Strategic administration provider SMSF Alliance has launched a service for advisers using algorithmic-based analysis to identify potential areas where valuable strategies may be appropriate for a fund or elements of compliance requiring attention.
Called the SMSF Toolbox, the service detects areas of advice practitioners may need to focus on for their SMSF clients in both a mathematic and a non-mathematic manner.
From a mathematic point of view, the application can alert advisers to strategic opportunities in areas such as total super balance compliance.
“We can offer alerts allowing advisers to be proactive for their SMSF clients and their total super balances for the 30 June coming. Real estate valuations are a good example. For valuations on real estate we’ve got RP Data desktop valuation on our service and revisiting this area can potentially help advisers ensure their client’s total super balance is under the $1.6 million limit,” SMSF Alliance practice principal David Busoli told selfmanagedsuper.
Similarly, the toolbox can aid advisers to consider recommending a fund drawdown to SMSF members to enable compliance with the total super balance, Busoli added.
However, he pointed out the level of detail the application offers with regard to a potential drawdown is a particularly valuable feature.
“We can provide the details of the fund. So in a situation where a fund has four pensions we can determine if one is grandfathered for social security purposes, and we can identify all of the components as well so if you have to make a drawdown, it is made from the right pension. All that data is there,” he noted.
“So we give advisers the strategy, but we can’t say it is a strategy until they’ve looked at the data. That’s pretty neat. It’s really a case of answering the questions they haven’t asked yet. A lot of these ideas the advisers may have themselves, but I’m sure we’d be digging up some things they hadn’t thought of.”
Another aspect of the toolbox is its data matching ability, whereby transactions, such as asset purchases with no specific detail, can be identified and addressed.
From a non-mathematical perspective the toolbox has the capability to compare documents and identify any existing disparities.
“Whenever we get binding death benefit nominations we match them to the trust deed to see if the deed actually empowers them. We have a number of advisers who think they’ve got a non-lapsing death benefit nomination in place, but when you look at the deed they don’t and it’s in breach of the deed,” Busoli said.
“So what we do is put an expiry date on the binding death benefit nominations to alert the adviser of this issue.”
According to Busoli, the data and associated advice strategies the toolbox provides are only delivered in relation to client circumstances that are appropriate.
“For example, with total super balance compliance we only provide data for those SMSF members that can bring their balances down [with some fine-tuning]. It’s not just a matter of numbers, it’s a matter of the experience of how we would normally use those numbers,” he said.
The SMSF Toolbox is being provided, at no additional cost, to advisers whose clients use the SMSF Alliance administration service.
