Financial Planning for Motor Mechanics

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.

If the Vehicle Repair, Services and Retail Award covers you, it splits tools this way, though enterprise agreements may differ:

• Hand tools you’re required to supply: a tool allowance.
• Power tools, special purpose tools and precision measuring instruments you’re required to use: the employer must reimburse them.
• Tools you must supply, damaged at work by fire, molten metal or corrosive substances: the employer must reimburse their replacement.

For tax, the ATO counts a tool allowance as income, and a reimbursement as neither income nor deductible. Tools costing $300 or less can generally be claimed in the year bought, unless part of a set costing more. An accountant can confirm any claim.

We can build the cost of the rest into your budget 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.

Start with what you’d be buying. The government’s business.gov.au guide suggests due diligence that includes:

• Whether the landlord will transfer the lease, or a new lease is needed.
• The condition of hoists and other equipment, and any debts registered against business assets.
• The licences and permits the business needs, and whether they’re current.
• Three to five years of financials, reviewed with an accountant.

If staff come with the business, their annual leave generally carries across to you, unless the businesses aren’t associated and you don’t recognise their earlier service, in which case the seller pays it out.

A lawyer can advise on the contract and lease, and a broker on finance. We can plan the household side with you, including savings, cover and super.

Insurers usually ask about your age, job and medical history, then decide whether to offer cover, the premium and the terms. It helps to describe your duties as they are:

• Time under vehicles on hoists, and the weight of the components you lift.
• Whether you work in a workshop, on the road or on a mine site.
• Any regular work with solvents, fumes or brake and clutch dust.
• Any past injury or treatment, with dates.

Answer every question fully, since what you disclose can affect a later claim. Many policies base the benefit on your earnings in the 12 months before an illness or injury. We can help you prepare an application and compare suitable options, and the insurer makes the final decision.

The supplier can tell you the price, the weekly amount and how long the payments run.

Advice looks at how that payment sits with everything else: any other tool accounts you’re paying off, your savings and goals, whether the tool needs insuring through a general insurance broker, and how it’s treated for tax, which an accountant can confirm.

We can add up what all your tool payments cost each year and show how they fit your budget, so you can decide with the full picture in view.

On a contract, a business may still have to pay super if you’re paid mainly for your labour. Parts and other non-labour items on a contract aren’t counted towards that super, so it helps to list parts and labour separately on your invoices.

For work where no business is paying your super, it’s yours to plan:

• A regular amount set aside from each invoice.
• Personal contributions, with any deduction confirmed by an accountant.
• Personal cover, such as income protection, since there’s generally no paid sick leave when you work for yourself.

We can set this up with you when you start, and review it as the work changes.

It depends on how that fund compares with the alternatives for you. A like-for-like comparison looks at:

• Fees, in dollars, at your balance.
• Investment options and how they suit your timeframe.
• Insurance, including the cover you’d keep or lose by moving.

Closing an account generally ends any cover attached to it, so it’s worth comparing before any rollover. We can compare your fund with the alternatives and recommend one that suits your situation.

Yes. You can start with one question, such as a tool allowance on your payslip, a move to mobile work or a workshop for sale.

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 what you have to hand: payslips or invoices, a super statement, any insurance papers and your tool receipts. We can talk face to face or by video.