What goes in the SMSF audit pack

The rules for the annual audit

• An approved SMSF auditor must audit the fund every year, even if nothing happened in the fund that year.
• Appoint them no later than 45 days before the fund’s annual return is due.
• The audit must be finished before the annual return is lodged, because the return needs details from the audit report.
• The auditor must be registered with ASIC (their SMSF auditor number goes on the return) and independent: not someone with a financial interest in the fund, or a close personal or business relationship with the members or trustees.
• Before they start, give the auditor the fund’s financial statements for the year: the operating statement and the statement of financial position. If they ask for more, you must provide it within 14 days.

What the auditor looks at

Two things: the fund’s financial statements, and whether the fund has complied with super law. The auditor gives you a report, must tell you about any breaches they find, and must report certain breaches to the ATO. As trustee, you should fix any breach as soon as possible.

Documents auditors commonly ask for

This is the list SMSF Cockpit uses. Your auditor may want more, or less:

Signing the financial statements

Before the audit is finalised, trustees must sign the operating statement and the statement of financial position:

• Individual trustees: with 2 trustees, both sign. With 3 or more, at least half sign.
• A corporate trustee: with 1 or 2 directors, all sign. With 3 or more, at least half sign.

Making next year easier

Most of the pack is records you create during the year: minutes, the strategy review, pension payments, nominations. Keeping them as you go, rather than rebuilding them after 30 June, is what makes an audit straightforward.

How SMSF Cockpit helps, and where it stops

The Annual Audit Checklist keeps each year’s audit in one place: the auditor’s details and independence, the engagement letter, the 19-item document pack above (each marked to do, gathered, sent or not applicable), eight trustee confirmations, the auditor’s report, any breach the auditor reported, a list of findings and what was done about them, and the lodgement dates. A readiness check looks across the other pages for things an auditor will test, such as whether the strategy was reviewed and the year’s decisions were minuted. It can be printed or downloaded, and your accountant can see it with view-only access.

What it doesn’t do: the list is a starting point, and your auditor decides what they need. The app records where each document is; it doesn’t store the files. The trustee confirmations are your own statements, which the app doesn’t verify. It only judges lodgement as late once you enter your fund’s due date. Two parts of the readiness check are simplified: contributions are checked against a single yearly cap per member (not the carry-forward or bring-forward rules), and transfer balance account reports (TBAR) against the quarterly deadline only, so a fund where every member has under $1 million may show as overdue too early.