What Actually Happens Every Year With an SMSF

If you have a self managed super fund, every year follows the same rhythm. The financial year closes, the paperwork gets pulled together, an independent auditor takes a look, and a return goes to the ATO.

Once you have been through it a few times it stops feeling like a mystery. The first year or two can be genuinely confusing though, especially if nobody has walked you through the order things happen in. So here is the plain version.

It starts with the records

The work that makes the year easy is the work you do during it. Your fund needs a clear record of everything that moved through it. Contributions in, pensions or lump sums out, investment income, expenses paid, and any assets bought or sold.

Everything the fund owns also has to be valued at market value as at 30 June. Listed shares are straightforward. Property, unlisted investments and collectables take more work, and this is the single most common thing that holds an audit up, usually because nobody thought about it until the auditor asked.

Trustee decisions need to be documented as you go too. If the fund made a significant decision during the year, there should be a minute sitting behind it.

Then the accounts

Once the year has closed, the fund's financial statements get prepared. Balance sheet, operating statement, and member statements showing each member's balance and what moved in and out of it.

Everything else is built on this, so it needs to be right before anything else can happen.

Every SMSF is audited, every year

This is the part that surprises people most.

An SMSF has to be audited annually. It is not risk based and it is not optional, and it applies even in a year where very little happened and no contributions or payments were made.

The audit has to be done by an approved SMSF auditor registered with ASIC, and they have to be independent of whoever prepared the accounts. That is why your own accountant cannot audit your fund.

There are two halves to it. One looks at whether the financial statements give a true and fair view of the fund. The other checks the fund against super law, and if the auditor finds a reportable breach they are obliged to tell the ATO.

The audit also has to be finished before the annual return is lodged, because details from it go into the return. There are firm deadlines for appointing the auditor and getting documents to them, and because they work backwards from your fund's lodgement date rather than a fixed calendar date, they are easy to miss. Worth checking yours early rather than assuming.

The annual return goes to the ATO

The SMSF annual return is more than a tax return. It covers the fund's income and tax position, but also regulatory information, member contributions and the audit outcome. The supervisory levy is paid with it.

The levy is currently $259 a year, or $518 in a fund's first year because the ATO collects the first year in advance.

Due dates depend on your fund's history and circumstances. Established funds lodging through a registered tax agent are usually looking at 15 May, but new funds and self preparers have earlier dates, and the ATO can set a different one. It is worth confirming your fund's actual date rather than assuming.

If you are not sure which date applies to your fund, that is a quick thing for us to check. Give us a call.

If you have a corporate trustee, the company has a year too

A company does not look after itself. ASIC issues an annual statement on the company's review date along with an invoice, and the directors need to confirm the company details are still correct, pass a solvency resolution and pay the review fee.

For 2026/2027 that fee is $70 for a special purpose company acting as trustee of the fund. A company attached to a limited recourse borrowing arrangement is charged at the standard rate instead, currently $342. These change every year.

The things that catch people out

A few more items land in the cycle depending on what your fund is doing. If anyone is drawing a pension there are minimum payments that must be met before 30 June, and missing them has real tax consequences. Certain events affecting a member's transfer balance account have to be reported separately from the annual return, on their own timetable. And trustees have an ongoing obligation to review the fund's investment strategy.

These are the ones that tend to surface late, when there is no time left to fix them cleanly.

Where we fit

At Citrine Advisory we handle the administration side of all of this. We keep the fund's records in order, prepare the annual financial statements and member statements, prepare and lodge the annual return, work with your independent auditor to get the audit done without drama, and look after the corporate trustee's ASIC obligations so the company review never gets missed.

What makes an SMSF year go smoothly is honestly not complicated. Records in decent shape, valuations sorted early, and the auditor engaged in time. Everything else follows.

If the annual cycle has been feeling harder than it should, or you are not confident your current setup is on top of it, get in touch. We are happy to talk through what your fund needs and what we can take off your hands.

Citrine Advisory does not hold an Australian Financial Services (AFS) licence. We provide accounting, tax and administration services for self-managed superannuation funds. We are not licensed to provide financial product advice under the Corporations Act. You should consider taking advice from an AFS licensee before making a decision about a product. This means we cannot recommend that you acquire or dispose of an interest in an SMSF or advise you to make particular investments through an SMSF. Where you need that advice, we can refer you to a licensed adviser. The information here is general in nature and does not take your personal circumstances into account. Government charges quoted are current as at 01/07/2026 and are subject to change.