Earlier this week I was privileged to witness a Skype video conference between my mother and her crowdsourced SMSF accounting resource as they discussed the finalisation of her FY12 Annual Statement.
Part of the reason the discussion went so smoothly is that accounting for the Porter Super Fund is now managed on the Mclowd Platform, a cloud-based service that allows Mum not just to manage her assets, but also to grant remote access to Fund details to suitably qualified professionals such as Geetha.
This conversation was the culmination of a journey I started 18 months ago when I first raised the idea of leveraging cloud computing and crowdsourcing to drive down the costs of superannuation administration.
Moving forward accounting and tax compliance at the Porter Super Fund will cost approximately 1% of Gross Income, which is 90% less than was the case in FY11, when a Sydney-based accounting firm was responsible for the task.
Over time I hope that this sort of cost structure becomes the norm, and that the retirement incomes of millions of Australians are improved because of Mclowd.