Rosie Squibb is a Chartered Accountant operating her own practice in the Nambucca Valley on the mid-north coast of NSW and provides tax and accounting services and advice to SMSF trustees.
As readers will know, Section 35C of the SIS Act requires all superannuation funds, regardless of size or type, to be audited on an annual basis. This must be performed by an ASIC registered auditor that is an independent entity to the practice providing other accounting services to the fund.
For Rosie’s SMSF client auditing this year, she turned to the services of Assured Super.
“It was an easy process, and everything proceeded well,” she says. “After an initial chat with Sharif to discuss using their services” (Sharif Eldebs is the principal at Assured Super), “we looked at how the process could be streamlined to minimise my time. Although I knew what would be required for the audit, Assured also provided a checklist.”
A lot of audit verifications can be done online, and after the next step in the Assured process, giving it access to her client’s fund’s data files and documents, Rosie found that Assured Super could select what was needed as part of its procedure, rather than her having to gather and forward everything.
“Assured has a portal through which all necessary documentation can be easily uploaded for the audit” she says. “And being an online accessible portal, I can be at a client’s premises, for example, and be able to access the portal and feed information to Assured (should that be necessary, which wasn’t this time).”
The streamlining Assured could put in place for Rosie made the auditing task painless. “I could just let it run its course, so that after putting access in place with the software that I use, and providing all required documents and reports, Assured took over and it was all done,” she says. The cloud-based software Rosie uses is BGL Simple Fund 360, she says that the ability to electronically sign and store documents made for easy sharing of the relevant documents.
After Assured accessed the fund data, Rosie received an email with a list of additional documents required. She uploaded these the next day via the secure portal, and a couple of days later received the audit engagement and trustee representation letters for her client to sign. After these were signed she was able to forward them to Assured (which she remembers was a Saturday) and by the next Tuesday had the completed audit report.
“I would expect that being my first year with a new auditing firm will mean that the turnaround next time will be improved – not that I wasn’t happy with it this year — because the initial fund information needed from me will now be on file. For example the standard engagement letter can be obtained earlier to speed up that part.”
Going back to Assured for the next audit is not a question for Rosie. “I would recommend these services to any SMSF professional. It is easy to use, Sharif is pleasant to deal with, and is efficient and knowledgeable in the field.”
#[annual audit], [audit], [compliance], [Smsf], [smsfs]
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