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A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
Market values your SMSF auditor can follow and accept, dated and reasoned, for the fund assets that have no screen price: shares in the family company, units in a related trust, a Wingfield shed or a McLaren Vale vineyard leased to the members' business, and loans to related parties.
Indicative valuations from A$799. Certified Summary and Detailed reports from seven business days.
Every SMSF has to report its assets at market value at 30 June and hold objective, supportable evidence for each figure. Where an asset has no quoted price, such as private company shares, related trust units, premises or farmland leased to the members' business, or a loan, Adelaide trustees need a dated valuation from someone independent of the fund.
An SMSF auditor gives two opinions each year: one on the financial statements and one on whether the fund has met superannuation law. Both depend on what the assets are worth. Listed shares and cash are checked against a statement in minutes. A slice of the members' own business is another matter, because the auditor has to be satisfied that the figure in the accounts is a market value rather than a hopeful estimate, and the trustees are the ones who must show it.
Funds run by South Australian business families tend to hold a familiar set of hard-to-value assets. An industrial unit at Wingfield, Regency Park or Lonsdale leased to the members' engineering or transport company. A shed at Edinburgh let to a business that supplies the defence primes. Vineyard land in McLaren Vale or the Barossa leased to the family's wine business. Consulting suites near Flinders Medical Centre at Bedford Park or the BioMed City precinct let to the members' practice. A minority holding in a Kent Town or East End professional firm, units in a trust that owns a shop on The Parade at Norwood, or a loan to a relative's company. Each calls for a method, evidence and a valuation date suited to the reason the value is needed.
That figure travels further than most trustees realise. It forms part of each member's total superannuation balance, which governs contribution caps and Division 296. It fixes the transfer balance credit when a retirement phase pension begins and sets that year's minimum drawdown. It decides whether the fund stays within the 5 per cent in-house asset limit. And if a related-party price departs from market, the non-arm's length income rules can tax the affected income at the top rate.
We value the unlisted assets that auditors push back on most, dated to whatever event requires the figure. The trustees decide, the accountant prepares the accounts and the auditor applies the law; our part is a value with its reasoning set out so that each of them can rely on it.
A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
Under regulation 8.02B of the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Regulations 1994, an SMSF prepares its financial statements with assets stated at market value. The ATO's guidance on valuing SMSF assets expects evidence that is objective and supportable, prepared by a person with suitable skills, and updated when circumstances change. A full formal valuation is not required for every asset in every year; in the years between, a recorded review confirming that nothing material has moved can be enough.
The annual financial statements show each asset at market value on the last day of the year. A number rolled forward unchanged, with no evidence of review, invites questions, and if the auditor cannot be satisfied about a material asset the audit report must be qualified and a contravention report to the ATO may follow.
The value of fund assets on the commencement day sets the credit to the member's transfer balance account and the starting point for the minimum annual payment. Both are awkward to fix after reporting, so where an unlisted asset supports the pension, it is sensible to have it valued as at that day.
The fund may buy only limited classes of asset from a related party, business real property being one, and must pay market value; any disposal to a related party must also be at arm's length. Moving a Regency Park factory or a block of vineyard into the fund, or selling family company shares out of it, needs a valuation dated to the transfer. Where stamp duty is assessed on a property transfer, RevenueSA also looks at value under the Stamp Duties Act 1923 (SA), so one piece of evidence can serve both purposes.
Benefit payments and rollovers, a move from accumulation to retirement phase, winding up, and anything else that could shift a value materially before the next 30 June: the main tenant leaving a suburban retail centre, the investee company losing a key defence or health contract, a poor vintage that changes a vineyard's earnings, or the death of a member.
Division 296 adds a further tax on earnings attributable to the share of a member's total superannuation balance that sits above its threshold, and balances are first measured at 30 June 2026. If the fund held property, private company shares or unlisted units that day, each needs a market value as at 30 June 2026, whether or not one was obtained at the time. A valuation done now can speak to that date, provided it relies only on information that was known or reasonably knowable then. The same figure may be used again if the fund's adviser recommends resetting the cost base of fund assets to their 30 June 2026 value. Your adviser confirms the thresholds, rates and elections for each member; we supply the values.
The first thing an auditor checks is whether the method suits the asset, so that is where our report begins too. A company holding nothing but cash and listed securities can be valued on its net assets. A trading company cannot, because the goodwill a buyer pays for its earnings is not on its balance sheet.
Private company shares and units in a trading trust are valued under the income approach: normalised maintainable earnings capitalised at a rate that reflects the risk, tested against sales evidence, with net assets as the floor. Where the fund holds less than control, the report asks whether a discount for lack of control or marketability is supported by the facts, including the shareholders' agreement and the history of dividends, and explains the answer. A discount applied by habit fails review as surely as one that was never considered.
Business real property leased to the members' business needs a capital value and a market rent, and the rent is where support is most often missing. Leasing evidence is usually available across the industrial corridors at Wingfield, Regency Park, Lonsdale and Edinburgh, around the medical precincts at Bedford Park and the city's west end, and for vineyard land in the wine regions; where the capital value is material, a registered property valuer's report sits behind it. Units in a related unit trust are valued together with the trust's underlying assets at the same date, and we check that the trust still meets the conditions that keep the units outside the in-house asset limit. Loans are assessed on whether the borrower can actually repay, what security stands behind the debt and whether its terms would be accepted by an unrelated lender. Collectables follow their own regulation, including the need for a qualified independent valuer when one is sold to a related party.
The same problems appear in SMSF audits year after year. Each can lead to a qualified audit report or a contravention report, and each is avoided by applying a suitable method at the correct date.
The fund's auditor reads an SMSF valuation every year and the ATO reads it occasionally. A certified Summary report generally meets that need, because the method, the evidence and the reasoning are on the page and the auditor does not need our working papers. The Detailed report earns its extra depth when a related-party transfer is large, a pension is beginning on a significant unlisted asset, or a member's Division 296 balance at 30 June 2026 depends on the result.
The report opens with the event that triggered it, the valuation date, the standard of value and the documents we relied on, and then values each asset by the method suited to it. A trading company is backed by a normalisation schedule, maintainable earnings and a capitalisation rate, all sourced. Leased premises and vineyard land are backed by sales and rental evidence set side by side. The reconciliation lays out how the conclusion was reached so the auditor can follow it unaided, although we are glad to take the call.
Each report is signed by a certified valuer with no stake in the fund, its members or the entities valued, who answers the auditor's queries and defends the opinion if the ATO reviews the fund. That independence is a large part of what the auditor relies on, and it is why a short letter from the fund's own accountant seldom settles the question. If the same asset is contested later, for example in a family provision claim under the Inheritance (Family Provision) Act 1972 (SA) or a shareholder dispute before the Supreme Court of South Australia, the valuer who signed the SMSF report can explain the figure.
Pick the biggest asset in the fund without a quoted price. If the auditor wanted the evidence for it next week, would you have a dated, reasoned report from someone who gains nothing from the number, or just a figure copied from last year? If it is the latter, start with that asset.
Talk your situation through with a certified valuer before you commit to anything, at no cost.