Wealth Management

Financial planning involves an ongoing collaboration between clients and professionals to pinpoint objectives, assess resources, and craft a strategic path toward financial goals. It encompasses more than just investing, offering assurance in navigating various life stages while maintaining financial stability.

To gain a deeper understanding of financial planning and its potential benefits for you, we invite you to explore our more in-depth article "What Is Financial Planning?"

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A financial adviser is a professional who provides personalised guidance and assistance in managing various aspects of an individual or an entity’s finances. They help clients set financial goals, develop comprehensive plans to achieve those goals and make informed decisions about investments, retirement planning, taxes, insurance, and estate planning. Financial advisers also offer ongoing support and advice to help clients navigate financial challenges and make adjustments as their circumstances change. Overall, their role is to help clients optimise their financial situation and work towards long-term financial security.

Financial advisers play a crucial role in guiding individuals towards financial stability and success. Through personalised advice and expertise, they assist clients in various ways:

• Goal Setting: Helping clients define and prioritise their financial goals, whether it's saving for retirement, purchasing a home, or funding education.‍
• Wealth Accumulation: Devising a strategy around investing your available capital, inside and outside of superannuation, and growing that capital over time.
• Superannuation Optimisation: Maximising your opportunity to contribute additional capital to your superannuation to grow your retirement wealth tax effectively.
• Retirement Planning: Assisting you to transition from your working life into a retirement lifestyle providing regularity and security of income.
• ‍Capital Investment & Portfolio Management: Structing an investment portfolio for your superannuation, savings or business sale proceeds tailored to your risk appetite and optimized for tax effectiveness.
• Asset Protection: Entity structuring and insurance benefits to safeguard your family wealth and lifestyle against unforseen events.‍
• Estate Planning and Intergenerational Wealth Transfer: Working with your solicitor to devise an estate plan for the effective transfer of wealth to your preferred beneficiaries, providing you with peace of mind.

A financial adviser can provide you with guidance to help you achieve your short and long-term financial goals. They can help you navigate the sometimes treacherous waters of money management and can offer support on the journey to a successful financial future. Everyone could benefit from the skills of a financial adviser, however, there are times when engaging a financial adviser becomes particularly important. These might include:

• A life changing event, such as sale of your business
• Seeking out a broader range of investment opportunities
• Looking to grow your wealth tax effectively
• Wanting to ensure you are well positioned for the future
• Peace of mind that you have a professional adviser guiding you

To learn more about this, read “When should I get a financial adviser”

Whether it’s for tax planning, investing, estate planning, debt management or during a time of change, everyone could benefit from the help of a financial adviser. Still, it’s important to go into a relationship with a financial adviser with your eyes wide open, and this means asking your financial adviser a series of questions. Here are five to get you started.

1. How do you get paid for services?
2. What’s your investment philosophy?
3. What are your credentials?
4. What’s included and what’s extra?
5. How often will we meet?

To learn more about this, read “What to ask a financial adviser”

The initial step in financial planning involves engaging the services of a reputable authorised financial adviser. Without professional guidance, crafting a comprehensive financial plan becomes challenging. It's important to select a financial adviser with substantial experience and expertise to ensure sound advice and effective long-term planning.

When engaging in financial planning, it's vital to provide both measurable components such as assets, debts, and income, as well as intangible aspects like financial history and personal values to your financial adviser. While measurable components serve as the foundation for analysis and strategy formulation, intangible factors shape your financial decisions and aspirations. By considering both dimensions, your adviser can create a comprehensive plan that not only aligns with your financial goals but also reflects your individual circumstances and values, fostering a deeper connection between you and your adviser.

Our advice will be provided to you in a written format known as a Statement of Advice (SoA) also known as a ‘financial plan’. The financial plan is a written summary of the advice.