1. What is Financial Advice/Planning?

Clients hire Financial Planners to act as their fiduciary for managing their financial affairs. The process involves Adviser's meeting with clients to understand their goals and objectives and then tailoring a financial plan and strategy to achieve these goals and objectives.

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2. What are the Benefits of Financial Advice? 

Many of our services can provide tangible benefits such as tax savings, super & investment fee savings, insurance premium savings and investment performance.
 

However, just as important are the intangible benefits of advice:
 

• Helping you define clear and considered goals

• Building a tailored plan for achieving your goals

• Having a professional keep you on track for meeting your goals

• Providing clarity and keeping you on track for the future with our detailed modelling and projections

• Removing the time and stress from managing your personal finances

• Helping you avoid financial mistakes

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3. What is the Process?

The client onboarding process usually consists of 2 to 3 meetings and and an implementation phase. Once someone becomes a client, we generally catch up for journey sessions every 6 or 12 months. At these journey sessions, we review the previous strategy and make any amendments going forward. 

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4. What are Fees?

The fees payable differ based on the time and complexity of each client. When have created useful blog posts regarding 'Why is Financial Advice 'Expensive' in Australia?' and 'how much a Financial Planner costs in Australia'.

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5. What are the Key Deliverables? 

Each new client receives a Financial Plan, called a 'Statement of Advice'. These documents are often 50 to 100 pages long and contain recommendations, reasons for recommendations, modelling and projections and cost/benefit analyses. You can download your own Sample Financial Plan. 

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6. What typically goes into a Statement of Advice?

Most Financial Plans include advice regarding Cashflow, Superannuation, Life Insurances, Tax Planning and Goals Planning and Modelling. Each Financial Plan is uniquely tailored to clients and their own circumstances, however this video explains which service areas are usually involved for each type of clients.

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7. Is Source Wealth aligned to any product providers or institutions? 

No. Source Wealth is licensed through Lifespan Financial Planning and has no affiliations with any specific product providers.  

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8. Do you charge for the First Appointment? 

No. We offer clients a 90 minute obligation free initial appointment to discuss if and how we can help. 

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9. Do you need to be Wealthy to have a Financial Planner?

Not really. We have created a blog to explain. 

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10. When do people usually engage a Financial Planner? 

We have listed some of the common milestones that trigger people to reach out to a Financial Planner.

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11. Can fees be paid from superannuation and/or be tax deductible?

Many super funds allow for external adviser fees to be paid on advice that relates to superannuation and retirement planning. Additionally, many advice fees can be tax deductible. 

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12. Can we stop the service at any time?

Whilst most of our clients stay onboard as long term clients, you of course have the option to discontinue from advice at any time. There are no lock in contracts and the final fee payable will be as of the month you discontinue. 

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13. What clients do you typically work with? 

We typically work with pre-retirees/retirees, high income/asset clients, business owners and young families. 

 

We work best with clients who:

• Have sufficient financial means to benefit from financial advice.

• Are ambitious and want help improving their financial security and/or financial freedom.

• Are responsive and value an ongoing holistic advice relationship.

• Want our help to take the time and stress away from managing their own finances. 

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We also work with clients who need situational Financial Advice, such as for dealing with an inheritance, separation/divorce, personal injury/illness and much more. 

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If you would like to know if you could be a good fit for Financial Advice you can complete our Advice Need Assessment Tool or book an obligation free initial call. 

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14. How much money do I need to retire?

There is no exact number that you need to retire because it depends on the age you retire, your annual living expenses and your goals. However, one of our most popular video and blog posts 'How Long Does $500,000 Last In Retirement?' could help provide a good starting point! 

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15. When can I retire?

You can retire whenever you have sufficient money to fund your future retirement. However, there are three important ages to consider:​

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• Age 60: At this age you can either withdraw up to 10% of your superannuation balance each year by starting a 'transition to retirement' pension if you are still working OR if you are retired, you can access more than 10% (including the full amount) if you wish via an 'account based pension'.

• Age 65: This is the age at which a 'transition to retirement' pension automatically converts to an 'account based pension'. This means that even if you are still working, you are no longer restricted to taking only 10% of the account balance each year, and, the investment returns made in the account now become fully tax free.

• Age 67: The age at which you can apply for Centrelink Age Pension and could start receiving money from the government (if you pass the income and asset test limits).

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16. Is it better to have money in an offset account or a savings account?

Another one of our most popular blog posts helps explain why offset accounts are typically the best option!

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17. What is the best Financial Strategy?

The answer is different for everyone because, everyone has different goals and objectives and financial circumstances. However, our blog post compares three common strategies:

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• Paying off your home loan

• Rent-vesting

• A combination of strategies

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18. What do I do with my annual Super Statement? 

• Make sure you are receiving an annual super statement by having the right contact details!

• Check your employer is putting in your super contributions.

• Compare the long term investment rates of return of your super fund against a relevant benchmark.

• Make sure you have the right amount of Life Insurance, TPD Insurance and Income Protection.

• You should make a beneficiary nomination.

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Learn more here. 

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19. Where do I put my Savings or how do I Invest? 

The decision requires you to think of a number of factors:

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• Which account provides the best after-tax benefit and

• Your goals - when you are likely to use these funds, how much you are likely to use and for what purpose.

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Learn more here. 

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20. Do I pay Inheritance Tax in Australia?

We explain Inheritance Tax in Australia (and how to plan ahead for it) and Superannuation Tax Planning for Non-Tax Beneficiaries. By planning for it properly well in advance, your family could potentially save thousands in tax!

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21. Is the Insurance in my Superannuation enough? 

The amount of default insurance you receive within superannuation is almost never enough! Fortunately, we help fully explain Life Insurances in Australia: The Who, What, Where, Why & How!

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