29+ Years advising Australians
6,000+ Clients across the country
$3.8B Funds under advice
8 Offices nationally
How the two fit together
Two kinds of advice.
Both worth having.
Most large funds now offer their members advice, and a lot of it is very good. Australian Retirement Trust, Aware Super, Mercer and Brighter Super all run advice teams who help with investment options, insurance held inside super, contribution levels and the mechanics of starting a pension. Much of that sits inside your membership at no extra cost, and several of these funds also offer full comprehensive advice through their own planners. If your question is about your super account, ask your fund first. They know their product better than anyone else does.
The advice included in your membership is intra-fund advice, and it has to relate to your interest in the fund. That is the boundary. An adviser can take a lot of your situation into account, and proposed reforms would let them take in more of it again, but the recommendation at the end is about your super account. Should we pay down the mortgage or contribute more? What is the tax if we sell the investment property first? Is a testamentary trust worth setting up for the kids? Those recommendations are about something other than your fund, so they need someone reading the whole balance sheet, which usually means a financial planner, an accountant and a mortgage broker in the same conversation.
AGS advises on the super you already have. We are a licensed advice business and we don't operate a super fund, so we have no product to move you into. For most people who come to us holding a large fund account, the outcome is that the account stays exactly where it is and the strategy around it changes. Where we do recommend a change, it's because the evidence supports it for that client, and we set out the reasoning in writing. Several of the funds on this page include AGS on the referral panels they use when a member needs comprehensive advice, which is how a good number of our clients first reach us.
Where client super sits
We advise across
funds and platforms.
Client super sits across most of the major Australian funds and platforms. The ones we see most often:
- Australian Retirement Trust, formed by the 2022 merger of Sunsuper and QSuper
- AMP, including MyNorth
- Aware Super
- Mercer Super Trust
- Brighter Super
- MLC MasterKey
- Netwealth
Some of these are held directly by members. Others, MyNorth and Netwealth among them, are platforms reached through an adviser. The work is the same either way. We look at what the account is doing and how it fits everything else you own, and in most cases the account itself stays put.
AGS Financial Group is not owned by, affiliated with or endorsed by any of the funds named on this page. We name them because our clients hold them. Nothing here is a recommendation to join or leave any fund, and the right fund for you depends on your own circumstances.
Where comprehensive advice starts
The questions that sit outside the account.
Mortgage versus super
Whether an extra dollar does more against the home loan or inside super depends on your marginal rate, your loan rate and how long you have left. A fund can factor the loan in when advising on your account. Recommending what to do with the loan itself is a different job.
Two balances, one household
Couples rarely have matching balances or matching retirement dates. A fund can take your partner’s position into account, and it still advises on your account. Contribution splitting and the order you draw two accounts down in are decisions about a household.
Age Pension and Centrelink
Deeming, the assets test and the timing of a pension start can move your entitlement by thousands a year. Funds look set to factor eligibility into retirement income advice. Restructuring what you hold outside super to improve the result stays outside.
Investments outside super
Shares, an investment property, a share of a business or an inheritance all change the right super strategy. Advice on buying or selling them sits outside what a fund can cover, and they move the tax answer too, which is where our accounting team comes in.
Tax across the whole position
Contribution decisions are tax decisions. Tax planning sits outside what a fund can advise on, so getting them right needs someone who knows your deductions, your marginal rate and the year ahead.
Estate planning and death benefits
Binding nominations, adult children as non-dependants, and the tax on a death benefit are super questions with consequences well beyond super. Estate planning sits outside what a fund can advise on. This one belongs with your will.
Who this is for
This conversation suits you if you are…
- Within ten years of retiring, with super in a large fund and questions your fund has told you fall outside its scope
- Holding accounts in more than one fund after a job change or a fund merger
- Part of a couple whose two balances and two retirement dates don't line up
- Referred to an adviser by your fund because your situation needed a full financial plan
- Managing super alongside an investment property, a business or an inheritance
- Fresh out of a fund seminar or webinar and wanting to talk your own numbers through with someone
Bring your fund. Bring your questions.
A first conversation with an AGS financial planner costs nothing and commits you to nothing. Keep the fund you have, and find out what a full plan around it would look like.