By Annette Sheppard
When you spend too much time working ‘in’ a self-managed super fund (SMSF), reacting to issues or wading through 12 months of data at tax time, there’s not a lot of time left to work ‘on’ the funds and achieve better results for clients.
Yet advisers must adhere to legislative requirements that require them to act in a client’s best interests, to protect SMSF trustees and their investments.
So how can you ensure you’re meeting those requirements, managing every fund with efficiency and care, and adhering to Best Interest Duties, all at the same time?
Daily Administration
A daily administration service for your funds provides regular collection and management of documentation and keeps everything within your SMSF portfolio up to date on a day-to-day basis.
Any changes to how funds work thanks to legislation or new reporting criteria are communicated immediately, and activity in the fund is kept track of in detail.
With a dashboard that provides everything you need right at your fingertips, it’s much easier to stay on top of regulatory requirements. Regular compliance alerts enable you to provide clients with up to the minute advice and offer value far beyond simple end-of -year tax return completion.
Meeting Best Interest Duties
As an adviser, it’s essential to do everything you can to meet a client’s best interests. This might seem obvious, but it’s also written into law, and needs to be taken seriously.
To meet your Best Interest Duties and give the most effective advice possible, you need to know everything about your client. Yet, if a client’s SMSF is on an annual administration service, the financials of that fund might currently date all the way back to 2018 – making it impossible to give them the best advice.
With daily administration, you’ll be notified whenever something happens with an account linked to a SMSF. For example, if money is withdrawn, you’ll receive a notification requesting receipts so you can reconcile this immediately. Instead of waiting until the end of the year to discover if there are any issues, you’ll know straight away.
When it comes to EOFY, funds are better reconciled and in significantly better shape, thanks to daily checks and updates. Meeting your Best Interest Duties is simple as you’re always offering advice and making decisions based on up-to-the-day information.
This transparency and access to information is already expected for clients in retail super funds, so it’s critical that SMSF clients are offered the same level of service.
Delivering Above and Beyond
Daily administration helps you manage your client book better from a compliance point of view, but also enables you to offer a higher level of service by reducing your own administrative burden.
Advisers who use a daily administration service can easily uncover funds that aren’t 100 per cent compliant by running a quick search. Likewise, funds that may benefit from some timely advice, such as those in pension mode that haven’t met the minimum requirements for the year, or funds of members turning 65 in the financial year. Running searches across many funds and finding previously undiscovered issues allows you to approach the trustee with the best contribution strategy to employ.
Smart analysis of funds in this way makes it easier to address issues across many clients every day. It also makes life easier – you have less admin work to do on the daily, and no need to chase up clients for documentation or clarification. Put simply, less hassle.
A constantly updated dashboard that consolidates up-to-date information from ASIC and other regulators means you’re always in the know. You have more time to build a strong relationship with clients, and ultimately improve the returns of the funds.
Trust and confidence
Daily administration gives advisers the information and systems they need to make better informed decisions and offer advice to clients about their funds.
When records are kept up to date, compliance issues can be dealt with quickly. It’s much easier for to meet your Best Interest Duties and other regulatory requirements when you have the most up to date information available. And the advice you can offer is more reliable, impactful and relevant.
Most importantly, daily administration gives you the opportunity to spend more time working on funds to ensure their success and deliver results.
