About SMSF Cockpit

A trustee first

Warwick and his wife are the trustees of their own self-managed super fund, and have been for 20 years. For most of that time, Warwick ran the fund’s year from a spreadsheet: what was due and when, the minutes, the nominations, and what the auditor would ask for.

The spreadsheet was messy, it took a lot of time every year, and it was easy to miss something. So he built Cockpit to replace it, and it’s what he now uses to run their own fund.

Thirty years in financial markets

Warwick started in 1980, executing orders on the floor of the Sydney Futures Exchange and dealing in foreign exchange and the money market. He went on to director-level roles in institutional futures broking, and later was a partner in a private fund trading agricultural and financial futures and currencies.

For 20 years he also taught: as a part-time lecturer in derivative markets and risk for Kaplan, and as a guest lecturer in futures, options and risk management at QUT’s School of Economics and Finance.

Impact investment

Since 2010 Warwick has worked in microfinance and impact investment. At VisionFund, World Vision’s microfinance arm, he originated a $20 million impact bond and discussed it in a live interview on CNBC Asia. He is now involved with impact-investment companies in Kenya.

What Cockpit is, and isn’t

It keeps an SMSF’s compliance tasks, deadlines and records in one place. It is general information only: it’s not financial, tax or legal advice, and it doesn’t replace your accountant or auditor. It doesn’t lodge anything with the ATO, and it doesn’t track your investments, prices or cash balances.

Warwick’s background is in markets and finance, not SMSF tax law. That’s why every guide on this site is checked against the ATO’s own guidance, lists its sources, and says when it was last reviewed.