Terms & Conditions

This page consists Standard Terms and Conditions for any Statements of Work issued by SMSF Auditing Australia. The issue and acceptance of Statements of Work will create a separate Supply Contract as specified below in the Standard Terms.

Terms and Conditions

• These Terms and Conditions (“Terms”) govern your engagement with SMSF Auditing Australia and use of our online job portal (“Portal”) and form a binding contractual agreement between you, the client using our Services, and us, SMSF Auditing Australia Pty Ltd ACN 630 161 205 (“SMSF Auditing Australia”).
• For that reason, these Terms are important, and you should ensure that you read them carefully and contact us with any questions before you use our Services including the Portal. You can contact us on audit@smsfauditingaustralia.com.au.
• By retaining us in accordance with these Terms you acknowledge and agree that you have had sufficient chance to read and understand the Terms and you agree to be bound by them.
• SMSF Auditing Australia provides the Services to Clients through our overseas division in India via SMSF Auditing Australia website and maintains the Portal to provide the Services more efficiently and effectively.

Definitions

In these terms and conditions:

• “Portal” means all the online resources provided in association with the provision of the Services via our website, including the ability to upload Client data and documents and view records, regardless of how those websites are accessed by users (including via the Internet, mobile phone or any other device).
• “Related Body Corporate” has the meaning given in the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth).
• “Services” means all the services offered by SMSF Auditing Australia Pty Ltd.
• “Terms” means these terms and conditions, together with the SMSF Auditing Australia’s Privacy Policy and any additional terms, conditions, notices, and disclaimers displayed elsewhere on the Portal, or within any marketing or informational communications sent to You.
• “Us”, “we” or “our” means SMSF Auditing Australia and/or its related bodies corporate.
• “You” or “Client” means Client of SMSF Auditing Australia and includes employees and representatives of the Client. “Your” has a corresponding meaning.
• If there is anything that is not specified or covered in these Terms that you feel is required, we encourage you to get in touch with us to discuss and clarify.

Our Obligations

• Our Services will be provided to you with the utmost care and quality based on the information you provide, including where applicable on behalf of your own clients. We will correspond with you for queries and follow up work that is required to complete the job.
• We ensure that our staff are properly and reasonably trained and equipped to perform the services offered to your firm and within this service agreement.
• We will keep your information, data records and, where applicable, your clients’ information and data records, confidential and secure and will not disclose any such information to third parties without your express written consent.
• We have an overseas division in India assisting us in audit file preparation work. We have engaged an outsourcing partner. The overseas division works exclusively for us. We only store client information in a data server managed in Australia, which is subject to Australian privacy law. Our staff working in Australia and in overseas division works only on our Australian-based servers.
• We will perform regular and frequent backups of our work and data in onsite and offsite locations.
• We will maintain a current policy of professional indemnity insurance.
• We will not contact your clients, directly or indirectly.

Your Obligations

Your obligations to us are as follows:

• You will provide us with accurate information, timely responses and, where applicable and necessary, access to your software.
• To maintain records to support any claim that is made by you or your clients.
• You will keep our contractual arrangements and our processes confidential.
• You will adhere to the processes we specify in regard to providing the Services, document submission and query resolution.
• You will adhere to our payment methods set out in these Terms.

You acknowledge and agree that the quality of our Services is dependent on the quality and accuracy of information and data provided to us by you. The Services cannot be completed without all required information and the resolution of all queries we may raise from time to time.

You acknowledge that the timeliness of delivery of final reports, interim reports and other such completed work is dependent on the timeliness of information, documents and answers to queries received from you.

Performance of the Services and Scope

• The range of Services to be provided are set out in the relevant Statement of Work.
• The Services may be performed by our overseas division in India as well as in Australia. All work will be carried out and reviewed by a qualified SMSF Auditors.
• Services will be performed as requested by the Client via use of our online Portal.
• You acknowledge and agree that we are not financial planners and do not have an AFSL. We will not provide investment advice in any form.

Supply Contracts

• The Client may from time to time during the Term elect to acquire Services from SMSF Auditing Australia under these Terms.
• Where the Client wishes to acquire Services from SMSF Auditing Australia under these Terms it will issue a Statement of Work.
• When a new Statement of Work is issued and is accepted by all parties, a separate Supply Contract is formed between the parties on these Terms and any specifications set out in the Statement of Work.

Fees

• Our fixed service rates are outlined in the Statement of work. These fees are exclusive of GST.
• You are liable to pay for any disbursements, charges, and expenses that we incur on your behalf and/or your clients’ behalf.
• You are liable to pay our fees by the due date as specified in, and in accordance with the terms of, the Statement of Work regardless of whether you have been paid by your clients or not.
• If SMSF Auditing Australia changes the fees of the Services, the new charges will be notified to you before commencement of work.

