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SMSF admin firm sets sights on real-time auditing
In order to gain the maximum benefit from the advances in automation, the SMSF industry needs to look at integrating administration and audit processes more closely, says the head of a major SMSF administrator.
Speaking at the ATSA 2017 conference, SuperConcepts chief executive Natasha Fenech said while a large part of the administration associated with SMSFs could be automated there are opportunities beyond this by integrating different processes together.
“My view is that you can automate a large chunk of [SMSF administration] — you'll still need human judgement at the end of the day because there will be those exceptions — but it's not just the automation of the administration, it’s also the co-ordination of admin and audit,” Ms Fenech explained.
“I think we need to move to real-time audit, for example, and have the two processes going together, that's when you start to drive the benefit.”
Also speaking at the conference, Smithink director David Smith said the concept of auditing SMSFs in real time could involve “a bot sitting on the side of administration systems and checking them almost simultaneously so that when the administration is finished, the audit can be ticked off too”.
CloudOffis head of Australia Chris Satchi also agreed this is the direction audits are likely to head with clients already requesting a greater number of tasks to be automated.
“Even little things like at the end of an audit like where the partner has to sign off on it. If they're doing upwards of a 1,000 audits a year, standing there signing one thousand times gets fairly tedious for them,” said Mr Satchi.
“So we're being asked to implement little things like digital signatures, to save them time on small things like that.”
Ms Fenech also said the amount of wet signatures required was another challenge for automation.
“We talk about data feeds and the like but we still have to produce a lot of wet signatures and yet when you speak to SMSF clients, they're surprised that still applies,” she said.
Miranda Brownlee
Miranda Brownlee is the deputy editor of SMSF Adviser, which is the leading source of news, strategy and educational content for professionals working in the SMSF sector.
Since joining the team in 2014, Miranda has been responsible for breaking some of the biggest superannuation stories in Australia, and has reported extensively on technical strategy and legislative updates.
Miranda also has broad business and financial services reporting experience, having written for titles including Investor Daily, ifa and Accountants Daily.
What cloud offis saying has nothing to do with real time auditing. What does digital signatures got to do with real time auditing?0- It is actually putting more of the onus and responsibility on the auditor as if to say you check it daily, you monitor it! The Tax Agent should be doing that and the auditor should only then review the complete set of accounts and the associated file at once - not continually handling the file where risks in my view would rise. Good auditors should of course be available to discuss matters that arise in real time but not in my opinion be piss farting around robo auditing.0
- I believe the risks are raised by automation, people become reliant on it and errors are made. To think an audit can be done in real time then more or less signed off is shallow minded because who knows what has been altered, and I couldn't see time savings to be had. Most likely a push for larger admin houses to screw down prices but on charge their clients nonetheless.0
- Another blast from the past - real time auditing. This was big a few years ago, promoted by one SMSF audit firm who talked the talk but could not deliver on the digital distribution it promised.0
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