It is compulsory to use SuperStream from 1 October 2021 if any benefits are being rolled in or out of an SMSF in cash. This means it does not apply to:

• “in specie” rollovers,
• “internal” rollovers,
• pension commutations,
• contribution splitting transfers (unless to a different fund), or
• payment splitting transfers between former spouses/de factos.

For all other rollovers from an SMSF the fund administrator, on behalf of the SMSF trustee, needs to:

• ensure the details of the member and receiving fund have been verified.
• make the rollover via SuperStream no later than 3 business days after receiving the request.
• send a copy of the rollover statement to the member within 30 days of the rollover payment.

The ATO will email or text message the member alerting them that a fund has used the SMSF verification service so you should be prepared for calls from your clients on this.

SMSFs may have difficulty in meeting the 3 day requirement as the fund accounts will need to be brought to order, with any unmatched transactions identified and processed. This will often require the cooperation of the member/trustee requesting the rollover so they should be advised to delay their request until their member account position has been finalised or they could inadvertently trigger a reportable contravention against themselves as trustee.

Note that fund auditors have an obligation to check on compliance with the new rules and procedures as part of the payment standards including the 3 day requirement.

The details that a fund will require to rollover a benefit to an SMSF are:

• Fund name & ABN
• Member name
• Bank account details
• ESA – smsfdataflow for SMSFs that we administer.

Remember that nothing will work if the fund is not on Superfund Lookup. This might be the case for a new fund still to be registered, or an existing fund that has been removed from the list – most commonly due to late lodgement.