Payments

Direct Debit Request (DDR)

• Where we have made direct debit arrangements with you, payments will be made by direct debit from your nominated account.
• For Job based agreements, we will issue a Tax Invoice upon completion of each job (that is when SMSF Auditing Australia has sent your job for signature/review). We will then issue a statement at the end of each month for all jobs invoiced in that month, with full payment of the statement amount due within 14 days by direct debit.
• For Committed Volume based agreements, we will issue a Tax Invoice in arrears for the month just completed during the first week of the following month. Full payment of this invoice will be due by the 14th of that month by direct debit.
• If a direct debit payment is dishonoured, you will be required to bear any dishonour fees. If in 7 days from the dishonoured date, payment is not received we reserve the right to cease work until all invoices are paid. We will require prepayment of all fees before commencement of any further work.

Bank Transfer

• Where it has been previously agreed between us, we will accept payment to be made via bank transfer:
• For Job based agreements, we will issue a Tax Invoice upon completion (SMSF Auditing Australia has sent your job for signature/review) of each job. Payment must be made within 7 days of receiving the tax invoice.
• For Committed Volume based agreements, we will issue a Tax Invoice in arrears for the month just completed during the first week of the following month. Full payment of this invoice will be due within 7 days of the date of invoice.

General

• Where payment remains outstanding for more than 30 days:
  • We reserve the right to apply interest at the General Interest Charge applied by the ATO to all tax invoices that are more than 14 days overdue.
  • We reserve the right to assign any debts payable to us to a third party without consultation with you; and
  • You agree to indemnify us from and against all costs and disbursements incurred by us in recovering the debt (including but not limited to internal administration fees, legal costs on a solicitor and client basis, our collection agency costs, and bank dishonour fees;)
• We may report the default on payment to a credit reporting agency.
• Please note that no further work will be undertaken if your account becomes overdue by 30 days. If you fail to pay our account according to our Terms, then we reserve the right to charge you in advance based on estimates of work required.
• We will expect payment by the due date of all invoices regardless of whether you have been paid by your client or not.

Timing for work

• We are committed to providing you a timely service and in most instances will be able to complete the work within the time frames set out in the statement of work, subject to all required documentation/files having been provided to us in a timely fashion and in accordance with our requests.
• If a large volume of jobs is submitted, we will advise you of the timeframe for completing the work once we have received all the required information and documents.
• The time taken to perform the work is subject to change depending on factors including access to information, the quality and accuracy of information provided by you or response time to queries. We will advise you in advance if we believe there would be a delay in the provision of the Services.
• We will ensure that all required documents are ready to be lodged by the ATO due dates provided that all documentation required for the jobs is submitted to us on time and within our specifications provided to you. We will not be responsible for any penalties, interest, or fees for late lodgement if the job or source documents are provided to us at late notice.

Server/Software Access

Please see details of SMSF Auditing Australia Security via this link (https://smsfauditingaustralia.com.au/security)

• Security – Our facilities in Australia and in our overseas division in India adhere to global security, health, and safety standards.
• Our secure delivery centre in our overseas division in India is equipped with the latest technology, infrastructure and dedicated technical staff to ensure our working environment has complete reliability and security for our clients’ data.
• We allow staff to work remotely from time to time. We make sure that staff exclusively work on the computer systems provided by the office and exclusively use the VPN when working and accessing our Australian servers.
• Each Party must comply with the Australian Privacy Act 1988 (including as is if you were an organisation), and all legislation applicable to that party’s privacy and personal information. For details on this compliance please refer to SMSF Auditing Australia’s Privacy Policy at (https://smsfauditingaustralia.com.au/privacy-policy).

Software licensed to SMSF Auditing Australia

Where SMSF Auditing Australia uses its own software licence to provide its service to you:

• You must ensure the security and confidentiality of your login details, including any username and/or password assigned to you. You are wholly responsible for all activities which occur under your details (including unauthorised use of access to software). You must notify us immediately if you become aware of any unauthorised use of your login details.
• You must not permit your login details to be used by or transferred to any other person.
• You must not impersonate or create a login for our Portal, or any software licensed to us for any person other than yourself.
• If you think that your login details have been compromised or the Portal has been accessed or used by another person in breach of these Terms, please email us at audit@smsfauditingaustralia.com.au.

Ownership of Documents

• Any documentation which we are engaged to prepare, together with any other original documents given to us shall remain the property of you (or where applicable, your clients). However, we reserve the right to make a reasonable number of copies for our records and job purposes, and to comply with our professional and statutory record keeping obligations.
• Where there is a termination by either party of this arrangement, you agree that we are entitled to retain all documents of which we are in possession, including but not limited to refund cheques, until payment is made of all outstanding fees payable on any account you have with us.

Intellectual Property

• Nothing in these Terms constitutes a transfer of any intellectual property rights. You acknowledge and agree that, as between you and us, we own all intellectual property rights to the material on our website, including but not limited to our trademarks, text, images and the software contained in the Portal used to upload data and documents.
• The material on our website is protected by copyright under the Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) and, through international treaties, in other countries. Content displayed on or via the Portal is protected, pursuant to copyright laws and international conventions. You agree not to copy, distribute or modify content from the Portal without our express written consent. You may not disassemble, decompile, reverse engineer or otherwise attempt to discover any source code contained in the Portal. Without limiting the foregoing, you agree not to reproduce, copy, sell, resell, or exploit for any purposes any aspect of the Portal (other than your own content).

