Participants and roles

Understanding participants and roles

The Administrator invites and assigns all roles to participants. These roles control levels of access in the FairSplit app. The Divisee role is only possible in divisions.

These roles and their corresponding permissions are:

Sponsor

• A sponsor can edit and invite participants, including administrators.
• She is the person who paid FairSplit for the plan.

Asset lister

• A lister can view and edit the inventory. She can add photos, assets and descriptions of items, categorize them, etc.
• Some families have a couple of people assigned to this role to get things listed faster.

Valuator

• A valuator, whether she is a professional appraiser or not, can only set estimated prices/values for assets. She can change nothing else in the inventory.

Divisee

• A divisee is a beneficiary of the division. She is entitled to a percentage of all the assets, called "allocation percentage".
• She participates in division rounds, bidding in them to receive a portion of the assets.
• This role makes sense in divisions, but not in inventories.

Administrator

• An administrator can invite other people into the division and set their roles, like a sponsor.
• Like a lister, she can list assets, edit the inventory, add and change properties, rooms, categories, etc.
• She sets up division rounds and makes decisions after them.
• She may change asset distribution in order to keep divisees close to their allocation percentage or sometimes with mutual requests for an asset swap at the end. (But the distribution recommendations done by the system are shown separately and cannot be edited, so those will always be available for all parties to see).

Division observer

• A division observer cannot change anything, but can view inventory and division rounds.
• This role is often given to mediator, probate or estate attorneys.

Inventory observer

• An inventory observer cannot change anything and cannot see participants, division rounds, reports or the overview. She can only see properties, rooms and assets.
• Often used to invite an estate sales agent or a moving company to view what is to be sold, moved or donated.

Participants can have more than one role; for example, John B. can be both Divisee and Asset Lister. It's normal for an Administrator to serve as the Asset Lister. Sometimes a third party may be asked to value the assets and may be given roles of Lister and Valuator. The Administrator may also change participant roles later; for example, a Lister role may be given to a Divisee to help with the tasks of creating the asset list, then that lister role may be removed after completion. If Divisees are not helping create the asset inventory, Administrators usually will not invite them until after the photographs have been added to rooms, associated with assets as needed, and assets have been listed.

Needed participants and role descriptions

The type and complexity of division you are doing will determine the number of participants needed.

An inventory only use of FairSplit with no division of assets planned needs at least one participant. If only one participant, that person will be both Sponsor and Administrator.

There are many combinations of participants to create the Inventory. Below are three:

1 - One user with the roles of Sponsor and Administrator.

2 - Two users: Bruce as Sponsor and Joan as Administrator.

3 - Three users: Joan as Sponsor and Administrator, Michael as Valuator and Peter as Valuator and Asset Lister. This would represent a collaborative effort to get all assets listed and valued.

A division needs at least two participants. Each will be a Divisee. In the case of an inventory only, you need a Sponsor and an Administrator.

Here are three examples of valid setups for divisions.

1 – A two (2) participants division: Joan with the roles of Sponsor, Administrator and Divisee and Michael with the role of Divisee.

2 - A three participants division: Joan with the roles of Sponsor and Administrator, Michael with the role of Divisee and Peter with the role of Divisee.

3 – Another three participants division: Joan with the role of Sponsor, Michael with the roles of Administrator and Divisee and Peter with the roles of Asset Lister and Divisee.

All three of the above examples allow at least one user to:

• Create and edit the inventory
• Set estimated values of assets
• Set up division rounds
• Have access to asset distribution editing in case participants want to balance fair market values to be closer to allocation percentages or exchange assets.
• Set distribution to other areas like sell, donate, stays, etc.

The last three tasks can only be done by an Administrator role.

Invite participants

If more than one person will be using the FairSplit app, the Sponsor or Administrator will invite others to join. To invite someone:

1 - Go to the people page by clicking on People in the menu at the top of the screen.

2 - Click on Invite someone.

3 - Complete a simple invitation form with the participant’s e-mail and name.

4 - Next, define the participant’s role (see previous section for more details). Check the participant’s role(s). If the participant is a divisee (division beneficiary) you also need to set assign the allocation percentage field with the percentage entitled that the participant has in the division. For example, John B. is a devisee with 60% allocation.

(Note: If two or more tiers of a family are being included - such as step kids, grandkids, etc. –, one may decide to divide those assets after an initial division has been completed, inviting that next tier with the percentages will begin again on the remaining items and those divisees newly invited to the next tier of dividing. If you want to provide access to the second tier throughout, begin with them only set as division observers.)

5 - Personal messages may be added to the invitation email. Use it to explain what's going on, and why they're getting this email in your own words.

6 – If you have family, or others helping to list the assets, assign more than one Lister, and divide the tasks of listing. Any roles may be edited by the Administrator at any time, so one can remove Lister later, and keep only as a Divisee, or add a Valuator to help value assets, then remove that role after values are set.

7 – The Administrator is the key controller of the division. They are often a divisee as well, but the role is one that full trust of all other divisees is critical. Some families choose an independent third party or other trusted individual for this key role.

8 – Finally, check if all the information is correct and send the invitation by clicking the “Invite” button:

A message will be displayed saying the participant has been invited.

Divisees survey

When joining a division, a divisee is prompted to answer a short survey. The answers help the division administrator set the tone of the division process.

We want to have an understanding of the concerns and goals of each divisee. Our software is set up to provide tools best suited to keeping all parties confident in the system, knowing that their wishes are being honored and valued equally with those of the Administrator and other participants.