Add, review, and approve company associates

The associates verification list provides a place to verify, approve, and monitor a company’s officers, shareholders, trustees, or authorised persons. Learn more about how associates are onboarded.

This article covers how to add associates to a verification list, review and approve associates on a verification list, and pass a task with a verification list.

You may also find these articles useful:

• Edit company associates on a verification list.
• Remove company associates from a verification list.

Add company associates to a verification list

Associates can be added to a verification list manually or from an imported list. They can be individuals or companies.

Adding associates manually

Whether you are using automated checks or not, you can always add an associate manually.

To add an associate to a verification list manually:

1. Click the add button above the verification list. On the Officers verification list, the button is New officer. On the Shareholders verification list, it’s New shareholder. On the Trustees verification list, it’s New trustee. On the Authorised persons verification list, it’s New authorised person.

   

2. If the associate is a person, select Individual. If the associate is a company, select Company.

1. Complete the fields provided. Any required fields are marked required.

   

2. Click the create button. On the Officers verification list, the button is Create new officer. On the Shareholders verification list, it’s Create new shareholder. On the Trustees verification list, it’s Create new trustee. On the Authorised persons verification list, the button is Create new authorised person.
   
   The associate is added to the verification list.
   
   A profile is created for the individual or company so they can be verified and approved as an associate. To learn more, see Approve/reject company associates.

   

Adding associates from an imported list

You can run a check that returns a list of officers, shareholders, or trustees from your data provider, along with any available information about them.

Once associates are imported into PassFort, they can be added to a verification list automatically or manually.

Import a list of associates

The type of check you can use to import associates depends on the task.

• Identify officers task: Use the Company data check or the Company registry check to import a list of key decision makers at board level (e.g. directors and company secretaries) and any available information about their roles, the dates they were appointed, the dates they resigned, and their dates of birth. Active officers are displayed at the top of the results, and resigned officers at the end.
• Identify shareholders task: Use the Company data check or the Company ownership check to import a list of key shareholders (individuals or companies) with significant voting rights and control, plus any available information about the percentage of shares each one holds. Shareholders with the greatest share percentage are displayed at the top of the results.
• Identify trustees task: Use the Charities registry check to import a list of key decision makers at board level (e.g. chairs and secretaries) and any available information about their roles, the dates they were appointed, and the dates they resigned.

When associates are imported, they're displayed on the left side of the task.

In the case of the Identify officers task, each officer only has either their appointment date or resignation date displayed next to their name. The appointment date is displayed when the officer is still active. The resignation date is displayed when the officer has resigned. To see a resigned officer's appointment date (and provider role), click the officer's name to expand their details.

If an officer has multiple roles, note that you'll only see a resignation date if the officer is resigned from all roles. If the officer is active in any role, the appointment date is displayed. For example, if the officer was the company director from 1980-1990 and the corporate secretary from 1985 to the present day, you'll see "Appointed: 1980". To see the appointment dates and, if available, resignation dates for all roles, click the officer's name.

Add associates from an imported list automatically

You can configure tasks to add associates from an imported list to a verification list automatically.

When you configure the task, you choose which associates from the imported list are added:

• All company associates: Every associate returned by the data provider is added to the verification list.
• A specified number of associates: When configuring the task, you specify a number (e.g. 3). This number of associates is added to the verification list. For the Identify officers task and the Identify trustees task, the officers and trustees who have been elected/appointed the longest are added; in the case of officers, resigned officers are only added if there are no more active officers. For the Identify shareholders task, the shareholders with the highest percentage of shares are added, then shareholders with no known share percentage (--).
• All shareholders with a specified percentage of shares and above: When configuring the task, you specify a percentage of shares (15%). All shareholders who own this percentage and above, and shareholder with an unknown share percentage (--), are added. This configuration is for the Identify shareholders task only.

Add associates from an imported list manually

To add an associate from the imported list manually, click the Add to list button next to the associate’s name.

The associate is added to the verification list.

