Financial Planning for Carpenters and Builders
Empowering Carpenters and Builders to Build Wealth and Financial Freedom
Whether you’re on wages or an ABN, the weeks weather stops work, your super and any cover you hold affect each other. We can help you work through them together, from your apprenticeship to running your own building jobs.
Our Financial Advice Team Is Here to Help You
We Can Help You
- Build a cash buffer for weeks lost to rain or a slow patch between jobs
- Work out who owes your super on wages, labour-only and supply-and-fix work
- Find any redundancy and long service leave balance before you change employer or go out on an ABN
- Catch up on super after years on an ABN, using unused contribution caps where you’re eligible
- Compare income protection terms that suit uneven building years and work on frames and roofs
- Set aside tax from each invoice, with an accountant setting the amount
- Plan the household budget beside a first building business paid in progress payments
- Review super and cover before stepping up to supervisor, estimator or builder
Who We Help
- Apprentices learning the trade on residential and commercial sites
- Carpenters on wages under the building award or an enterprise agreement
- Labour-only subcontractors paid by the hour or by the job
- Supply-and-fix carpenters quoting labour and materials on each job
- Crew leaders and company owners running a small carpentry business
- Joiners and fit-out carpenters making and installing in a workshop or on site
- Newly licensed builders and carpenters studying for a builder’s licence
- Site supervisors, estimators and carpenters moving into construction management or inspection
What we advise on
How Our Advice Works for Carpenters and Builders
Cashflow & Financial Wellbeing
Could the busy weeks on site cover the wet days and still add to your savings?
Setting aside part of each busy week can keep the bills paid through wet days and gaps between jobs alike.
We can plan your cashflow around the weeks rain, heat or a gap between jobs keeps you off site.
Under the Building and Construction Award, inclement weather such as rain, extreme heat or high wind can stop work on site. An employee in general building and construction or civil work is then generally paid for up to 32 ordinary hours in a 4-week period, though enterprise agreements may differ. A subcontractor is usually paid by the job, with no paid leave, so a wet week can mean no income. We can size a buffer for those weeks with you.
Together, we’ll work through:
- Wet weeks beyond the award’s inclement weather cap, counted into the buffer if you’re employed on site
- Rain days and quiet patches on an ABN, planned for with savings put aside in fuller months
- Supply-and-fix jobs, where money for materials passes through your account on its way to suppliers
- Progress payments on your own building jobs, which arrive by stage and shape when the household gets paid
- Income spread across more than one builder where possible, plus savings set aside for any invoice paid late or not at all
- Saws, nail guns and hand tools, with their replacement planned as a regular cost instead of a surprise bill
- Fixed household bills set against slower stretches in building approvals and work, without assuming how busy the year will be
- Any second income in the household, counted in the budget when your own pay can change with the weather
Superannuation
Across wages, contracts and your own jobs, is it clear who pays your super?
Sorting out who pays super on each type of work can show what to add yourself, so retirement savings can build.
We’ll work out with you who owes your super on wages, labour-only, supply-and-fix and company work.
A builder may have to pay super to a contractor paid mainly for their own labour, even one with an ABN, but super isn’t owed on the materials part of an invoice or when the contract is with your company, trust or partnership. A fund that markets to the building trade can be compared on fees, investment options and insurance like any other.
Together, we’ll work through:
- A carpentry company you subcontract to, which can owe you super for mostly labour work just as a builder can
- Supply-and-fix invoices, which generally attract super only when mostly labour, and then only on the labour share, never materials
- Contracting through your own company or trust, which ends the builder’s super obligation and puts super planning with your business
- A default fund from the award, kept or replaced with one you choose after the costs and cover of each are clear
- Years on an ABN with little or no super paid, and the carry-forward rules that may let you catch up, if eligible
- Insurance in an old employee fund once you invoice on an ABN, read for what it still covers
- Two or more funds left behind by past jobs, with the insurance in each checked before you merge them
- Super you pay into your own fund between builders’ jobs, with eligibility for a tax deduction checked by an accountant
Personal Insurance & Protection
If an injury on site stopped you working for a while, what would keep the household going?
