Transferring Benefits into your SMSF

When your SMSF is set up, you can request that your retail Super Fund rolls your Superannuation balance over to your SMSF. To do this you’ll need to complete a “Benefit Rollover Request” form. In most cases, you can download the form from your retail fund’s website. If you can’t download it, you can always phone and ask them to send it to you. Alternatively, you can use a Rollover initiation request for SMSF in a standardised format to request the roll over.

The retail superannuation fund will ask you for your SMSF details ABN (Australian Business Number) and confirmation of the SMSF’s Trustees and Members before rolling your funds over. Be mindful, the SMSF must be listed as ‘Registered’ or ‘Complying’ on Super Fund Lookup prior to receiving rollovers from retail superannuation funds. If you need to send the retail fund this data, send them a copy of your SMSF Trust Deed, ABN and TFN details. They might ask for the Unique Superannuation Identifier (USI) for the Fund. Please note that the USI is the Australian Business Number for your Fund.

Retail Superannuation Funds now send money to SMSFs electronically. 

Please remember to keep the Rollover Statement that you receive from the retail fund. This sets out the components of the benefit received. Superannuation Warehouse will ask you for this information at the end of the financial year in order to complete your Member Benefit Statement.

Our accounting clients can have access to the accounting system and initiate a rollover request from their retails fund. Alternatively, we can assist with a fee of $200.

You can also send funds as a roll over from your SMSF back to a retail fund. Similar to the process noted above, our accounting clients can have access to the accounting system and initiate a rollover request as a transferring Fund. Alternatively, we can assist with a fee of $200. 

If your Fund has a Macquarie bank account, cheques can be deposited at any NAB branch. For other banks – deposit the cheque at the branch.

From 1 October 2021, SMSFs will need to use SuperStream to rollover super to or from their retail/industry funds.

Things to note when using SuperStream:

• The SMSF should have an electronic service address (ESA). To register for an ESA, please see this page.
• The SMSF should have their updated details recorded with the ATO including the SMSF’s unique bank account

For our accounting clients, we can register the SMSF with ESA BGLSF360 on request. The cost is covered by the monthly or annual fee paid to us.

Retail superannuation funds may be reluctant to roll your money out of their Funds. Although the money is legally yours, some Funds make it extremely difficult for you to access it. This is because it earns them a commission; a commission they lose if they roll it over to your SMSF. So don’t be put off if they make the process difficult.

Moreover, it’s no coincidence that you won’t find a single Retail Super Fund that will transfer your money to your SMSF bank account electronically. This is another way of deterring you from moving your money.

If you find it hard to believe that a retail superannuation fund would act in this way, phone any one of them and they’ll confirm it. Putting money into a retail superannuation fund is easy, but taking it out is a very different story – that’s why smart investors insist on controlling their own superannuation funds.

From what you’ve read above, you won’t be surprised to learn that the rollover process can take a few weeks, but, in the long run, it’s well worth it!

For more info relating to transfer benefits and roll over, please watch the video below.

For more info about insurance for Members in your SMSF, please follow this link.

You can find and manage your super from all your superannuation providers using myGov as follows:

• Create an account at www.my.gov.au, then link the ATO to your account.
• Go to the ‘Super’ tab. In this section, you can see details of all your super accounts.

You can also find your unclaimed super using Australia’s Unclaimed Super Fund, which looks after unclaimed super. See the link here.