The most common challenges for servicing SMSFs cited by accountants are:
While the challenges haven’t changed much over the years, the ways in which accounting firms are choosing to overcome each challenge has.
Below we examine the pros and cons of two the tried-and-true strategies that are helping accountants protect their profit margins and create more capacity within their teams.
You’d be hard pressed to find an accounting firm not using some sort of specialised SMSF software to automate many of the repetitive tasks and data entry required to maintain compliance and reduce SMSF admin time.
SMSF automation has demonstrated it can reduce SMSF admin time, provide guidance and alerts for key compliance dates and create more capacity to enable you to focus on attracting new clients.
PROs: significantly decrease some of the manual and repetitive tasks required for SMSF processing, data feeds to reduce time spent on data entry
CONs: implementation time and effort, staff training on new software, some data entry remains
While its common to delegate SMSF admin tasks within your firm, the specialist knowledge and skill sets required to ensure compliance for your clients can limit how many resources you can confidently delegate these tasks too.
To combat this restraint, many successful firms are also engaging the services of well-established outsourcing firms to take the load off their existing teams. Qualified and experienced SMSF specialists are up-to-date with the latest legislative requirements, can all the heavy lifting for you and create time for your experienced staff members to focus on higher value activities.
This strategy has the unique advantage of solving all of the common challenges listed above. Acting as an extension of your team, this model enables you to delegate time consuming SMSF admin to outsourced team members who are up to date with the latest legislation, have years of experience processing both simple and complex SMSFs, are expert users of the most common SMSF software and cost 50% less than recruiting additional headcount for your team.
PROs: Scale on demand with experts who require no training in either legislation or software, create capacity within your existing team to allow them to focus on attracting new clients or other high value activities, significantly reduce your ‘cost to serve’ SMSF clients and improve your profit margins
CONs: Ensure you engage an outsourced firm that can guarantee no hidden costs and provides you with a mechanism to retain transparency and control over workflows.
The Super Records team of qualified and experienced SMSF administrators offer end-to-end SMSF Administration from $450 per fund per year, so working with us ensures you get the benefits of ready to engage SMSF admin experts, improved efficiency and increased profit margins.
Super Records’ clients also retain full transparency and control over preparation and processing through our purpose-built and real time workflow portal.
With an increase in demand for SMSF administration expected over the coming years, now is the time to think about where you can improve your existing SMSF Administration processes and take full advantage of increased SMSF revenue.