Income protection can pay part of your income after a waiting period, so the household can keep up with regular costs.
Together, we’ll look at income protection for carpenters and builders, along with TPD and life cover for site work.
Income protection can pay part of your income if illness or injury stops you working, subject to the policy’s terms and the insurer’s assessment. Many policies base the benefit on what you earned in the 12 months before the illness or injury, so a quiet stretch on site can shape what’s paid. Insurers also ask about your duties, such as work at heights, heavy lifting and cutting materials that create dust.
Together, we’ll work through:
- Duties set out clearly when you apply, from roof and frame work at height to heavy lifting and power tools
- Silica dust from cutting brick, concrete or tile, disclosed to an insurer if the task is part of your duties
- Earnings in the 12 months before an illness or injury, which many policies use, and how wet months could shape the benefit
- A waiting period chosen against any rain-day buffer, with most policies offering 14 days to two years
- TPD definitions, read for how each one treats a carpenter who can still supervise or estimate but not do site work
- Income protection that some enterprise agreements and industry schemes provide, with its terms checked before adding cover of your own
- Workers compensation from a state, territory or Commonwealth scheme, which generally covers employees and not a sole trader
- An insurer’s final decision on your application, and what changes if terms or an exclusion are offered for your duties
Financial Planning & Advice
From apprentice to running your own crew, what could each step up mean for your money?
Reviewing pay, super and cover with each move can help your savings build as your work changes.
We’ll build a financial plan, or Statement of Advice, and review it from apprentice and employee to subcontractor, crew leader or builder.
The Building and Construction Award has its own redundancy scheme, which applies instead of the National Employment Standards and can generally pay out when an employee resigns as well as when they’re dismissed. Some employers pay into a redundancy pay scheme for it. The award’s redundancy scheme doesn’t cover apprentices. A first ABN invoice, a first crew or a builder’s licence are natural points to review the plan.
Together, we’ll work through:
- Any redundancy pay scheme balance in your name, located before you leave an employer to work on an ABN
- The first invoice you send on an ABN, used as the point to set up super, cover and money held for tax
- Running a small crew for the first time, with the household plan reviewed against the wages and super due with each pay run
- Study towards a builder’s licence, with course costs and the first jobs under your own name planned for
- Moving between residential, commercial and formwork jobs, and what each change does to your pay, cover and super
- Licensing questions taken to your state or territory regulator, and business insurance to a general insurance broker
- Tax and structure decisions made with an accountant, and any lending arranged through a broker, worked into one plan
- Life outside the job, such as a home, a holiday or more weekends free, set in order of what matters most to you
Tax & Wealth Strategies
After a busy run of jobs, what could the money left after tax go towards?
Holding a share of each payment for tax can have it ready when due, leaving the rest for your plans.
We can work alongside an accountant’s advice on invoices, reporting and structure as part of your wider plan.
Building and construction businesses that pay contractors report those payments to the ATO in a taxable payments annual report, lodged by 28 August each year, and the amounts can be pre-filled into a sole trader’s tax return. How much to set aside for tax, what you can claim and how to structure a carpentry business are questions for an accountant. We then plan your savings, super and cover around that advice with you.
Together, we’ll work through:
- Tax set aside from every invoice you send, at a rate an accountant works out for your income
- Contractor payments a builder reports to the ATO, checked against your invoices with an accountant before your return goes in
- A builder’s own taxable payments annual report, due by 28 August, prepared with an accountant once you pay subcontractors
- Trading as a sole trader or through a company, chosen with an accountant, and the way each changes how you hold insurance
- A redundancy pay scheme payment, if you receive one, with its tax treatment confirmed by an accountant before you spend it
- Steel-capped boots, hearing protection, safety glasses and car expenses, with any claim confirmed by an accountant
- Labour and materials shown separately on your invoices, which helps an accountant and a builder treat each part correctly
- PAYG instalments, if the ATO asks you to pay them, planned into the months ahead with an accountant
Retirement & Aged Care
Looking ahead to finishing up in building, what do you picture doing next?
A projection of your super and savings can show when that could happen, and what it could pay for.
