Financial Planning for Travel Agents

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.

Yes. Our financial advice and strategies can help you plan savings and super across a gap. For employees other than casuals, National Employment Standards redundancy pay is worked out at your base pay rate, without incentive-based payments. Fair Work notes most small business employers don’t have to pay it and casuals don’t get it, though an award, agreement or contract can say more. In your own business, redundancy pay may not apply, so we’d plan for slower bookings.

Income protection is generally for illness or injury rather than losing a job, so we can help you understand what it would and wouldn’t do for you, and what may change with any cover if you leave. If your job does end, our redundancy advice can help with what comes next.

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.

Fair Work says one industry award covers travel agents working in retail shops, for online or phone-based travel businesses, or for corporate travel businesses. An enterprise agreement can apply instead, and your pay level depends on your classification under the award or agreement.

Fair Work is the place to check your award, level and pay rates. We plan with you around the pay you receive, whatever sets it.

Start with the pay that stays the same, if you have base pay, and run regular bills from it. Any commission or incentive payments can then be split between savings for quieter months, debts, super and plans of your own, before each one arrives.

It’s worth checking when each payment is due under your plan. Fair Work says an employee can be paid commission-only when an award or enterprise agreement states they can be, and it can explain how that applies to you. We can work through the figures with you.

First, ask whether you’d be an employee or running your own business, as that decides most of what follows.

If you’re self-employed, Moneysmart notes you won’t have paid holidays or sick leave. Your own super is generally yours to plan, and an accountant or the ATO can confirm whether a business you work with has to pay it. A business must register for GST once its turnover reaches the ATO’s threshold. Any host fees and running costs belong in the budget, and Moneysmart suggests checking the insurance cover through your super before you move from employee to self-employed. We can cost it with you.

It can. The ATO says you may be entitled to only a partial main residence exemption if both of these apply: an area of your home is set aside and used exclusively as a place of business, and you’re able to claim occupancy expenses. The taxable share is generally worked out from the percentage of floor area set aside.

An accountant can confirm how this applies to your home before you set up a room or sell. We can then plan the sale, the move and any tax set-aside with you.

Start with a costed plan: what you’d pay to buy in or set up, how long your savings would need to last and the pay you’d draw as an owner. Super for yourself is worth planning from the start too.

A broker can arrange a loan, a lawyer can read any purchase agreement or lease, and an accountant can advise on structure. We can work through the numbers with you and look at your own cover before you commit, with the insurer deciding any application.

Your bank app and fund can show where money goes and what your balance is, which is a useful place to start. What we add is personal advice that connects the parts: a budget around pay that moves with bookings, your super, debts, cover and your next step in travel.

We set it out in a financial plan, or Statement of Advice, and explain each recommendation before you decide.

Yes. We can look with you at when you’d like to stop, and whether easing into part-time or home-based work first is part of the picture. Years of pay that moved with bookings can leave super uneven, so carry-forward contributions, which use unused concessional cap amounts from earlier years, may be worth a look in stronger years, where you’re eligible.

If you own an agency, we’d count any sale as one part of the plan rather than its base, with an accountant on the tax. A partner’s plans, if you have a partner, can sit beside yours. You can read more about 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. New to a store, years into corporate travel or running your own agency, you’re welcome to start with us.

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 and fund statements. If you have a commission or incentive plan, a host agreement or insurance policies, bring those too.