A profile is created for the individual or company so they can be verified and approved as an associate. See Approve/reject company associates.

Resolving possible duplicates

If an individual or company has two profiles, they may need to go through the same due diligence tasks more than once.

Associates may already have a profile when they are on multiple verification lists for the same application. For example, if an associate is a Director and a Beneficial Owner of the company, they will appear on the Officers verification list and the Shareholders verification list.

If an associate you’re adding to the verification list is closely matched to one or more individuals/companies with similar details, when you add the associate to a verification list manually, the Resolve possible duplicates dialog is displayed so you can ensure only one profile is created for the associate.

In the dialog, a check mark is displayed next to any profile data that’s the same and an X is displayed next to any profile data that’s different.

If the associate is a duplicate of one of the associates listed, click Use this profile next to the duplicate, then click Finish resolving duplicates. The verification list links to the profile you selected and no second profile is created.

If the associate is not listed here, click Create new profile, then click Finish resolving duplicates. A new profile is created for the associate. The verification list links to the new profile.

To learn how to use a profile to verify and approve associates, see Approve/reject company associates.

To learn how to edit company associates on the verification list, see Edit company associates on the verification list.

To learn how to remove company associates from the verification list, see Remove company associates from the verification list.

Approve/reject company associates

Every associate on the verification list has a Verification status.

The verification status shows what stage the associate’s verification is at.

Associates are verified through the following process:

1. The verification begins when the associate’s profile is created.
2. If you have Risk configured, the associate inherits the application’s risk level.
   
   If your risk model uses an Associates risk factor, at this point the associate's details are checked against the rules of the risk factor and the application’s total risk score is re-calculated. The risk level is reassigned to the application based on the application’s total risk score. All company associates inherit the new risk level.
   
   If you have Risk configured to automatically reject profiles based on risk level and the re-calculated risk level matches your specifications, the application is rejected and the subsequent steps do not take place. Learn more about rejected applications.
3. The product’s associate smart policy is applied to the associate. If the product’s associate smart policies are specific to associate roles, the associate smart policy is selected according to the associate’s role.
4. The associate smart policy rules are applied to create a list of onboarding tasks for the associate’s profile.
   
   If any onboarding tasks have verification lists, the associate smart policies for those tasks are applied now. The process for this associate verification is paused and remains with the Automating status until any automated processes for the other associate smart policies are complete (i.e. their risk is evaluated, their tasks are created, and their checks configured to run automatically are performed).
5. Any checks that have been configured to run automatically are performed and the results are displayed in the associate profile’s tasks.
6. The associate’s verification status is displayed based on the status of any remaining tasks (e.g. users may be required to manually pass tasks or customers may be required to complete forms). You can pass/fail tasks manually on the associate’s profile.
7. Once all tasks are passed, the associate’s approval status is determined by the smart policy. If automatic approvals are configured, the associate is approved automatically. If not, the associate’s approval status is displayed as Ready for decision, indicating a user will need to manually approve/reject the associate.

Seeing an associate’s profile

Click the associate’s name to open their profile.

Associate profiles always have the associate’s relation to the company displayed at the top.

The full relationship with the company is displayed at the bottom of the profile.

The profile’s tasks are displayed under Due diligence tasks. Click any task to see it and see what checks have been run for it.

To see the associate’s approval status for the application, go to their Applications section. Every role that the associate has is displayed as a separate application.

Approving or rejecting an associate

Applications for associates work in the same way as all applications: there are one or more due diligence tasks they need to pass, and you can run checks to help pass those tasks.

To approve or reject the associate, approve or reject their product application.

Pass/fail the task

You can configure the Identify officers, Identify shareholders, Identify trustees, or Identify authorised persons task to pass automatically when all associates are approved or when a specified number of associates are approved (e.g. 3).

To pass the task manually, click Mark task as complete and select Passed. The task is displayed as Task passed and its indicator displays a check mark.

To fail the task manually, click Mark task as complete and select Failed. Optionally, explain why you're failing the task in the Task notes.