Glossary
This page contains brief definitions for key concepts in the context of Proofdesk. Many of these will already be familiar to compliance professional, while some are introduced by Proofdesk to help you complete your compliance process faster, and allow more seamless collaboration with your team.
Please also refer to the regulator's Guidance Glossary 2021
Policies
Policies in Proofdesk allow you to achieve 2 things:
Configuration Policies: Set out rules for Proofdesk to enforce about your compliance process - i.e: what ID&V your team need to collect, what questions need to be answered in your CRAs / IRAs, the risk classifications available, and what a risk classification means for a relationship.
Custom Policies: Optionally store any other AML/CFT policies you'd like to keep on file as text or .PDF.
Learn more about policies.
Entities
Each individual, company, partnership, trust or foundation that you identify is stored in Proofdesk as a unique entity. Entities are blueprints for customers, controlling parties, beneficial owners and introducers. It's where ID&V and supporting documents are stored about that given entity.
They are reusable in multiple relationships or multiple times in a relationship as needed - this makes it easy to maintain information about an entity and synchronise it anywhere it appears. You simply link the entity to a new relationship and your previous ID&V efforts will automatically carry across all its involvements, and update as further ID&V is completed in the future.
Learn more about entities.
Identities
Identities are forms on entities that store information about the entity - it's identity components.
Learn more about identities.
Identity Components
Identity components are individual pieces of information about an entity, such as name, address, incorporation details etc...
Learn more about identity components.
Relationships
A relationship is the record of the business relationship / occasional transaction that you enter into with each of your customers.
This is where relationship reviews, CRAs, IRAs and relationship approvals take place.
Learn more about relationships.
Internal Reference
Internal references are used throughout Proofdesk that are essentially custom identification numbers. They are text inputs that allow you to set a custom identifier for a relationship, entity etc...
Entity Type
Entity types categorise entities into 4 different groups:
While entity types exist primarily for categorisation, they also inform identities about which identity components can be collected for a certain entity. For instance a Legal Person may have an incorporation date, whereas a natural person would have a date of birth.
Learn more about entities and their types here.
Form Version
Every time a form is edited in Proofdesk, the changes appear in a new version to maintain a history of events.
Learn more about forms and their versions here.
Attachment
Many forms in Proofdesk can have files attached to them in the form of .pdf and common image formats.
Learn more about forms and their attachments here.
Role
A role is a set of permissions that dictate what a team member can do within Proofdesk on behalf of your organisation. Every member has a role and each role is fully customisable.
Learn more about users, members, roles & grants
Regulated Activities
When you create your organisation in Proofdesk, you'll be asked to provide its name and a list of licence types that it holds. This information should match the data shown about your organisation on the FSA's register.
Learn more about organisations and regulated activities here.
Invitation
An invitation is how you invite someone to your organisation using their email address. When you create an invitation, the person receives an email with the necessary secure link to join the organisation. If they already have a Proofdesk account, it is linked to your organisation - otherwise they'll be taken through the process of creating an account.
Access to your organisation can be revoked any time.
Learn more about users and invitations here.
Relationship Approval
A relationship approval is the final sign-off of a relationship review where the final risk classification is assigned to the relationship. This would typically be done by a senior team member.
Learn more about relationships and approvals here.
Relationship Deletion
Remove the relationship from the system entirely and irreversibly. It is distinct from relationship termination.
Relationship Termination
Marks the end of a customer relationship and keeps all customer data for evidence. It is distinct from relationship deletion.
Learn more about relationship termination.
Remediation
Remediation is when a relationship review is sent back to the profiling stage for further work, after a senior team member has checked over it during the relationship approval stage.
Learn more about relationship approvals and remediations here.
Statistical Return
The statistical return is the annual submission to the regulator about your organisation's aml/cft process. Proofdesk generates the necessary statistics for you based on the data within your organisation.
Please refer to Statistical Return Guidance 2023
Learn more about the statistical return within Proofdesk here.
ML/FT Enquiries
Money Laundering / Financing of Terrorism Enquiries are requests for information received from a competent authority. Within Proofdesk you can keep a register of these enquiries.
Learn more about ML/FT enquiries within Proofdesk here.
Disclosures
Disclosures are the reports of suspicious activity with regards to aml/cft within an organisation's business relationships. These are internal when reported to the MLRO/DMLRO and external when it is escalated to a competent authority. Within Proofdesk you can keep a register of these disclosures.
Learn more about disclosures within Proofdesk here.
Reports
The central place in Proofdesk where all your reports to the regulator are stored. This includes: generated statistical returns, disclosures and ML/TF enquiries.
Learn more about reports.
Dashboard
The dashboard is an area within Proofdesk where an overview of the state of the organisation can be found. It includes useful statistics and relationships requiring attention from team members.
