The superannuation system is great for all of us. Our employer puts money away for our retirement, money which we never really see anyway so it does not impact our lifestyles. Then, when we retire, we have a massive pool of saved funds which we can enjoy.

One of the things I always despise about our retirement industry though, is the way superannuation funds take control of the investment decisions away from me. It is my money, yet I cannot make any investment decisions. The situation has improved over the years, but it is still not good enough. For this reason I set up my own Self Managed Superannuation Fund (SMSF).

Without getting into the legalities of it, an SMSF is a legal structure where you take on the management and administration responsibilities of your superannuation money yourself. Once you set up an SMSF, there are a number of responsibilities which need to be taken care of. You can be as involved as you like with these responsibilities, or outsource where you think it is appropriate. These responsibilities are as follows:

1. Your Trustee Responsibilities. Someone needs to legally own the assets of the fund. This is the trustee. The trustee is also responsible for the running of the fund, so if anything goes wrong, it is the trustee who is legally liable.

b) All the housekeeping. Someone needs to do all the book keeping and accounting work. This includes preparing all the annual tax statements, balancing the books and lodging tax returns.

c) Audit. Each year your superannuation fund should be audited to ensure it complies with the superannuation regulations. A successful audit will ensure you maintain your “complying” superannuation fund status and can continue to enjoy superannuation tax concessions.

4. Investments - The investment manager makes all the investment decisions, buying and selling investments to ensure the long term financial success of the fund, for the benefit of its beneficiaries. The investment manager must ensure that the investments made, comply with the superannuation laws, regulations and guidelines of the day. Failure to do so could result in a bad audit and the loss of taxation concessions.

Personally, I was just interested in managing my investments. All the rest was outsourced. I just wanted to be able to ensure the investment decisions I made were mine so I could feel responsible for any losses or gains that I made. There is nothing worse than when your retirement investments decrease over a year and you have no control whatsoever in the decisions made. I wanted to avoid this. Also, getting control of this meant that I could make investment decisions giving my whole portfolio consideration and not treat my retirement investment as if it were an island, completely separate of other investments I have. It is all part of my estate after all.

All other responsibilities I outsourced. To me, they were time consuming tasks which were better undertaken by experts in the relative fields. This left me with more time to research and make investment decisions.

Gnifrus Urquart enjoys taking responsibility for his retirement savings, as well as the freedom outsourcing his Self Managed Super Fund Administration affords him.