We can plan your later career and retirement around the entitlements you’ve gathered in the building trade.
You can generally access super from preservation age, which is 60 for anyone born on or after 1 July 1964, once you meet a condition of release such as retiring. Construction workers can also build up long service leave across the industry through a portable scheme in each state and territory. A move into supervising, estimating or inspection can change your income and how long you choose to work.
Together, we’ll work through:
- Industry service with several builders, which may add up to a long service leave entitlement through your state or territory body
- A later role as a site supervisor, estimator, construction manager or building inspector, and how the change in pay shapes the plan
- Any redundancy balance or long service leave paid out at a career change, directed to debt, super or savings
- Fewer days on site after preservation age, with super drawn as a transition to retirement pension if your plans allow
- TPD and life cover in super as you near the end of your working life, including the age, usually 65, when TPD cover ends
- A finishing age of your choosing, and how many working years remain to build up super and other savings
- Downsizing a home you may have built or renovated yourself, and the downsizer contribution rules if you’re eligible
- Tools, vehicles and other assets you still hold in retirement, and how they count towards Age Pension tests
Property Investment Advice
How might a home of your own, or an investment property, fit around the building cycle?
Testing repayments against your wettest, quietest months can show whether a home loan could fit your budget through every season.
We’ll go through how a first home or investment property could fit an income shaped by weather and the building cycle.
A lender decides how it treats ABN or uneven income, and a broker arranges any loan. Borrowing to invest can magnify losses as well as gains, and the loan still has to be repaid if values fall or rent stops. From 1 July 2027, negative gearing for residential property is limited to new builds, though properties held at 12 May 2026 are exempt, and an accountant can confirm which rules apply to you.
Together, we’ll work through:
- A first home deposit saved from site income that rises and falls, with a separate buffer kept for wet months
- How a lender may view ABN income or a recent move from wages to contracting, a question for a broker
- Building your own home, with costs and a buffer planned, and owner-builder rules a question for your state or territory building regulator
- A home and an investment loan held together, with the combined repayments tested against a quieter year
- Income protection and life cover set against a new mortgage, with the sums insured sized to the repayments
- New tax rules on negative gearing and the CGT discount from 1 July 2027, checked with an accountant before you buy
- Purchase costs beyond the deposit, such as legal fees, inspections and any stamp duty, saved for in advance
- Buying land to build on, where a construction loan is usually drawn in stages as each part of the build is done
Your Building Career, Worked Through Together
Weeks Lost to Weather
A buffer planned with you for rain days and gaps between jobs.
Super Across the Contract Chain
A check of who owes your super on wages, labour-only and supply-and-fix work.
Redundancy and Leave Balances
A search for any redundancy pay scheme or long service leave balance in your name.
Catching Up on Super
Unused contribution caps from past ABN years looked at, if you’re eligible to use them.
Income Protection for Uneven Years
Policies compared on how they treat a quieter year, with the insurer deciding the terms.
Tax Set Aside From Each Invoice
A set-aside for tax on every invoice, with the amount worked out by an accountant.
A First Building Business
A household plan kept alongside the progress payments and costs of your own jobs.
Moving Into Supervising or Estimating
Super, cover and pay reviewed as you move into supervising, estimating or building inspection.
Proactive, Holistic, and Experienced Financial Planning
Carpentry is skilled, practical work: reading plans, getting the details right and building homes and spaces that people live in for many years. The work moves from site to site and through every season, and no two jobs are quite the same. We’ll listen first, to how your work runs and what matters to you at home, and then help you shape a plan around the way you’re paid and the life you want.
Your skills can take you in many directions: a first home, more time with the people who matter to you, a crew or a building business of your own, or more say over how your weeks look. If someone at home relies on your income, we’ll help you plan for them too. Whichever way your career goes, we can help you plan each step towards the life you’d like to live, today and in the years to come.
Every financial decision impacts the next
Your Financial Life Is Connected
Great advice starts with understanding the bigger picture. Every stage of life presents new opportunities and challenges, from buying property and changing careers to growing your family, planning for retirement and protecting what matters most. At Ryker, we help connect every piece of your financial world into one clear strategy.
