Advisers wanting to increase their self-managed superannuation fund (SMSF) business are also looking to own clients' administration by outsourcing financial lodgements to accountants, while ensuring the client remains the adviser's, not the accountant's.
If this was done well it was another income stream and control point for advisers post the government's Future of Financial Advice (FOFA), SuperCorp's national sales manager David Mendelovits said.
"Post-FOFA, advisers want to make money out of SMSF administration as well as advice," Mendelovits said.
"With the advent of FOFA, a number of financial planners want to own their clients' SMSF admin to earn a separate fee from straight financial planning."
SuperCorp began as a SMSF software company 25 years ago, but five years ago began buying some of its own administration provider clients to have a better idea of what was needed in the SMSF admin software program, SuperMate.
"We eat our own dog food," Mendelovits said.
SuperMate's subscription base had been almost exclusively accountants until recently, but now the subscribers were financial advisers 10 per cent, SMSF admin providers 10 per cent, and accountants 80 per cent.
"Over the next three years, I estimate that advisers will grow to 30 per cent of SuperMate subscribers," Mendelovits said.
Advisers' clients could access the adviser's site for daily information on their portfolio, and at year's end (or quarterly) the adviser could give access to the system to a sub-contracted accountant of the client's choice for compliance work and lodgements.
"This means that advisers can offer a one-stop shop to their clients," Mendelovits said.
A clear trend was that most investments in SMSFs using SuperMate were direct: for example, in shares, property or managed funds.
About 20,000 SMSFs were currently being administered using SuperMate or being migrated to it.
