Financial Planning for Youth, Child Protection and Community Workers
Empowering Community Workers to Build Wealth and Financial Freedom
What your employer can offer in packaging, any contract end date, long service, super and any personal cover all connect. We help you weigh them together and plan each move between programs, employers and roles.
Our Financial Advice Team Is Here to Help You
We Can Help You
- Compare offers from a charity, a not-for-profit and a government department on take-home pay, super and leave
- Understand what salary packaging your type of employer can offer, with an accountant confirming the tax
- Prepare for a contract’s end date with a savings buffer sized to your essential costs
- Check whether a portable long service scheme covers your work, and plan when to take the leave
- Budget car costs, if you drive to client visits, beside any per-kilometre reimbursement
- Review income protection for part-time, full-time or funded work, subject to policy terms
- Plan super contributions through any part-time years and gaps between roles, if money is available
- Map out a step into team leadership or program management across pay, super and cover
Who We Help
- Youth workers in youth services, refuges and outreach programs
- Child protection practitioners in a government department or a funded organisation
- Caseworkers in family support, family violence or homelessness services
- Residential care workers in out-of-home care for children and young people
- Community development workers in neighbourhood centres and local programs
- Social workers in community organisations and support services
- Workers on funded contracts where the role is tied to a program’s funding
- Team leaders and program managers running a service or a funded program
What we advise on
How Our Advice Works for Community Workers
Financial Planning & Advice
With each move between programs, organisations or roles, what would you like your money to build towards?
Looking at pay, super and cover before each change can show what a move could add to the life you’re planning.
Together, we’ll build a financial plan, or Statement of Advice, that moves with each role, program and employer.
Community work can move between a charity, a not-for-profit and a government department, through funded roles and renewals, into team leadership or program management, and through study or a long break. Each move can change your pay, any packaging, your super and your leave. If you hold a public sector super scheme from an earlier role, we can read its own rules with you before any change.
Together, we’ll work through:
- An offer to move from a charity into a government department, or back again, weighed against your plans
- A renewal date on a funded role, with a plan for staying on, moving on or taking a break
- Moving from frontline casework into team leader or program manager roles, with the pay difference given a purpose
- Postgraduate or further study, with course costs and any time on reduced hours planned before you enrol
- A planned long break, such as long service, parental leave or travel, with pay and super mapped out first
- Work outside direct service, such as policy, sector training or advocacy, and how the change sits in your plan
- Savings goals you choose, from a holiday to a deposit, each set against what each pay can support
- Your plan revisited when a contract is renewed, a program changes or you join a new organisation
Tax & Wealth Strategies
Could the kind of organisation you work for shape how much of each pay you keep?
Understanding what your type of employer allows can help you direct each pay towards the goals you’ve set.
We can show you how your employer’s type shapes any salary packaging it offers, with tax confirmed by an accountant.
Public benevolent institutions and health promotion charities can offer packaging under a capped fringe benefits tax exemption, some other charities and not-for-profits receive a capped rebate instead, and a government department or a business may not offer the same packaging. Packaging is arranged before you’re paid, and it generally ends with the role. Ryker’s financial advisers plan tax and set tax structure and strategy, working alongside your accountant, who prepares and lodges your return.
Together, we’ll work through:
- Whether an organisation is a public benevolent institution or a rebatable employer, confirmed by the organisation or its packaging provider
- Meal entertainment and entertainment facility leasing benefits, which carry their own separate cap
- Two job offers compared on take-home pay after packaging, not on base salary alone
- A packaging form at a new organisation, arranged before the pay it applies to
- Any unspent packaging balance when a role ends, checked against the packaging provider’s terms
- A packaging arrangement ending part way through the fringe benefits tax year, with the amount used confirmed by the packaging provider
- A novated lease, if your organisation offers one, compared with keeping the car you own, with an accountant confirming the tax side
- Any work kilometres in your own car beyond any reimbursement, and what an accountant confirms you can claim
Cashflow & Financial Wellbeing
When your role changes or a contract ends, what would a savings buffer help you choose?
A buffer built steadily from each pay can give you time to weigh up what comes next.
We can map your spending with you, and size a savings buffer to any contract end date.
A funded role may run to a set date, and a renewal may arrive late or not at all. Under the National Employment Standards, a fixed-term contract that ends on its date generally carries no redundancy pay, though an agreement may say more. We can plan your regular costs, any packaged spending and any car costs around those dates.
Together, we’ll work through:
- Regular bills set against the pay you receive now, not a renewal that hasn’t been confirmed
- A savings buffer sized to your essential costs and the months left on a fixed-term contract
- Any packaged expenses shown in the budget as they leave each pay, beside the bills paid from take-home pay
- Fuel, servicing and registration on any car you use for work, set against any per-kilometre reimbursement
- A renewal letter or a new offer, used as a point to review spending, savings and debt
- The final pay at a contract’s end, including any leave paid out, planned before it arrives
- Moving from full-time to part-time days, with spending reset to what the new pay can carry
- Debt repayments mapped to the end date of a funded role, with any unpaid weeks in mind
Personal Insurance & Protection
How would part of your income keep coming in if illness or injury stopped you working for a while?
