Financial Planning for Dentists
Financial Advice Empowering Dentists to Build Wealth and Freedom
An associate contract, pay that may be a share of collections, super, cover and any buy-in or sale are decisions that connect. We help you plan them as one, from a first associate role to any practice sale.
Our Financial Advice Team Is Here to Help You
We Can Help You
- Compare a corporate group’s associate offer with a private practice’s on pay, super, leave and terms
- Plan super contributions to suit the contract you sign, including any years no practice pays super for you
- Weigh contracting through a company or trust within your wider plan, with an accountant advising on structure
- Size income protection and life cover to your income and any practice debt
- Work out what a buy-in or new rooms would ask of your savings and cover, with a broker on finance
- Order a home purchase, any practice loan and any HELP debt so each decision considers the others
- Fund postgraduate specialty training, with fees and fewer clinical days budgeted ahead
- Map a practice sale into retirement, with an accountant on tax and any small business CGT concessions
Who We Help
- Graduate dentists in a first associate role
- Associates in corporate groups weighing pay, super and the terms of an offer
- Associates in private practice considering whether a buy-in suits them
- Contracting dentists working through a company or trust, with super, cover and tax to plan
- Dentists in postgraduate specialty training with fees and fewer clinical days to plan for
- Dentists buying into a partnership or a principal’s share of a practice
- Principals setting up rooms with fit-out, chairs and equipment to fund
- Owners approached about a sale by a corporate group or another dentist
What we advise on
How Our Advice Works for Dentists
Financial Planning & Advice
Between associate offers and perhaps a practice one day, how do you choose the right path?
Weighing associate offers and ownership side by side can show the difference each might make to your wealth, and help you choose.
We can compare corporate and private associate offers with you and, if you own a practice later, any offer to buy it.
Early in a dental career, the choice is which associate offer to take and on what terms. Years later, if you own a practice, it can be who buys it. Between the two sit decisions about postgraduate specialty training, a buy-in or rooms of your own, and how many days you work. We can set review points with you at each one, so the plan changes when your career does.
Together, we’ll work through:
- An associate offer from a corporate group, set beside one from a private practice, on pay, super, leave and future options
- Whether an offer includes any path to a buy-in, weighed alongside the pay when you choose between two roles
- Postgraduate specialty training, with years of fees and fewer clinical days planned well before you apply
- A buy-in offer from a principal, reviewed against your savings, any HELP debt and any home you’d like to buy
- Setting up rooms of your own, with the timing weighed against a home purchase, savings and any cover you hold
- An approach to buy a practice you own, from a corporate group or another dentist, set as a point to review the whole plan
- A return from parental leave to fewer days, if that’s your plan, with the change in income built into the budget
- Moving away from chairside work later in your career, such as teaching or part-time days, costed against the income you’d like
Superannuation
Could your super grow alongside your dental career, wherever you work?
A regular review of fees, investments and contributions can help each working arrangement add to your super.
We’ll map with you who pays your super when you’re employed, contracting as yourself or working through a company or trust.
On a contract, a business may still have to pay super if you’re paid mainly for your labour. The ATO also says a business that contracts with a company, trust or partnership doesn’t have to pay super for the person it employs to do the work, so a practice contracting with a company you own generally won’t. An accountant can confirm what a company or trust you contract through owes, and we plan your contributions around that answer.
Together, we’ll work through:
- An employee role, where the practice generally pays super for you, compared with a contract offer from the same group
- An associate agreement signed as an individual, where the practice may owe super if most of what it pays is for your labour
- A contract through a company or trust you own, where the practice generally doesn’t pay super for you, with an accountant on what the entity owes
- Super on a contract mainly for your labour, worked out from 1 July 2026 on qualifying earnings, with an accountant confirming what that includes
- Contributions you make yourself in years no practice pays super for you, set at an amount your cashflow can carry
- Concessional (before-tax) contributions in a strong year, kept within the caps that apply to you that year, which are indexed
- A spouse contribution or contribution splitting, if you have a partner working fewer days, weighed as part of the household’s super
- Contributions during years a practice loan is being repaid, set at a level the household can sustain alongside the repayments
Personal Insurance & Protection
Your work relies on your hands and your health, so what would support your income if you couldn’t practise?
Income protection can pay part of your income after a waiting period if illness or injury keeps you from the chair.
We’ll weigh up with you income protection, life cover and TPD for work that relies on your hands, eyes, neck and back.
Income protection generally pays part of your income if illness or injury stops you working, and the benefit is usually based on your earnings in the 12 months before. If your pay is a share of what’s collected, a quieter or part-time year can lower that figure. Most policies offer waiting periods from 14 days to two years. The insurer sets the terms of any cover and makes the final decision on any claim.