Related Entities

• These Terms will also be applicable to any group entities and Related Body Corporate of any client if you request us to perform work for those entities. Fees will be charged in accordance with the Statement of Work issued to them.

Liability

• Our liability is limited by a scheme approved under the Professional Standards Legislation.
• To the full extent permitted by law, we exclude all liability in respect of loss of data, interruption of business or any consequential or incidental damages.
• These Terms are to be read subject to any legislation which prohibits or restricts the exclusion, restriction or modification of any implied warranties, conditions, guarantees or obligations. If such legislation applies, to the extent possible, we limit our liability in respect of any claim to, at our option:
  • in the case of services:
  • the supply of the services again; or
  • The payment of the cost of having the services supplied again.
• We cannot guarantee continuous, error-free, or secure access to our services or that defects in the service or the Portal will be corrected. While we will use reasonable efforts to maintain an uninterrupted service to the Portal, we cannot guarantee this, and we do not give any promises or warranties (whether express or implied) about the availability of our services or the Portal.

Indemnity

• You agree to fully indemnify us, our affiliates, employees, agents, contributors, third party content providers and licensors from and against all actions, suits, claims, demands, liabilities, costs, expenses, loss and damage (including legal fees on a full indemnity basis) incurred or suffered by us as a direct consequence of any breach by you or your agents of these Terms.

Personal information

• By using our Services, including use of the Portal, you agree to the collection, transfer, storage and use of your personal information by the Portal and SMSF Auditing Australia on servers as described in our Privacy Policy. You also agree to receive marketing communications from us unless you tell us otherwise.

Access to the Portal

• While we use reasonable endeavours to ensure that the Portal is available continuously, we do not make any representations or warranties that your access will be uninterrupted, timely, and secure or error free. Your access to the Portal may be suspended without notice in the case of system failure, maintenance or repair or any reason beyond our control.
• Except as expressly provided otherwise in the Terms, we reserve the right to change or discontinue any website, feature, or service (or part thereof) on the Portal at any time.
• We do not warrant that we will continue to make the Portal available generally or at all and reserve the right at any time to impose or increase fees for future access to any material appearing in the email or on the Portal. The right is reserved to alter the Portal at any time, even if it changes the equipment needed to access or use our services or the Portal or any part of it.

Online Payment Security

• Fees for SMSF Auditing Australia’s Services may be deducted using direct debit or credit card payments through our third-party secure payment facilities.
• We will keep all information pertaining to your nominated account at the Financial Institution, private and confidential. Credit card details or bank account details of all clients may be retained by the payment gateway used by SMSF Auditing Australia to process payments.
• Services Fees are in Australian Dollars ($AUD) only.

General Termination Terms

• Upon termination, work will be completed based on discussions with you prior to a handover meeting.
• Fees for work completed will be charged and payment will be due within 7 days.
• A handover meeting will be undertaken where necessary once full payment has been received for all outstanding fees.
• We may terminate the agreement by providing two (2) months’ notice to you after the initial term or any renewed term as specified in your Statement of Work.
• Fees paid up to termination are non-refundable.
• We may terminate the agreement without notice if you breach your obligations under these Terms and fail to rectify them within 7 days of notice from us to rectify the default.
• Upon termination of the agreement and final payment received, we will archive all information and documents related to the work completed for you.

General Terms

GST

• Unless stated to be otherwise, charges referred to for any goods or services supplied (or offered for supply) via our website are stated exclusive of GST. Where GST applies to any supply made to you, we will calculate the applicable GST and issue you with a Tax Invoice.
• GST means the Australian goods and services tax charged under A New Tax System (Goods and Services Tax) Act 1999 (“Act”). Tax Invoice means tax invoice as defined by the Act.

Severability

• If any provision of the Terms is deemed invalid by a court of competent jurisdiction, the invalidity of such provision shall not affect the validity of the remaining provisions of the Terms, which shall remain in full force and effect.

No waiver

• If we do not enforce any particular provision, we are not waiving our right to do so later. If a court strikes down any of these terms, the remaining terms will survive. We may automatically assign this agreement at our sole discretion.

Applicable law

• These Terms shall be construed in accordance with and governed by the laws of New South Wales, Australia. You consent to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts in New South Wales, Australia to determine any matter or dispute which arises under the Terms and/or our Services.

Resolution of disputes

• Should a dispute arise between you and SMSF Auditing Australia, we strongly encourage you to contact us directly on audit@smsfauditingaustralia.com.au to seek a resolution. Any reasonable requests will be considered, and we will attempt to resolve the dispute.
• If there is a dispute about these Terms and/or our Services that cannot be resolved between us, you agree that we will seek the assistance of an arbitrator appointed by the appropriate authority i.e., CPA Australia to resolve the dispute.

Whole agreement

• These terms, together with any terms specific to a Statement of Work, and the other policies posted on our website constitute the entire agreement between SMSF Auditing Australia and you, superseding any prior agreements.

Assignment

• You may not assign, sub-licence or otherwise deal in any other way with any of your rights under these Terms.