Income protection can pay part of your income after a waiting period, towards the bills and the plans you’ve already made.
We’ll go through any cover you hold with you, and how part-time or funded work can affect it.
Income protection can pay part of your income if illness or injury stops you working, under the policy’s definition of disability, waiting period and other requirements. Many policies base the benefit on your earnings in the 12 months before that illness or injury, so a part-time year or a gap between roles can count. How a policy treats contract or part-time work is set out in its terms. Workers compensation is separate, through a state, territory or Commonwealth scheme.
Together, we’ll work through:
- Earnings from a part-time year, a funded role that ended or a stretch of study, and how a policy may count them
- Personal leave that may not carry over to a new organisation, and a waiting period chosen with that in mind
- Policy terms on contract or part-time work, checked in the policy before you rely on them
- Any cover that came with your super, read against a job that includes home visits, outreach or after-hours calls
- Cover in super across a long break between roles, and whether it still fits the job you return to
- Workers compensation for an injury on a home visit or in a residential service, and how it sits apart from personal cover
- Life cover for your loved ones, reviewed at each change of role against what they may need
- TPD (total and permanent disability) cover, and how the policy defines being unable to work again
Superannuation
Whether you work part-time, full-time or between roles, what could your super build to over time?
Checking your fund and contributions at each change of role can show where extra contributions could suit you.
We can check your contributions with you through any part-time years, gaps between roles and each change of employer.
Part-time years can mean smaller employer contributions, and a gap between roles can mean none. Salary sacrifice may suit you within the concessional cap, which is indexed and can change each year. When you start a new job, your employer generally pays into your existing super fund unless you choose another; a default fund applies only if you have no fund.
Together, we’ll work through:
- Each employer’s contributions traced across funded roles that started and ended at different times
- Time between funded roles with nothing paid in, and whether to add some yourself, if money is available
- Before-tax contributions to super set against any packaging benefits, since both come out of the same pay before tax
- Your existing fund’s details given when you start at a new organisation, so contributions follow you between roles
- Super left behind in a fund from an earlier community sector role, combined only after its cover is checked
- Years with contributions paused between funded roles, counted in the projection of your balance
- Extra contributions before or after a long break, such as parental leave or study, if money is available
- How your account is invested, reviewed whenever a change of role shifts the date you expect to stop work
Retirement & Aged Care
What would a good retirement look like for you after a career in community services?
Planning your super, leave and timing together can help you finish work in a way that suits you.
We’ll show you how long service, any part-time years and your super may shape the timing of your retirement.
Preservation age is 60 for anyone born from 1 July 1964, and super can generally only be accessed once you meet a condition of release, such as ceasing employment at 60 or over. Long service built up over a career, including any portable scheme credits, can be part of how and when you finish. A transition to retirement income stream may let you work fewer days while drawing on super, if eligible.
Together, we’ll work through:
- Long service from your current organisation or a portable scheme, used to bridge the weeks before your finish date
- Portable long service credits built across several employers, checked with the scheme that records them
- A move to three or four days a week later on, with the effect on super worked through first
- A projection of your super that allows for the years you worked fewer hours or took breaks
- Casual or sessional work after you leave an ongoing role, and how that income fits your plan
- Volunteering or board roles you’d like to keep in retirement, and the time and costs to plan for
- Community causes you’d like to give time or money to after work, built into what super needs to cover
- Any public sector scheme from an earlier government role, with its payment options read before you retire
Property Investment Advice
Could a home of your own be a goal you plan towards, whatever kind of role you’re in?
Setting a deposit target and testing repayments against your budget can make a home a goal with clear steps.
We can plan a home purchase with you around the way you’re employed, with lending left to a broker.
Lenders assess fixed-term, part-time and ongoing income in their own ways, so a mortgage broker and the lender decide what counts. Before that, we can test a deposit, repayments and buying costs against your budget, super and any cover. A contract end date or a planned long break can be built into the timing with you.
Together, we’ll work through:
- A deposit plan built from regular pay, with a date set for each savings milestone
- Your employment type, ongoing, fixed-term or part-time, discussed with a broker before you look at homes
- Repayment amounts checked against a contract ending without renewal, as well as against your current pay
- Any packaged mortgage or rent payments, and what changes to take-home pay if packaging ends with a role
- Cover held against a new home loan, reviewed with any contract end date in view before settlement
- Transfer duty, legal and moving costs added to the deposit target, with any concession confirmed by the state or territory revenue office
- Travel to work and client visits from where you might buy, set against the price difference
- A long service break or parental leave planned around settlement and the first repayments
Your Contracts, Packaging and Super, Worked Through Together
Job Offers Compared Across Employers
Offers from a charity, a not-for-profit or a department set side by side on take-home pay, super and leave.