Together, we’ll work through:
- An injury to a hand, wrist, eye, neck or back, and how a policy defines being unable to carry out your clinical duties
- Any dip in collections before a claim, such as fewer days worked, and how a policy using your prior 12 months’ earnings may count it
- Savings that could carry you through a longer waiting period, if you contract and earn nothing on days off
- Any default insurance in a super fund joined as an employee, checked before any move to contracting, as a change of work status can affect it
- Life and TPD sums insured set against any buy-in loan, fit-out finance or mortgage, plus what anyone depending on you would need
- Trauma cover, which can pay a lump sum on a listed condition, considered alongside income protection for procedural work
- Any new application, where an insurer sets terms based on your health, your job and other details at the time you apply
- Your cover reviewed again at a buy-in, a move to postgraduate specialty training or a sale, when income and debts change
Tax & Wealth Strategies
As your earnings grow, is the way you’re set up for tax still working for you?
Revisiting how you’re set up for tax as earnings grow can keep more of each year’s income building your wealth.
We’ll plan the tax side of how you contract and of any buy-in or sale, with an accountant advising on the detail.
Ryker’s financial advisers plan tax and set tax structure and strategy, working alongside your accountant, who prepares and lodges your return. If you contract through a company or trust, the ATO can still treat income from your own skill and effort as personal services income, and an accountant confirms how those rules apply. If you pay PAYG instalments, the ATO takes any HELP debt into account when working them out.
Together, we’ll work through:
- Signing an associate agreement as yourself or as a company, with an accountant explaining what each means for your tax before you commit
- Any HELP debt alongside contract income, where the ATO includes any compulsory repayment in your notice of assessment and factors it into any PAYG instalments
- Lab fees, materials and equipment costs under a contract, with an accountant confirming which you can claim and how
- Fit-out, chairs and equipment for new rooms, with an accountant advising on how depreciation and any finance costs are treated
- The price of a buy-in, with any split between goodwill and equipment, and its tax effect advised on by an accountant before you agree
- A practice sale, where the small business CGT concessions may apply, with an accountant confirming eligibility for each one
- Payment from a corporate group at a sale, such as any shares received as part of the price, with an accountant on the tax
- Your household’s incomes considered together, with an accountant, when deciding whose name any investments are held in
Property Investment Advice
How could a home, and perhaps a practice later, fit together on your income?
Sequencing the home and any practice in a financial plan can show which might come first, and what the second would need.
We can weigh up with you whether a home or a buy-in comes first, and how each one affects the other.
A home loan, any practice or fit-out finance and any HELP debt can all draw on the same income. Lenders decide how they assess contract income, and a broker arranges any loan. We look at the order with you, and at the cover and savings each step needs, before you apply for any loan.
Together, we’ll work through:
- A home bought before a buy-in, and what its repayments would leave for a practice loan in later years
- A buy-in before a home, with rent continuing while practice repayments start and a deposit is still being saved
- Any HELP debt, raised with a broker as a question about how a lender may assess your borrowing
- Money for a buy-in drawn from savings, compared with keeping it for a home purchase or an emergency buffer
- Personal cover reviewed before either loan is signed, so a claim could help meet practice and home repayments
- A lease on rooms you set up, read by a solicitor, with its term and any personal guarantee weighed in the household plan
- Contract income and a first home loan, where a broker can explain how lenders view a shorter record of earnings
- Two sets of repayments, for the practice and the home, modelled on a slower year of collections as well as a busy one
Cashflow & Financial Wellbeing
When the books are full, where could the extra from busier months go?
Setting fixed costs against a quieter month’s pay can let the busier months grow your savings and fund your plans.
We’ll build one household budget with you that works whether you’re on a salary or a share of what’s collected.
If your pay is a share of collections, it can move with cancellations, lab costs and the weeks you take off. On a salary it may be steadier, with leave paid. We can set your fixed costs against a level of income you’re confident of, and plan where the rest goes, including a buffer for quieter months.
Together, we’ll work through:
- Fixed bills such as rent, loan repayments and premiums, set against a level of pay you’ve reliably reached in recent months
- Lab fees, if your contract shares them, read on each statement so the household budget uses what’s actually paid to you
- Cancellations and failed appointments, allowed for with a buffer built up in busier months
- Holidays and sick days taken without pay, if you contract, saved for from each payment through the year
- Fit-out, chairs and equipment for new rooms, planned as staged costs alongside what the household needs each month
- Postgraduate specialty training fees and fewer paid days, saved for in the years before the program starts
- A partner’s income, where relevant, and how the household covers a stretch of lower pay after a buy-in or a move to rooms
- Any rise in pay as your patient list builds, with the extra directed to goals you’ve chosen before it arrives
Retirement & Aged Care
What kind of life after dentistry would you like your savings to support?
Projecting super, savings and any practice sale together can show the income your years after dentistry could draw on.
We’ll go through how a practice sale, if you own one, fits beside super and savings in your retirement plan.
If you own a practice, its sale is one input to retirement, alongside your super and savings. A sale may include a period of staying on to work in the practice, and a buyer may offer part of the price in shares. The ATO lists four small business CGT concessions, and an accountant confirms whether any apply. For gains accruing after 1 July 2027, indexation and a 30% minimum tax generally replace the 50% CGT discount.