Learn more about dashboard.
Relationship Flags
A relationship flag indicates that the relationship needs to be reviewed by a team member immediately, rather than waiting for its scheduled review date. Relationships are flagged manually by your team and disappear once a review begins. Flags are well suited for highlighting relationships to be included in an internal review, or when a trigger event occurs.
Learn more about relationships.
Owner
The owner of a relationship is the team member within your organisation who is primarily responsible for the relationship.
Learn more about relationships.
Subscriber
A subscriber of a relationship is a team member who receives notifications about a relationship within your organisation, but is not primarily responsible for it. A relationship can have many subscribers.
Learn more about relationships.
Warning Flags
Warning flags are tags on an entity that signify areas of potential concern/interest at a glance - PEP, Sanctions, Adverse Media etc..
In the dashboard, the warning flags widget counts how many entities have a flag like this.
Learn more about entities.
Controlled Parties
A view of a controlling party relationship between two entities in the opposite direction - while a controlling party describes the subject entity's shareholders and directors etc... controlled parties describes the subject entity's shareholdings and directorships etc...
Learn more about controlling parties.
Verification Documents
Verification Documents are forms that store any documents (as pdf or common image formats) as proof for identity components of an entity.
Learn more about verification documents.
Forms
Forms in Proofdesk are the building blocks, or units of work within your entire compliance workflow. Every piece of work is evidenced by a respective form, which each have a full version history to allow for detailed accounts of events.
Learn more about forms.
CDD
Customer Due Diligence
ECDD
Enhanced Customer Due Diligence
ID&V
Identification and Verification. In proofdesk this is done using identities and verification documents on entities.
Learn more about entities.
Signature
Every form requires at least one signature from a team member to switch its status from 'Draft' to 'Signed'. These signatures are confirm who completed the form. Signatures are date stamped.
Learn more about forms.
Counter Signature
Relationship Approval Forms may require more than one signature to approve the relationship. This is determined by the relationship's risk level and the organisation's Risk Level Policy.
Learn more about relationship approvals.
Customer
The entity that is your organisation's customer. Customers are stored inside relationships.
Learn more about relationships.
Controlling Party
Controlling parties of an entity record business relationships between itself and a related entity. They can be used to build a structure detailing the subject entity's shareholders, directors, underlying clients, or third party recipients of funds. Each subsequent entity may in turn have its own list of controlling parties.
Learn more about controlling parties.
Beneficial Owner
Beneficial owners are controlling parties that have ultimate beneficial ownership of a customer.
Learn more about controlling parties.
Introducer
The introducer is the entity that introduced a relationship, there can be zero or more introducers per relationship.
Learn more about introducers.
Justification
A free text area appearing in many places throughout Proofdesk, allowing organisations to demonstrate their reasoning behind decisions.
Notifications
Proofdesk will send users an email notification when a key event occurs to a relationship they are subscribed to. Users can customise their notification settings to only recieve notifications about events relevant to them.
Risk Classification
An organisation's risk classifications are used to classify the estimated level of ML/TF risk posed by a given relationship. The risk classifications used by the organisation are determined by the Risk Level Policy. Every active relationship has a current risk classification.
Learn more about risk classification policies.
Scheduled Review Date
All active relationships have a Scheduled Review Date which is automatically calculated by Proofdesk and indicated when the relationship should be reviewed. These dates are based on the date that the relationship's most recent review was completed, the relationships current risk level and the organisation's Risk Level Policy.
Learn more about relationship reviews.
Relationship Review
Reviews of a relationship including: onboarding review, all subsequent periodic reviews, and any other reviews that may arise spontaneously (eg: from trigger events).
Learn more about relationship reviews.
Relationship Status
A relationship's status is used to display which stage of the customer lifecycle it is currently in. This gives all of your team members an at-a-glance view of the relationship's compliance status. Relationship status's are automatically calculated by Proofdesk and do not need to be manually updated. Relationship statuses are:
Onboarding - The relationship is in its first review and a decision has not yet been made.
Active - The relationship has received the necessary approvals.
Closed - The relationship has ended after previously being active.
Declined - The relationship was never approved.
Terminated - The relationship has ended on the grounds of ML or TF concerns.
Learn more about relationships.
Review Status
Every Relationship Review has an accompanying status which can be used to tell what needs to be done. There are three possible statuses:
Profiling
Approval
Completed
Learn more about relationship reviews.
Organisation
Your organisation is the workspace that contains all of your business' data. Each organisation refers to a particular "Relevant Person" or "Licence Holder".
Learn more about Organisations.
Members
Members are the users within Proofdesk who can access your organisation's information and take actions. User's can be members of multiple organisations, and organisations can build teams out of multiple members.
Learn more about Members.
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