How much does SMSF Australia charge for annual SMSF accounting?

SMSF Australia offers three fixed-fee annual packages: Basic Fund at $1,300+GST (listed shares, managed funds, ETFs, term deposits), Complex Fund at $1,600+GST (adds direct property up to 2, cryptocurrency, precious metals), and Very Complex Fund from $2,000+GST (unlisted assets, private loans, derivatives, NFTs, 3+ properties). All packages include the independent SMSF audit at no additional cost.

Is the SMSF audit included in the annual fee?

Yes. The independent SMSF audit is included in all three annual fee packages — Basic, Complex, and Very Complex. It is not charged as a separate add-on.

Can SMSF Australia service my fund if I am not in the same state?

Yes. SMSF Australia operates nationally across all Australian states and territories. All client meetings and services are conducted via Zoom — there is no requirement to be near a physical office.

How much does it cost to set up an SMSF with SMSF Australia?

The SMSF setup fee is $2,000+GST, which covers corporate trustee establishment (ASIC fee $636), SMSF trust deed ($400), Class Super first-year licence ($250), ABN and TFN applications, investment strategy preparation, and rollover coordination.

Does SMSF Australia provide financial advice?

No. SMSF Australia does not provide financial planning or investment advice. Services are limited to SMSF accounting, tax, audit, compliance, and legal matters.

Understanding “Regulation Details Removed” on Super Fund Lookup

It is never a good moment for a trustee when they find out that the ATO has changed their status on Super Fund Lookup to “regulation details removed”. In this blog we discuss what it actually means to have your superfund regulation details removed and how it can be solved along with the difficulties it can cause in the meantime. Please note that although we can help trustees to get their fund back on track it is definitely not an overnight fix and client’s needs to be prepared for a month-long process at a minimum to get the ATO to update the lookup service.

Am I still Complying?

When the tax office adjusts your fund to “regulation details removed” it does not necessarily mean that the fund is formally non‑complying. Instead, it indicates that the fund’s regulatory details have been removed from the public register because the SMSF annual return is more than a fortnight overdue and no formal extension of time has been granted by the ATO.

Practical issues with having Regulation Details Removed

The practical consequences of having your regulation details removed are many and varied and designed by the ATO to encourage trustees to get their lodgments up to date. Some of these issues include:

Employer contributions and rollovers will generally be impacted as they are all required to be done via the ATO’s SuperStream and are generally unable to be processed while the fund does not appear as complying on Super Fund Lookup. This can lead to varied issues such as employers putting member funds into default industry funds while the SMSF is unusable plus of course, cashflow issues for the fund depending on its investments and liquidity position.
Note that member contributions can still be made from the trustee’s personal funds as these contributions do not require SuperStream but the tax deductibility depends on the fund being a complying fund for the relevant year.
Other transactions may be affected, for example many banks, exchanges and other service providers may refuse to transact with a fund whose regulation details have been removed, and it will definitely stop you opening new accounts with most institutions.

This means that despite your super fund not being technically non-compliant it is still unable to operate as normal while this administrative penalty is applied.

Why it happens

This status most commonly arises where an SMSF annual return has not been lodged on time, and no lodgment deferral has been granted by the ATO. The ATO regularly updates Super Fund Lookup and removes regulation details when lodgments are overdue in an effort to force trustees to meet their obligations.

Keep in mind the ATO does not care about the reasons that the fund has fallen behind which may lead to some outcomes which feel quite unfair. For example, the overdue returns may be due to a third party (such as an accountant, auditor or other adviser) letting the trustee down but unfortunately, the fund itself still bears the consequences.

How do we fix a fund that has Regulation Details Removed

It is as easy (or as complex, depending on the fund’s position) as lodging the overdue returns with the ATO. Once we have completed all the overdue lodgments the ATO will generally reinstate the fund’s regulation details on Super Fund Lookup within 28 days. SMSF Australia is happy to help trustees that have fallen behind get their fund back on track. We don’t charge any more than our normal fixed annual fees listed on our pricing table for bringing overdue funds back on track.

For example, we recently inherited a fund from an accountant on the Gold Coast who shall remain nameless to protect the guilty. The fund hadn’t lodged returns from 2023 to 2025 despite the trustee providing information each year and believing that everything was fine with the fund. The accountant had sought one extension after another until the ATO finally lost patience. The process to fix it all up was:

We reviewed the client’s position, issued an engagement letter and agreed on our fixed fees to fix up the overdue lodgments which were $1,600+GST per year for three years so $4,800+GST for the three years for a fund with two residential properties, cash and US plus Australian shares.
We then sent an ethical letter to the previous accountant, requesting the permanent files they were holding, clearance to handle the client and that monthly payments they debited from the client’s bank account (something we never do) for work not completed be refunded and collected the files from their office.
The fund was setup by our team on the Class Super system, and we proceeded to complete the three overdue years with queries back and forth with the client to confirm missing documents, trustee declarations for a few lost receipts, annual valuations for the properties for the auditor etc. These first steps took around three weeks to complete.
Once completed the client signed off on the financials and returns and the auditors at ASF Audits, one of the largest firms on our panel of independent SMSF auditors, started their work taking under a week to sign off on all three years.
At that point the returns could be lodged with the tax office and we waited for the ATO to process which luckily only took them a couple of weeks rather than a month to mark the fund as complying again.

Using the case study above, it took roughly six weeks to get the fund back to Complying from Regulation Details Removed but keep in mind that it could take considerably longer than that if the information required to complete the work is not all easily available or if the previous accountant is unhelpful in passing over the files they are holding.

Summary

Although it is a bit of process to get everything fixed it is not a permanent issue with the ATO and often late lodgment penalties can be reduced depending on the client’s personal circumstances. If you need help getting an overdue fund back up to date, then contact us today and one of our friendly team will be happy to help. Remember no matter how much of a mess you feel your fund is we are pretty much guaranteed to have seen worse and can help you get back on track without any judgement.