Together, we’ll work through:
- A sale to a corporate group, where any stay-on period shapes when you can step back from clinical work
- Shares offered as part of a sale price, if a buyer proposes it, weighed for the risk of holding wealth in one company
- Owning a practice for many years before a sale, which can bear on the 15-year exemption, with an accountant confirming eligibility
- Super built alongside the practice, so retirement doesn’t rest on a single sale, with contributions reviewed each year
- Preservation age, 60 for anyone born from 1 July 1964, and a condition of release such as ceasing employment at 60 or over
- Selling to another dentist or an associate, compared with a corporate offer, on price, timing and the role you’d keep
- Proceeds from a sale invested for income, with the mix set around when you’ll need the money and the risk you’re comfortable with
- Your estate plan and beneficiary nominations, reviewed once a sale changes what you hold and who you’d like it to go to
Your Dental Career, Worked Through Together
Associate Offers Compared
A corporate and a private offer set side by side on pay, super, leave and terms.
Super Matched to Your Contract
Contributions planned around who pays super under the way you contract.
Cover Sized to Practice Debt
Income protection and life cover reviewed against loans and household costs, with the insurer setting terms.
A Buy-In Planned
The savings, cover and timing of a buy-in or new rooms planned alongside a broker.
Home and Practice in Order
A home loan, any practice loan and any HELP debt sequenced to suit your plans.
Specialty Training Budgeted
Fees and fewer clinical days planned in the years before a program starts.
A Sale Planned Into Retirement
Any practice sale set beside super and savings, with an accountant on the tax.
Collections in the Budget
A household budget built on pay you can rely on, with quieter weeks allowed for.
Proactive, Holistic, and Experienced Financial Planning
Dentistry takes years of study before the first associate role. After that, the biggest money decisions tend to arrive at a few clear points: which offer to accept, whether to buy in or set up rooms, and, for some, when and to whom to sell. We start by listening to what you want your work and your life to look like. Then we help you build a plan for your pay, super and cover that we review with you at each of those points.
Life away from the chair matters just as much. If there’s a partner, children or family you support, a place you’d like to live or time you’d like back each week, we’ll build the plan around them too. Whether the next step is a first associate role, postgraduate specialty training, rooms of your own or a sale years from now, we’ll plan each step with you, with the rest of your life in mind.
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 can change who pays your super and how your income is taxed. On a contract, a business may still have to pay super if you’re paid mainly for your labour, which is generally the question when you contract in your own name. The ATO says a business that contracts with a company, trust or partnership doesn’t have to pay super for the person it employs to do the work.
Income from your own skill or effort received through a company or trust can still be personal services income, and an accountant can confirm how those rules apply. We can plan your super, cover and cashflow with you around the structure you choose.
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.
Set the two offers out on the same terms. Points worth comparing:
- Whether you’d be an employee or a contractor, and who pays super.
- Any share of collections offered, and how lab fees are shared.
- Paid leave, or the weeks you’d fund yourself.
- Any path to a buy-in, and any restraint on where you work next, read with a solicitor.
- How patient bookings and support staff are arranged.
We can weigh both offers with you against your plans for a home, further training or a practice of your own.
It depends on your plans, your savings and how lenders view your income. Points worth weighing:
- A home loan taken first can affect how much a lender will offer for a buy-in later, which is a question for a broker.
- A buy-in first may mean renting for longer while practice repayments start.
- Any HELP debt can be part of how a lender assesses you.
- Income protection and life cover may need to be sized to both debts, and are worth reviewing before either loan.
We can weigh the order with you and work alongside a broker you choose.
Moneysmart says income protection usually replaces a percentage of your pre-tax income, with the benefit based on your earnings in the 12 months before an illness or injury. If you’re paid a share of collections, a part-time stretch or a quieter year can lower that amount, and each policy defines income its own way.
If you contract with no paid sick leave, the waiting period matters more, and most policies offer one between 14 days and two years. We can compare policy terms with you, and the insurer makes the final decision on any claim.
A practice sales broker can market your practice, find and screen buyers, including corporate groups, and help negotiate the sale.
Advice looks at what the sale is for: what the proceeds, any shares and any stay-on period mean for your retirement, super, cover and estate, and how the timing sits with an accountant’s advice on tax. We don’t value or sell practices.
Talking to both before you accept an offer can be useful. We can plan the household side with you while the broker handles the sale.
It helps to plan well before the program begins. Points to work through:
- Program fees, budgeted from the year you apply.
- Fewer clinical days, or none, and the drop in income while you study.
- Any income protection, checked for how a lower-earning year may affect a future benefit.
- Super contributions, if any, during the program years.
- Moving, if the program is in another city.
The program and an accountant can confirm the fees and any deductions. We can build a savings plan with you for the years before and during training.
Yes. Whether you’re weighing a first associate offer or an approach to buy your practice, we start with where you are 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 a recent payslip or contract statement, your latest super statement, your HELP balance from myGov if you have one, and any buy-in or sale terms you’ve been offered. We can meet in person or online.
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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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