Financial advice practitioners seeking to expand their SMSF knowledge now have access to a new self-paced online course from Smarter SMSF that will carry industry-recognised continuing professional development (CPD) credits.
Smarter SMSF chief executive Aaron Dunn said the specialist SMSF education firm’s new SMSF Foundations Course had been built over the past 10 months to help advice practitioners understand the core requirements of SMSFs.
The course will consist of six modules covering the establishment of SMSFs, investment and contribution rules, the paying of pensions and other benefits, taxation of SMSFs and member benefits, and statutory reporting and responsibilities.
Collectively, the six modules would provide 18 hours of CPD recognised by the SMSF Association, the Tax Practitioners Board, the major accounting bodies and the Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority, according to Dunn.
The course modules, which contain a mix of slides, videos and spoken word information, will be updated as changes are made, with Dunn stating during a webinar the updates would tie in with the firm’s quarterly technical updates and that a change log will allow users to revisit any information that had been updated.
Dunn, however, pointed out the course was not designed for SMSF specialists who have already attained a high level of training, but for advice practitioners looking to start building their SMSF knowledge base.
“I want to make it very clear that it is not pitched at a specialist level. Where it is pitched at is for people that have up to an intermediate level around SMSFs,” he said.
“So, you may be at an early stage of your learning with SMSFs and may be working specifically with them, so this is a great course to ensure that your breadth of knowledge around these core requirements has been built and built in a satisfactory way.”
He said the course would also be suitable for general practitioners who advise on SMSFs as part of their wider work and for support teams based in Australia or offshore. It has a time limit of four months for completion.
Each module would be separately assessed for CPD and anyone who did not complete the course in the set time would still receive CPD for any modules they had done.
The course is priced at $550 for the four-month access with a single CPD certificate issued and ongoing access can be purchased for an additional $220 a year, with enterprise pricing for more than 20 users also available on a case-by-case basis.
