Financial Planning for Doctors

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.

Each setting can treat super, leave and cover differently. Points worth knowing:

• A hospital employer generally pays super on your salary, while contributions from private work in your own name may be yours to plan.
• If you’re self-employed, Moneysmart notes you won’t have paid holidays or sick leave.
• The Medical Board requires you to be insured or indemnified for every context you practise in, and public sector work may be covered by a master policy, an employer’s indemnity arrangements or legislation. Your employer or indemnity provider can confirm what applies to you.

We can bring each setting into one plan with you, and look at it again when the mix changes.

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.

It’s worth reading the policy first. Cover you already hold was issued on its own terms, and the policy wording sets when they can change.

APRA expected life insurers to stop writing new agreed value income protection from 31 March 2020, so a policy written earlier may base its benefit on earnings when you applied rather than when you claim.

Applying for a new policy means you’ll usually need to answer questions and may need medical checks, and the insurer decides the terms. We can go through what you hold with you before anything changes, and the decision stays yours.

It’s a term from the Corporations Act. Moneysmart explains that you may be treated as a sophisticated investor if you meet certain asset or income thresholds, supported by a certificate from a qualified accountant, and that in some circumstances previous investing experience may also qualify you.

Being treated as one can mean that some requirements to give you information, or other protections that usually apply to retail investors, don’t apply to you.

If an offer for sophisticated investors comes to you, we can look at it with you as part of your wider plan before you decide.

If you worked here on an eligible temporary resident visa, the ATO says you can claim your super from your fund once you’ve departed Australia, your visa has ceased to be in effect and you aren’t an Australian or New Zealand citizen or permanent resident. This is a departing Australia superannuation payment (DASP), and tax is withheld when it’s paid.

Questions about your visa are for the Department of Home Affairs or a registered migration agent, and tax residency is a question for the ATO or your accountant. We can plan your super and savings with you while you’re here, including for plans that may span two countries.

Colleagues can be a useful source of ideas, and hearing how others have approached a buy-in, a property or their super can help you know what to ask.

Advice starts from your own situation: where you work, how you’re paid, any cover and super you hold, any offer in front of you and your goals. A financial adviser can recommend what suits you.

The two can sit side by side. We can talk through an idea you’ve heard and show you how it could fit your plan.

From 1 July 2026, the ATO says an extra 15% tax applies to the proportion of your earnings relating to the part of your total super balance above $3 million, and a further 10% to the part above $10 million. Both are 2026-27 thresholds, indexed in line with CPI.

The law also changed how a total super balance is defined. If your balance could reach these levels, we can plan your contributions and other investments with you, alongside your accountant.

Yes. A plan can start with how you’d like to step back: fewer sessions, giving up on-call or procedural work, teaching or a non-clinical role, or stopping on a set date. We can model each step with you for income, super and spending, and bring in any practice share or rooms you hold, with an accountant on the tax and a solicitor on any agreement.

If your super balance is large, we can plan for the transfer balance cap and the extra tax on large balances too, as part of 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, whether you’ve just finished fellowship or you’re planning your last years of practice.

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 income statements from each place you work, your latest super statement, details of any cover you hold and any offer you’re weighing, if you have them. We can meet in person or online.