Self Managed Super Accountants

Who actually does the accounting and tax return work for your clients' self managed superannuation funds?

Unlike many firms these days - we do not send offshore, outsource, or sub-contract this work.

All your work is done by Ascendia's in-house, Australian resident, professional staff, working on site from our offices.

The back offices of our professional suites are only accessible to authorised Ascendia staff. Your records and your personal information are only accessed by these Ascendia's employees.

Your financial and personal infomation is retained securely on site at Ascendia's offices and archives storage - which are continuously alarmed and monotored. Our servers are firewalled and secure and maintained by Queensland Information Technology Services Pty Ltd. We return all your original records to you when we have completed the job.

We do not use sub-contractors or casual or part time staff who 'work from home' and who as a result have your records in environments which are not secure. We do not allow staff to 'take your file home' or 'work from home' for the same reasons.

Your privacy and security is maintained by having your work dealt with only by tried and tested in house employees working on our secure premises.

We take your infomation and financial and personal records and identity security very seriously.

What experience do your professional accountancy staff have with Super funds?

Our staff have strong skills in self-managed superannuation services.

We have provided accountancy services for super funds for over 12 years and have over 35 years combined experience in this area.

We provide cost effective and highly competent professional accountancy services to clients with relatively modest portfolio's, and to clients with relatively larger portfolio's. We have experience dealing with super funds with Assests valued form $150,000 to $13M.

Our current professional experience includes relating to super funds involving:

Multi million dollar portfolio's including all Australian Shares, Income Notes, OTC Bonds, all Managed Funds, Options, International Currency, Term Deposits, Cash, Collectibles (including Cars, Antiques and Art), and commodities including Gold and Silver Bullion.
Real Estate including Residential rental / investment property(s), Commercial Property, Industrila Property, Vacant Land, including relating to business real property, geared property.
Bare and Unit Trusts.
Commecial Lease agreements, Commercial loan agreements, Related Party Loan Agreements.
Use of personal insurance within the SMSF trust.

Our superannuation accountants have up to date experience dealing with superannuation matters pertaining to:

Death of a trustee
Establishment of retirement income streams, including for reversionary pensioners
Provision of death benefit termination payments
Superannuation for persons suffering a disability
Communication and liaision with the ATO to assist trustees requiring assitance to meet regulator requirements.

What kinds of assets can I have in my Self Managed Super Fund (SMSF)?

You can have almost any type of investment grade asset.

Examples include a rental house, a commercial property, Australian shares, shares listed on an overseas stock exchange, listed property trusts, listed income securities such as bonds, notes and hybrids, term deposits, bank accounts, exchange traded funds, managed funds operating under Australian regulatory regime, unlisted shares in Australian companies, unlisted shares in offshore companies, options, futures contracts.

There are however a number of rules about these assets when held by a super fund.

Your choice of assets may be impacted by the general rule that requires assets within a super fund be for the purpose of providing a retirement income. This removes the ability to use a super fund for 'trading' shares, or derivatives or housing stock (or anything).

The way in which assets are managed is an important issue in preserving the tax benefits of the super fund. These benefits are substantial and so are the penalties for breaching the rules.

An asset cannot be held that is used or provides benefit to a member or trustee or their associates (it must be an arms length investment), so holiday units used by trustees or rented to family are out.

We recommend you get advice from a Certified Financial Planner with strong experience in self managed superannuation before deciding to use an SMSF or what assets to buy or how to conduct an SMSF.

Do you provide comprehensive advice?

The short answer is yes. Clients can choose between two levels of advice:

1. Compliance Advice

This is provided by our Tax & Accounting Partners, as part of our accountancy service, and is designed for trustees who are wanting to "do-it-themselves" and do not require any more than advice about technical accounting and tax matters.

This level of advice does not discuss assets, their management or how to manage them, other than to highlight any compliance problems after we can see from the financial records you provide each year that they have occurred.

This service also advises in relation to preparing the accounts and tax return in accordance with the relevant regulations and statutory requirements.

2. Comprehensive Advice

This level of advice provides a comprehensive advisory service encompassing all things relating to the self managed super fund.

We offer this to clients who use both our Accountancy Service and our Investment Management Service. This is as well as undertaking the Accountancy Services and Compalince Advice, ascendia manages the assets in your fund in accordance with its investment advice to you.

The service includes:

recommendations on type of and specific assets to invest in
time to buy and sell assets
contribution management plans to maximise getting your capital into super (if that is appropriate)
how to adn whether to rollover other funds
the benefit of starting an income stream (timing) in the context of your other affairs, and so on.

Do you assist me to organise my audit?

Yes we can organise this for you. You don't have to do anything.

Can I operate an account-based pension from my SMSF?

Yes, our accounting / compliance level service supports this. You organise your assets and income and we provide accounting and tax services that report the income drawdown phase of the fund. We have all the relevant software and skills and undertake this service for a number of clients.

Our portfolio management service with Ascendia Investment Managers also supports this service except that this service does it all for you.