CoreData research conducted earlier this year into the sector has shown SMSF establishments are more likely to take place at one particular time every year.
Specifically, the study revealed establishments have peaked during the September quarter consistently every year between 2017 and 2021.
“What you actually see is the September quarter was always high and that September quarter activity obviously was the result of people seeing their accountants or advisers probably in June,” CoreData senior executive Grahame Evans told attendees at this year’s selfmanagedsuper CoreData SMSF Service Provider Awards.
Evans pointed out this finding has significance for all stakeholders of the sector.
“[Practitioners and service providers must ask themselves] are you planned, are you organised, are you managing around that because it’s an important one for providers in the room,” he suggested.
With regard to overall SMSF activity, he recognised the number of establishments has suffered a decline, but at the same time fund wind-ups have also reduced.
“[This] is actually pointing to a fact that we are in a situation where people are not quite certain what’s actually going to happen in the world and I think we’d all be in that same boat,” he said.
Further, the study found advisers have differing views and attitudes compared with trustees with reference to issues like the direction of the economy.
“I’m going to make a big observation here and partially it’s to do with, I think, the availability of information to accountants and advisers compared to the availability of information to trustees,” he noted.
“I think there’s a time lag and I think [we can] see a lag between the way [people] are thinking [about] the market and what they are actually doing.”
He also acknowledged the growth in the professional relationships between SMSF trustees and service providers.
“Being both a user and advocate for many, many years, it’s only going to go one place and that’s actually up,” he said.
The survey was conducted online between 26 July and 5 September and garnered responses from 240 financial advisers and accountants and 925 trustees.
