Friday 4 January 2019

Starting my Financial Planning business

I did a couple of days of 'induction training' in December (had to fly from Sydney to Perth for the training, as the AFSL company does their training there) and managed to get 'registered' with ASIC as a Financial Planner before 1 Jan 2019. Looking back over my records, I'd been enrolled in the DFP course on and off for about six years, so it was only the pending FASEA rule changes that prompted me to hurry up and finish off the DFP to I could get registered before the new work experience requirements came into effect.

Having completed the DFP I'm now enrolled in the ADFP ('Advanced' Diploma) with IIT, and I'm also doing a Master of Financial Planning (via distance education) through Western Sydney University. I aim to get the ADFP completed during 2019, while also setting up my business website, creating a marketing 'funnel' to prospect for potential clients, and (hopefully) starting to provide advice to some clients. I should be able to complete the Masters degree sometime in 2021. I might then do a MRes degree with the idea of eventually doing a PhD in financial planning at WSU (that should be a *lot* easier to complete part-time than the PhD I tried to do in astrophysics).

Fortunately the AFSL company I've signed on with provides considerable resources for their 'authorised representatives' in the form of documentation templates, feedback on strategies being considered for clients, and has a requirement for all SoA (Statements of Advice) to be prepared by a professional third party paraplanner service. They also 'vet' all SoAs produced by new planners, so there is considerable supervision and assistance provided. On the down side their monthly fee is over $1000 (plus they also retain 20% of all revenues until annual income reaches a certain threshold), and there is also a minimum monthly fee for the required CRM software. Then for each SoA there will be paraplanner and vetting fees of around $250. The fees charged by the AFSL company cover such things as PI (Professional Indemnity) insurance, annual compliance costs (monitoring CPD requirements are met and conducting an annual audit) and the processing client fees and commissions.

My initial plan is to slowly build up to servicing around one new client per month, by which point I should just about 'break even'. Fortunately I'll be running this business in the evenings and weekends, while still keeping my full-time 'day job', so there isn't any great need to become profitable in the short term. Initially my business losses will have to be 'carried forward' until eventually I'll be able to deduct them against my other (salary) income (once my assessable income as a sole trader reaches $20,000 pa).

Aside from all the usual 'business expenses', I will also need to keep track of how much time I spend working on my business in my 'home office'. I won't use the dedicated office area I've setup in my home for meeting with clients (I plan on meeting with clients in their homes), so I won't be able to claim a deduction for pro-rata 'occupancy expenses' such as rates, house insurance and so forth, but I will be able to claim a deduction (at the set rate of $0.45/hr) for 'running expenses'.

I also had to register for GST, so I've started using Reckon One (online accounting) to track things and help prepare my annual BAS statements. As I'm now registered for GST I'll also have to include any UberEats delivery income in my BAS returns.

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