Practitioners support specialised auditing
A vast majority of respondents to an SMSF Adviser straw poll have said self-managed super fund (SMSF) auditing should be restricted to registered, specialist auditors.
Of the 275 respondents to the straw poll, 194 (70.5 per cent) answered ‘yes’ to the question of whether SMSF auditing should be restricted to registered and specialist auditors.
Fifty-two respondents (18.9 per cent) voted ‘no’, while 24 (8.7 per cent) said ‘depends on the auditor’.
Andrea Slattery, chief executive officer of the SMSF Professionals’ Association of Australia (SPAA) agreed that specialist auditors should be working across all funds.
“[SMSF auditing] is a very important function. If you don’t have competencies then there’s a greater risk,” Ms Slattery told SMSF Adviser.
One respondent to the survey, Mario Schmid, said without registered specialist auditors, the integrity of the SMSF industry is at risk “due to the inability of SMSF members to be fully confident on the financial information presented”.
Similarly, Manoj Abichandani, director at SMSF Audit Link, said a deep knowledge of compliance is required to audit a super fund.
“It’s not a profession you can enter straight away ... good auditors have done compliance for at least five years,” Mr Abichandani told SMSF Adviser.
Mr Abichandani also said he believes auditor registration will improve the quality of audits and will “weed out” those who lack knowledge and experience.
“Good auditors will have no shortage of work,” he added.
Click here to have your say in our latest straw poll.
