Independent SMSF Audit

We are an independent, ASIC-registered SMSF auditor in Bondi Junction, Sydney, and we audit self-managed super funds anywhere in Australia – electronically, from documents, without you needing to come in.

Every SMSF has to be audited each year before its annual return can be lodged, and the audit has to be done by an approved SMSF auditor who is registered with ASIC and genuinely independent of the fund. That is what we do – for trustees who want it handled properly, and for accountants and administrators who need an auditor at arm’s length from the books they have prepared.

Thomas Murmylo, director of Business Tax & Money House, is an ASIC-registered SMSF auditor – SMSF Auditor Number (SAN) 100090506. You are welcome to check it on ASIC's professional registers (choose the SMSF auditor register and search for 100090506) before you engage us. We have been auditing funds since the practice opened in 2009.

What the audit covers

An SMSF audit is two audits in one report:

• The financial audit – that the fund’s statements fairly reflect its position, that assets exist and belong to the fund, and that they are carried at market value as at 30 June.
• The compliance audit – that the fund met the SIS Act and Regulations for the year: sole purpose, contributions and their acceptance, benefit payments and pension minimums, in-house asset limits, arm’s-length dealings, loans and borrowings, and that the assets are held in the fund’s name and kept separate from the members’ own.

The result is the independent auditor’s report, which the trustees need before they can complete and lodge the fund’s annual return – it carries the auditor’s details and SAN.

How the audit works

1. Appoint us in time. Trustees must appoint an approved SMSF auditor each year, no later than 45 days before the fund’s annual return is due. Send us last year’s financial statements and we will quote first.
2. Send the file. The trustees give us the fund’s financial statements – the statement of financial position and the operating statement – and the supporting documents listed below. Everything can be uploaded; nothing needs posting.
3. We review and ask. We work through the financial and compliance audit and send one consolidated list of questions or missing items, rather than a drip of emails. Under super law, trustees must give the auditor information they ask for within 14 days of the request.
4. Sign-off. Once we have every document we have asked for, the audit report must be given to the trustees within 28 days. The single biggest thing that speeds it up is a complete file at the start.
5. Lodge. The trustees, or their accountant, lodge the annual return using the details from the audit report.

What trustees send us

The audit moves at the speed of the documents. A complete file at the start is the single biggest thing that shortens it:

• Signed financial statements and member statements for the year
• The trust deed and every amendment, plus trustee consents and ATO trustee declarations
• Bank statements covering the full year
• Holding statements, contract notes and registry confirmations for each investment
• Evidence of market value at 30 June for every asset – for property, a valuation or supporting comparables
• Contribution records, and rollover and benefit payment documentation
• Pension documentation and, where required, an actuarial certificate
• Trustee minutes and the fund’s investment strategy, reviewed for the year
• The prior year’s audit report and any management letter
• Signed trustee representation letter

If something on that list does not exist yet, say so early rather than late. Most audit delays are a missing valuation or an unsigned document, not a real problem with the fund.

Independence – and when it rules us out

Independence is the whole point of the audit. SMSF auditors must meet the independence standards in the professional code (APES 110), which the ATO checks in its compliance work. Under those standards, a firm that prepares a fund’s accounts cannot also audit that fund unless the accounting work is purely routine or mechanical – for example, posting transactions the trustees have already coded – and any remaining threats to independence are dealt with. An auditor also cannot audit their own fund or a fund of their immediate family.

We keep it simpler than the minimum: we do one job or the other for your fund, never both.

• If we prepare your fund’s accounts, or do any work for members or associates of the fund, we do not audit it. We will happily point you to an auditor who can.
• If we audit your fund, we do not prepare its accounts or give the trustees advice that we would then be auditing.

We also offer a compliance review – going through a fund and putting it in order before it goes to its auditor, so the audit finds nothing. The same rule applies: we can do the review or the audit for a given fund, not both.

If we find a contravention

Finding a problem does not automatically mean a report to the ATO. Where a breach meets the reporting tests, we are required to lodge an Auditor Contravention Report – but we will raise it with you first, and where it can still be rectified before we sign, we will tell you what that takes. Nothing in the audit report will be the first you hear of it.

What it costs

Our audits are reasonably priced, starting from $363 including GST. The fee for your fund depends on the volume of work – how many members and investments it has, whether there is property or a pension, and how complete the file is when it arrives. Send us last year's financial statements and we will quote before we start, not after.

Need the audit by a particular date? Tell us when you send the file and we will agree a turnaround with you. You deal with your auditor directly – in our office in Bondi Junction, or by phone.

Where we are

Our office is in Bondi Junction. Trustees and accountants across Sydney and the Eastern Suburbs are welcome to come in, and everyone else we look after electronically – the audit does not need you in the room.

Need the fund set up, or its accounts and tax return done? That is a separate engagement – see SMSF setup and management. We cannot then be the fund’s auditor, for the reasons above.

Questions trustees ask