Finance

DIY Self-managed super funds ( SMSF) accounting tips

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If you haven’t heard already, SMSFs are new ways of retirement planning with attractive benefits. These are pension funds that offer flexibility in the investment decision-making process, as members of such funds can have pivotal role in upper management. SMSFs, like other retirement funds have some legal boundaries and conditions that fund members need to respect in order to stay in the borders of legal investment activities. These funds are organized with several members that judge and influence work of the fund’s trustee – a person chosen by the members to make vital decisions in financial activities. Yet, not all activities within the fund can be performed without the help of experts. Hence, SMSF accounting tasks are usually outsourced to third part SMSF accountants that have successful portfolios and expertise in this field. But many SMSF members do accounting on their own and we’ll show you that you don’t need a degree in accounting to conduct your own audit reports.

Like we stated earlier, you don’t need special skills to do your own accounting. At least not for a super fund. However, you should get informed about the procedure on how to get your accounts and tax return audit. A descent accounting company can charge you around 350$- 500$ a year to get things done. It is important that before you make a decision to act as a SMSF accountant, you need to make some calculation whether the amount of tax return is worth your time and effort. If your tax return predictions are not that exciting, then maybe it is best to outsource this task. On the other hand, if you feel like you want to expand your knowledge in accounting by doing this, then it is worth the effort.

Many experienced SMSF accountants will tell you that the trick in preparing your tax returns is getting informed on which documents you need and what kind of information you need to fill in. If you can find sources online that precisely point out these documents you can save a lot of time and money. This is very important because any misguided information can lead to false returns and you will be penalized. Documentation for other SMSF accounting tasks can be more difficult because there are so many forms to find and fill correctly. But again, many government institutions have staff that can point you in the right direction in this process and ease your job.

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