trust is established following a structure recommendation, Trust Distribution handles the annual distribution resolutions.
Getting started
Navigate to Business Structure Advisor from the ChangeGPS dashboard and select New Assessment.
In Step 1, enter or import the client details.
In Step 2, complete the decision tree questionnaire or manually select a structure.
In Step 3, enter the business purpose and family group details.
In Step 4, build the fee proposal from the preset services library.
In Step 5, preview and export the recommendation report.
Need help?
If you have questions about Business Structure Advisor or need help with a specific structuring scenario, reach out through the chat widget or contact your account manager.