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.
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Is this the same Manoj Abichandani that has just been disqualified from being an SMSF auditor?
I am now a registered SMSF auditor.
Auditing an SMSF where all the members must also be the trustees is a meaningless exercise. Members have an advisor or accountant to assist them with their SMSF. If they rely on that person why would they want another expert with a very restrited enagagement letter to provide another opinion.
The ATO puts very little weight on an audit report. Please note that all public companies have to be audited but they are also the ones with million dollar disputes with the ATO.
Lets get rid of this nonsence.