Every SMSF is already legally required to formulate, regularly review and give effect to an investment strategy that considers risk and return, diversification, liquidity, the fund's ability to meet its liabilities, and whether to hold insurance for members. That requirement isn't new and isn't changing. What's changing is when the document has to exist and how closely its quality gets examined. Under reforms announced in August 2026, new SMSFs will need a written investment strategy upfront,...

Is an SMSF right for you? That's the first question to answer, before the trustee structure, before the deed, before anyone starts talking about what you could invest in. It's also the one most often skipped, because almost every article about setting up an SMSF is written by someone who gets paid when the answer is yes. So this is the other kind of article. The short version: an SMSF tends to make sense when the balance is big enough that fixed costs stay under about 1% a year, there's a...

SMSF trustees must keep accurate records from the day the fund is established. Some records must be kept for at least five years, others for at least ten. Five years: accounting records and financial statements, annual returns, member statements, records of contributions and rollovers, bank statements and transaction records, asset purchase contracts and valuations. Ten years: trustee minutes and records of decisions, signed trustee declarations, changes of trustee, and consents to act as...