SMSF practitioners warned on impact of big bank admin offerings

The SMSF administration offerings coming forward from the large institutions will make the annual processing services of some smaller firms “look anaemic” by comparison, one SMSF software company has warned.

Class CEO Kevin Bungard said the technology being developed by the banks along with these SMSF offerings, allowing mobile access, easy ways for opening and easy access to reporting are raising the bar for service levels for all accounting firms.

“As an accountant, you will need to make sure you’ve got the technology that allows you to compete with the sort of offerings that these large players are going to bring to the market,” said Mr Bungard.

“If you don’t, then you will find you lose the clients that want that level of service and I think the expectations of that level of service will go up.”

An accounting practice that is still doing desk top administration will need to look at adopting something that’s more interactive with their clients, he said.

“The idea of just doing annual processing and catching up with the paperwork in April of the following year is really not going to wash any more with clients as the service levels of the industry rise,” Mr Bungard said.

One of the biggest issues with annual processing is the lack of visibility clients and advisers have of where the fund is at, he said.

“A big part of automation is about making sure you have enough of an up to date view of where things are,” he said.

“If you’ve got complete visibility about what’s going on, [then] you know where your fund is at and you’re able to get advice when you need it because everything is up to date.”