Financial Planning for Aircraft Maintenance Engineers

We’re invested in your long-term success. What we do is personal, and we take it personally.

Your financial decisions connect, so we consider the parts of your financial life that are relevant to the advice you need:

• Property & Investing
• Career & Income
• Tax Strategy
• Insurance & Protecting Your Family
• Super & SMSF
• Wealth & Investments
• Life Events & Changes
• Business & Wealth
• Legacy & Future Wealth
• Retirement Planning

This is how we help you make decisions today with your longer-term goals in view.

Everybody’s situation is different, so we listen first, understand what matters to you and explain your options clearly before we make a recommendation.

Pay depends on who you work for, your licence and types, and how you’re engaged, so we start from your own payslips rather than an average. One award, for example, pays an extra weekly amount for each type rating endorsement, up to a cap, and treats it as part of your pay for everything under that award. Other awards and agreements may differ.

Because a type leaving the fleet or a change of employer can move that part of your pay, it helps to build the budget on base pay and any licence allowance, then decide what type, shift and overtime pay will each go towards. We can work through that with you.

Your accountant and financial adviser bring different expertise to the same decisions. Your accountant can advise on tax reporting, structures and consequences; we help you plan how cashflow, debt, super, investments and protection work towards your goals. We can coordinate before important decisions.

What an accountant does

• Prepares and lodges tax returns, BAS and financial statements
• Advises on tax structures such as companies, trusts and partnerships
• Manages bookkeeping, payroll and ATO compliance
• Provides tax advice on the consequences of a transaction

What a financial adviser does

• Sets a long term strategy across retirement, investing and cash flow
• Builds wealth from early in a working life, starting with cash flow, a first home and super
• Recommends specific super funds, investments and personal insurance
• Operates under an Australian Financial Services Licence, which is required to give personal advice on financial products
• Handles retirement planning, Centrelink and aged care strategy, and estate planning considerations

Professional roles and authorisations matter. We provide financial advice within our authorisations and work with your accountant for specialist tax advice and lodgements.

Where they work together

• Tax position. Your accountant confirms your marginal rate, deductions and carried forward losses, which shapes decisions on super contributions, investment structures and the timing of asset sales.
• Business and entity structures. Your accountant advises on the structure itself and your financial adviser works within it for investments, insurance and succession planning.
• Cash flow. Your accountant’s figures can help us understand what’s available for debt repayment, protection and longer-term goals.
• Before key decisions. We can coordinate with your accountant on contributions, asset sales and other material choices in time to consider relevant tax consequences.

Who employs you makes the difference. The ATO says an Australian resident employer generally pays your super for service inside and outside Australia, while an employer that isn’t an Australian resident isn’t required to pay it while you work outside Australia.

Where no employer super is being paid, your own contributions can keep your super building, within the yearly caps. Whether you remain an Australian resident for tax is decided by the ATO’s tests, which an accountant can apply. If you have cover in super, it’s worth asking your fund what a low balance would mean for it. We can plan contributions with you before you go.

Start with the enterprise agreement or employment contract that covers you, because the Fair Work Act’s stand-down rules only apply where neither has its own. Under the Act, you can be stood down if you can’t do useful work because of a stoppage your employer can’t be held responsible for, not because work is quiet.

While stood down, your employer doesn’t have to pay you, and you keep accruing leave. You can agree to use some types of paid leave, such as annual leave, but Fair Work notes that if you’re stood down without pay under the Act, paid sick and carer’s leave can’t be used. The Fair Work Commission can deal with a stand-down dispute. A cash buffer is the part we can plan with you ahead of time.

Start with the full cost, any bond you’d be asked to sign and what the type could add to your pay where an award or agreement pays for type ratings. A bond’s terms, such as what you’d repay if you leave early, are worth reading before you sign.

Whether a course you fund yourself is deductible depends on its connection to your current work, and an accountant can confirm it for you. Courses your employer pays for, and courses aimed at getting a new job, generally can’t be claimed. We can weigh the cost against your savings and goals with you, so the decision fits the rest of your plan.

Leave, super and any cover through work can all change. If a labour hire business employs you, you’re still an employee; one award, for example, covers labour hire employees placed with a business in the airline operations industry. If the move makes you self-employed, Moneysmart notes you won’t have paid holidays or sick leave.

On a contract, a business may still have to pay your super if you’re paid mainly for your labour, not for a set result, and you can’t delegate the work. That doesn’t apply if you contract through your own company, trust or partnership. Cover through your employer may not continue once you leave, so ask your employer or fund before your last day. We can plan the move with you.

Online pay guides and calculators can show what an award or agreement pays for a licence, a type rating, shifts or overtime, which is a useful way to check a payslip. They may not show what that pay could do across your budget, super, cover and goals, or how a contract or an overseas move could change it.

Personal advice starts with your situation and connects those decisions in one plan. We can work through it with you and set out our recommendations in writing.

Yes. We’d start with when you’d like to step back from nights or the hangar floor, if they’re part of your week, and whether a training, planning or quality role could come first. If you take on contract work as a self-employed engineer, what goes into your super may be yours to plan.

The plan rests on super and savings, with the income each stage could bring. You can read more about our retirement advice.

We’re a national service, so you can meet with us by phone or video from anywhere in Australia. We also have offices in three cities:

• Sydney: offices in Sydney CBD, Parramatta, Seven Hills, Ingleburn and Narellan, servicing areas including the City of Sydney, Eastern Suburbs, Inner West, North Shore, Northern Beaches, Sutherland Shire, Blacktown, Liverpool, Campbelltown and all surrounding suburbs.
• Melbourne: our St Kilda Road office, servicing areas including the City of Melbourne, Port Phillip, Boroondara, Monash, Casey, Wyndham and all surrounding suburbs.
• Brisbane: our Eagle Street office, servicing areas including Brisbane City, Moreton Bay, Ipswich, Logan, the Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast and all surrounding suburbs.

Yes. An apprentice, a newly licensed engineer, a licensed engineer on contract or a technician leaving the ADF can all start with us, wherever things stand now.

There’s no cost for the initial conversation. Any advice after that is a paid service, with its scope and fee agreed with you in writing first.

It helps to bring payslips from a few pay periods, any licence and type details, your super statements, and any contract, bond letter or insurance policy you have.