You must appoint an independent approved auditor to audit your self-managed superannuation fund (SMSF) each income year. An approved auditor:
- examines your SMSF's financial statements
- assesses your overall compliance with the super laws.
An approved auditor must be a registered company auditor or a member of certain professional organisations. They need to follow professional auditing standards, which includes the requirement that the audit be conducted independently. An SMSF professional may help you find an approved auditor.
Before the annual audit, you or your SMSF professional must prepare statements about your accounts and transactions for the previous income year. You must sign these financial statements and then send them to the approved auditor.
You need to give your auditor, in a timely manner, any further documentation they request so they can audit your SMSF. One of these documents will be a letter from you stating that, to the best of your knowledge, the SMSF complies with the requirements of the relevant super laws.
You must have your auditor's report before you lodge your SMSF annual return. To meet this deadline, you need to allow enough time for your auditor to conduct the audit.
Your auditor will also notify us if they:
- find you've breached relevant super laws
- have concerns about your SMSF's financial position.
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From 1 July 2013, you must appoint an approved SMSF auditor. Approved SMSF auditors are auditors who have registered with the Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC). ASIC will maintain a register of approved SMSF auditors and people who have been disqualified from acting as an SMSF auditor.
For more information, visit their website at www.asic.gov.au/smsf-auditor
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The Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Regulations 1994 define an approved auditor of an SMSF as any of the following:
- a member of CPA Australia Ltd
- a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia
- a member of the National Institute of Accountants
- a member or fellow of the Association of Taxation and Management Accountants
- a fellow of the National Tax and Accountants Association Ltd
- an SMSF specialist auditor of the SMSF Professionals' Association of Australia Ltd
- a registered company auditor
- an auditor-general of the Australian Government, a state or a territory.
An approved auditor will review your SMSF to assess if your:
- financial statements are a true and fair representation of the financial status of the SMSF
- SMSF has complied with the relevant super laws.
They will seek appropriate evidence and information from you and other sources which support the findings about the status of your SMSF.
They will provide you with a letter of engagement before the audit is conducted, confirming their appointment and highlighting the agreed scope of the audit.
Once the audit is completed, the auditor will provide you with:
- an SMSF independent audit report
- a management letter or audit finalisation report that summarises the findings of the audit and may recommend action to be taken by the trustees.
If the auditor believes the financial position of the SMSF is unsatisfactory or certain types of material contraventions are likely to have occurred, the auditor must report these matters to us.
We have a compliance program looking at the work that approved auditors do for trustees. We check to see whether they have found the correct compliance breaches and reported what should have been reported to us.
However, if you (as a trustee) want to take any action against an approved auditor, you can contact their relevant professional association.
For more information about auditors for SMSFs, refer to Approved auditors and self-managed super funds - Role and responsibilities of approved auditors.
Last Modified: Wednesday, 30 January 2013