Packaging Options Understood
What your type of employer allows in packaging set out plainly, with the tax confirmed by an accountant.
A Contract End Date Planned For
A savings buffer and a plan for the weeks around a fixed-term contract’s end date.
Long Service Kept in View
Long service, including any portable scheme credits, built into the timing of a long break or retirement.
Work Car Costs in the Budget
If you drive for work, running costs set against any reimbursement your employer pays.
Cover Reviewed for How You Work
Income protection reviewed for part-time, full-time or funded work, subject to policy terms.
Super Planned Through Breaks
Contributions planned through any part-time years and time between roles, if money is available.
A Step Into Leadership Planned
A move into team leadership or program management worked through for pay, super and cover.
Proactive, Holistic, and Experienced Financial Planning
Community work often happens in other people’s hardest weeks, and some of it comes after hours, on call or out on home visits. With each day spent focused on someone else, your own money can be left until later, somewhere between one program, contract or role and the next. We’ll take the time to listen to what you want from your work and your life, then help you build a plan around the way you’re employed, set out in plain words.
Over a working life, community work can take you between charities, government and other organisations, into new programs or a team leader’s role, and through stretches of study or leave. Each change can shift your pay, your super and any cover, and we can adjust your plan with you as each one comes. Whether you’d like a home of your own, more time outside work or a retirement you can look forward to, we can help you work towards it.
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.
No. What an employer can offer depends on its type. A public benevolent institution or a health promotion charity can offer packaging under a capped fringe benefits tax exemption, while some other registered charities and not-for-profits are rebatable employers, with a capped rebate instead. At these employers, meal entertainment benefits have their own separate cap. A government department or a business may not offer the same packaging.
The organisation or its packaging provider can confirm which type applies, and packaging has to be arranged before you’re paid.
We can show you how the options at your employer fit your budget, super and goals, with an accountant confirming the tax.
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.
Look past the base salary. A department may pay a higher base, while a charity may offer packaging that reduces the tax on part of your pay. Points to compare:
- Take-home pay after any packaging the employer offers.
- Employer super contributions, and any public sector scheme the role comes with.
- Leave, including how long service is counted and whether a portable scheme applies.
- Whether the role is ongoing or fixed-term, and any end date.
- Any car use, reimbursement or novated lease on offer.
We can set the two offers side by side with you, with an accountant confirming the tax.
A packaging provider can explain its own rules clearly: what you can package, the caps that apply at your employer, its fees and how its card or reimbursements work. That information is useful to have before you sign up.
Advice looks at how packaging sits with the rest of your finances: your budget, super, cover, any contract end date and any move to a new employer, where the arrangement generally ends.
We can go through the provider’s figures with you and build them into your plan, with an accountant confirming the tax.
Start with the end date and work back. Points to work through:
- Redundancy pay, which a fixed-term contract ending on its date generally doesn’t carry under the National Employment Standards, though an agreement may differ. Fair Work can explain your entitlements.
- A savings buffer sized to your essential costs.
- Any packaging, which generally stops with the role, and any unspent balance under the provider’s terms.
- Your super and any cover in it, if contributions will pause.
- Leave paid out in your final pay, and long service if a portable scheme covers your work.
We can set out a plan with you for staying on, moving on or taking a break.
It can, depending on where you work. Some states and territories run portable long service schemes for community services, so service can build up across employers in the sector. The schemes differ in who they cover, how long you need to work and how long credits are kept if you leave the industry.
Without a portable scheme, long service generally depends on your service with one employer, under your award, agreement or the law where you work. Where a scheme applies, it can confirm whether your work is covered and what service it has recorded.
We can bring long service into your plans for a long break, a change of role or retirement.
The insurer decides, based on your answers about your work, income, health and other details when you apply. Many policies base the benefit on your earnings in the 12 months before an illness or injury, so a part-time year or a gap between roles can affect what a policy pays, and how it treats contract work is set out in its terms.
Default cover inside super can usually be issued without medical checks, though it may carry pre-existing condition rules set out in the fund’s PDS, and increasing it is usually underwritten like any other application.
We can compare suitable policies with you before you apply, and review any cover you already hold.
Yes, from your first role in community services to many years into the work.
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 recent payslips, any contract or offer letter, any packaging statement, a super statement and the details of any cover you hold. We’ll talk through how you’re employed and what you’d like to work towards, then agree with you where to start.
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.
Growing Families
First home buyers, new parents, school fees, single incomes, young families and more.
Medical & Health
Doctors, dentists, pharmacists, allied health, nurses and more.
Professional Services & Tech
Lawyers, accountants, brokers, engineers, consultants and more.
Trades & Business Owners
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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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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