The time it takes to complete administrative processes and reporting for SMSFs will be cut once pricing comes down and data feeds from the real estate industry become available.
“As the price of software goes down, we see that there will be more daily, weekly or monthly processing of SMSFs,” Odyssey Resources chief executive David Carter told selfmanagedsuper.
“It’s not particularly happening [right now], but we anticipate it will happen.
“And we’re building that up as a service to offer.”
Carter said the key reasons that shift was yet to happen was price as well as no data feeds from particular sources.
“Financial planners seem to have more control over the super fund, more so than accountants, who only get something historical,” he said.
“If the financial planner can have a low-cost solution that does data feeds into other accounting or bookkeeping software, if that part of the market can be fixed up, then certainly share purchases and bank transactions can go into an online package.
“All we’re missing is some of the exotics, which probably will never have data feeds because they’re overseas, but the rental property statements are a big one and at some point in time someone will work out a system by which rental property statements can feed information into an online system.
“I think that’s the last thing we’re waiting on – for the real estate industry to have automatic data feeds into one of the online systems.”
Commenting on the way outsourcing was evolving in the SMSF space, he said more parts of the SMSF administrative responsibilities were becoming united.
“The outsourcing area is moving towards becoming a one-stop shop, which is where an accounting firm will send over a tax return to be done and we will complete the tax return, with an actuarial certificate if they want one, and ask if they also want an SMSF audit and arrange that back to an Australian auditor,” he said.
“So the one-stop shop is the way all outsourcing service providers are going and we’re certainly in that space as well.”
Odyssey Resources is an independent, Australian-owned outsourced accounting services firm based in Vietnam.