Your
Wealth
- Property & Investing
- Career & Income
- Tax Strategy
- Insurance & Protecting Your Family
- Super & SMSF
- Wealth & Investments
- Life Events & Changes
- Business & Wealth
- Legacy & Future Wealth
- Retirement Planning
Frequently Asked Questions
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.
It depends on how you’re engaged. Under the Building and Construction Award, inclement weather such as rain, extreme heat or high wind can stop work on site. An employee in general building and construction or civil work is then generally paid for up to 32 ordinary hours in a 4-week period, though enterprise agreements may differ.
A subcontractor on an ABN is paid for the work done, with no paid leave, so a rained-out day usually means no income for that day.
We can help you plan a buffer and cover that suit the way you’re paid, whether that’s wages, invoices or both.
Generally, no. When a contract is mainly for your own labour, a builder may have to pay you super even though you have an ABN. Super is worked out on the labour part of the contract, never on materials, equipment, other non-labour items or GST.
If you contract through your own company, trust or partnership, the builder generally doesn’t owe you super at all. Whether you count as an employee for super depends on the contract and how the work is done, so confirm it with an accountant.
We can help you plan super contributions of your own that suit how your invoices come in.
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.
You may be able to. If you didn’t use your full concessional contributions cap in earlier years, the unused amounts from up to five previous financial years can be carried forward, including years when you weren’t a member of a super fund. To use them, your total super balance must be under a set threshold at the previous 30 June, and the caps are indexed, so the amounts change over time.
How much to contribute, and whether you can claim a deduction, are questions to confirm with an accountant.
We can help you work out whether catching up suits your cashflow and plans, if you’re eligible.
The Building and Construction Award has its own redundancy scheme, which applies instead of the National Employment Standards. Under it, redundancy pay can generally be owed when an employee resigns as well as when they’re dismissed, and apprentices aren’t covered. Some employers pay into a redundancy pay scheme, so the money may be held there.
Long service leave in construction can build up across the industry through the portable scheme in your state or territory, so it may not end with one employer.
We can help you find out what you hold before you make the move, and plan for it alongside your super and cover.
A tradie insurance package is usually built around the business: public liability, tools and sometimes contract works, arranged online or through a general insurance broker. Personal cover is a separate question. Income protection, TPD and life cover are about you and anyone who relies on your income, if illness or injury stops you working.
Advice looks at that side, including any cover in your super, the definitions that suit site work and how a policy treats a year with quieter months.
We can compare suitable options with you, and the insurer makes the final decision on any application.
It depends on what you need from a fund. Some funds market themselves to the building and construction industry, and your award may name a default fund, but the right choice comes down to fees, investment options, the insurance inside the fund and whether that cover suits site work.
This is general information only. It doesn’t take into account your objectives, financial situation or needs, so consider whether it’s appropriate for you and read the fund’s product disclosure statement before deciding.
We can compare funds with you and help you work out the best suited cover for your situation.
Yes, from your first year as an apprentice to running your own jobs.
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 a recent payslip or a few recent invoices, your latest super statement, details of any cover you hold and any redundancy or long service leave statements. Tell us how you’re engaged now and where you’d like the trade to take you.
Who We Help
Advice for All Stages of Life
From first job to retirement, we help you build wealth, protect it, and live well.
Starting Out
First jobs, first home, first super, HECS debt, budgeting and more.
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First home buyers, new parents, school fees, single incomes, young families and more.
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Doctors, dentists, pharmacists, allied health, nurses and more.
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Lawyers, accountants, brokers, engineers, consultants and more.
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Electricians, plumbers, builders, sole traders, franchisees and more.
Corporate & Executive
Executives, senior managers, directors, board members and more.
Public Sector & Defence
Police, firefighters, paramedics, ADF personnel, teachers and more.
Approaching Retirement
Pre-retirees, transition to retirement, Age Pension, aged care, estate planning and more.
Other Stages
Any income, any stage, career changers, separation, second opinions and more.
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Grow & Protect Your Wealth Today
Whatever’s on your mind, we’re here to help. You’ll speak with an authorised financial adviser who’ll listen first and get to know what matters to you.
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