Choosing The Right Smsf Auditor

By Author: Cruz Martin
Total Articles: 187
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The trustee of an SMSF is mandatorily required to appoint an approved SMSF auditor to audit the fund each year, at least 45 days prior to the date when the SMSF annual return has to be lodged. With effect from July 1, 2013, Self Managed Superannuation Fund has mandatorily to be audited by an external approved SMSF auditor registered with Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC). Approved SMSF auditors will have an SMSF auditor number (SAN) issued on registration by the Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC).

As required by the law, the SMSF auditor to be appointed for auditing the SMSF funds must be an independent auditor, i.e., the approved SMSF auditor should not be a trustee or member of the Self Managed Superannuation Fund. The approved SMSF auditor chosen for auditing SMSF should not be the one who prepared the SMSF accounts. As mentioned here before also, an audit of the SMSF is mandatory even though no contributions or payments have been made in the income year. It’s wise to appoint an approved SMSF auditor early enough such that there remains proper time to audit and also ...
... lodge the annual return after the audit is completed. Before appointing the SMSF auditor it should be ensured on the ASIC website that auditor is not disqualified now.

Online services of offering SMSF audit and administration is rising more and more. The main benefit of using online SMSF audit service is the affordability. Online SMSF services are cheaper compared to directly dealing with an accountant. Relatively high affordability of online SMSF services has undoubtedly created a dramatic growth in the SMSF online services. Some specialist SMSF Audit firms such as ARC Super also provide SMSF Audit Toolkit which includes Audit programs & software for professional accounting bodies, software providers, & accounting firms, SMSF Audit Training and SMSF Training, and special monthly and quarterly in-house SMSF Audit Training and SMSF Training as per the firm’s requirements. The SMSF auditor must be capable of checking the fund’s compliance with the laws. If the auditor finds a breach of law, the auditor should give the SMSF firm a chance to fix the problem in order to get compliant with the law instead of straightaway reporting the breach of the law to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO). The approved SMSF auditor has to conduct both financial, and compliance audit of the SMSF and provide the audit report before the due date of the SMSF annual return and also audit finalization report. The auditor must be one that respects time & works with punctuality. Online SMSF services are very affordable compared to traditional direct accounting service as lot of processes in online SMSF services are automated which saves the SMSF provider’s lot of time and thus reduces the SMSF audit fees.