Use it or lose it: Checklist for PPSR Renewals

The PPSR is a critical form of insurance that’s become a necessary part of operating a business that hires, leases or extends credit to customers. It’s there to protect your business so you can recover property that rightfully belongs to you when a customer becomes insolvent or defaults on payment.

But you’ll only be protected if you’ve registered and continue registering your interest. Because, under the Personal Property Securities Act (PPSA), your ownership won’t be legally recognised unless your interest has been correctly registered or renewed on the PPSR.

Being registered means you’re not left high and dry when the insolvency practitioner comes in to divvy up the spoils. It means you can sit at the negotiation table, confident that you have a valid claim to recovering your property.  So, make sure you register. Make sure you do it properly, and on time.

Use it or lose it, as they say.

Just as importantly, you’ll need to keep on top of your registrations, which means having a process in place for renewals and checking that your customer details are still current. A lapsed rego or one that has old customer / grantor identification details is as good as useless.  

To help, we’ve developed a step-by-step checklist of what you’ll need to do in the lead up to the next round of renewals…

Step 1: Review current PPS registrations

Pull up your current batch of PPS registrations.

Check the expiration date to see which ones are due to expire.

Step 2. Check customer details

Check your current PPS registrations against your ledger of customers.

Do you still have a security interest with them?

If so, check that their details are current. Has the company de-registered, have they changed their ACN / ABN, company name or contact details?  If ANY of their details have changed, update these now.

EDX from Equifax offers a PPSR Health Check Service that provides you with the most up-to-date information on your customers to ensure you correctly identify grantor details in your registration.

Step 3. Identify renewals

Once you’ve worked out which customers you still have a security interest with AND you’ve updated any changed customer details, these will be the registrations you’ll need to renew.

Step 4. Renewal method

Seek expert advice on the best method to renew. Ask the following two questions:

1. Will these be simple renewals or are there issues with the registrations that need to be corrected when I renew?
2. Can I renew these registrations myself or should I use an expert?

The answers will depend on how many renewals are needed and how simple or complicated they are.

EDX from Equifax provides an Assurance Review service that checks all your existing registrations to identify any mistakes or issues that need to be rectified before renewing.

If the renewals are simple, then re-registering them yourself manually should be fine. If there are many and complicated registrations to renew, it could be safer and more cost-effective to use an expert.

Step 5. Budget

Seek approval for a PPSR renewal budget. The size of the budget will depend on how many registrations need renewing, and whether you’re needing expert assistance,

Step 6. Inform IT

Alert your IT team that they’ll soon be getting a lot of renewed registrations.

Step 7. Renew!

The earlier the better. Don’t leave it to the last minute – especially if you have a large amount of renewals to get through – because everyone will be rushing to do the same thing and you don’t want to be on the wrong side of the processing volume rules.

Give yourself at least one month before the expiration date to renew. That way, it’s done and out of the way, and you won’t be stressing the day before expiration wondering if your rego was renewed on time.  Remember: a lapsed rego is a useless rego and a big risk for your business.

Step 8. Maintenance

If you haven’t already, now’s the time to think about implementing a registration renewal process to make sure you’re always on top of your regos and customer details.

A lapsed or incorrect registration could void your security interests and cost you hundreds and thousands of dollars, not to mention risk the viability of your business, if you end up losing collateral to an insolvent customer.

EDX from Equifax has been assisting businesses with the PPSA and PPSR since the legislation was introduced in 2012. And since then, we’ve been helping hundreds of businesses recover their personal property from customers who have defaulted on payment or gone belly up. 

We can advise on the best systems and processes for ongoing renewals, and we’ll tailor a cost-effective solution for the specific needs of your business.

For further information, or to speak to a PPSR specialist, simply contact EDX from Equifax.

Disclaimer: The information contained in this article is general in nature and does not take into account your personal objectives, financial situation or needs. Therefore, you should consider whether the information is appropriate to your circumstance before acting on it, and where appropriate, seek professional advice from a finance professional such as an adviser.