What Is Ongoing Financial Planning?
Ongoing financial planning is a long-term approach to managing your finances through regular advice and reviews as your life changes. Instead of creating a plan once and leaving it untouched, you and your adviser revisit your cash flow, super, insurance, investments, debt and retirement strategy to check whether it still fits your circumstances and goals.
Key takeaways
- Ongoing financial planning means reviewing your strategy as your life, goals and financial position change.
- It can connect cash flow, super, insurance, investments, debt, retirement and estate planning rather than treating them separately.
- One-off advice can address a specific issue, while ongoing advice provides continuity and regular reviews.
- A new job, mortgage, growing family, inheritance or approaching retirement can all be useful triggers to review your plan.
- The aim is not constant change. It is making sure your existing strategy still makes sense.
If you want to understand how the different parts of your finances connect, our long-term financial planning guide explores seven practical areas to consider.
What is financial planning?
Financial planning is the process of understanding your current financial position, identifying what you want to achieve and developing strategies that may help you work towards those goals.
Depending on the scope of advice, financial planning can cover income and spending, superannuation, insurance, investments, debt, retirement planning and estate planning.
ASIC's Moneysmart explains that personal financial advice considers one or more of your objectives, financial situation or needs. Read Moneysmart's guide to financial advice.
Financial decisions rarely happen in isolation. Mortgage repayments can affect savings, changing super funds may affect insurance, and a new job can change income and super contributions. Ongoing planning helps consider each decision in the context of the bigger picture.
How is ongoing financial planning different from one-off advice?
One-off financial advice generally focuses on a specific question or decision. Ongoing financial planning takes a longer view, with regular reviews and support as circumstances change.
Moneysmart recommends keeping your adviser updated when significant parts of your life change, such as your job, income or family situation, so your financial plan can remain current. See how working with a financial adviser works.
Ongoing planning can also help separate a genuine reason to act from short-term noise. Market volatility or changing interest rates may be worth reviewing, but they do not automatically mean your strategy should change. Our guide to building a financial plan for uncertainty explores how to check whether your strategy still fits.
What can ongoing financial planning cover?
Cash flow and debt
Mortgage repayments, household expenses, debt and competing goals can all affect how much is available for saving, investing or preparing for retirement.
An ongoing review can help you see what is coming in and going out now, and consider debt alongside priorities such as savings or super.
This can be particularly useful when income has changed but expenses have changed too. A higher salary does not necessarily create more financial flexibility if mortgage repayments, childcare, insurance or other commitments have also increased.
Superannuation and investments
Super can become one of your largest financial assets, yet it is easy to leave it running in the background.
A review may consider contributions, investment options, fees, beneficiaries and insurance held through super. Rules and contribution limits can change, so current information should be checked before making decisions. The ATO maintains guidance on super contribution caps and limits.
Our guide also explores whether your super strategy is still right.
Investments can require the same kind of review. Markets move, but your goals, timeframe and comfort with risk can change too. The question is not simply whether an investment has gone up or down, but whether your overall strategy still reflects what you are trying to achieve.
Insurance and financial protection
Changing jobs, taking on a mortgage, having children or increasing your income can change what financial protection may need to do for you.
A review can help you understand what life, total and permanent disability or income protection cover you already hold, including insurance through super.
The aim is not automatically to have more or less insurance. It is to understand whether your cover still reflects your savings, debts, income and family commitments.
This is also why insurance is best considered as part of the broader financial picture rather than something that is set once and forgotten.
Retirement and estate planning
Retirement financial planning involves more than reaching a particular super balance. It can include when you want to retire, the income you may need and how super and investments could support that income.
Estate planning also connects several parts of your financial life. Super beneficiaries, insurance, property and personally owned assets may be treated differently.
Reviewing these areas as part of the wider plan can help identify where financial arrangements and legal documents may need to be considered together.
A financial adviser can help consider the financial elements of an estate strategy and work alongside appropriate legal professionals where legal advice is required. Our estate planning guide for Australians explains practical areas that may be worth considering.
What does the financial planning process look like?
The financial planning process usually begins with understanding where you are now.
Your adviser may look at your income, spending, assets, liabilities, super, insurance and goals. From there, they can identify areas that need attention, consider possible strategies and provide personal advice where appropriate.
For ongoing financial planning, that process continues after the initial strategy.
Some reviews may result in very little change. Others may show that your income, family situation, debt or retirement plans have shifted enough to reconsider part of the plan.
Regular reviews create a checkpoint to ask whether the assumptions behind your strategy still hold true and whether anything needs attention.
How often should you review your financial plan?
An annual review is a common checkpoint for ongoing financial advice, but the calendar does not need to be the only trigger.
A change in employment or income, buying property, starting a family, taking on significant debt, receiving an inheritance or changing your retirement plans may all be reasons to speak with your adviser sooner.
The purpose is not to make changes simply because a review is due. Sometimes confirming that the existing strategy still fits can be just as useful.
How do ongoing financial advice fees work?
Financial advice costs vary depending on the complexity of your circumstances, the scope of advice and whether the service is one-off or ongoing.
Before entering an ongoing arrangement, understand what services are included and what they cost. Moneysmart provides further information about financial advice costs and ongoing fees.
When comparing financial planning services, it can be useful to ask what will be reviewed, how often you can access advice and what happens when something changes outside your regular review.
The useful question is not only, “What does financial advice cost?” but also, “What am I receiving for that cost, and does it continue to provide value?”
Is ongoing financial planning worth it?
There is no single answer. The value depends on your circumstances, the advice provided, its cost and what you need from the relationship.
Research from the Financial Advice Association Australia suggests advised Australians can place significant value on professional support, including confidence in their financial strategy. Read the FAAA Value of Advice findings for more detail.
Ongoing advice can also provide something practical: having someone who already understands your position when a new decision arises.
That continuity can be particularly useful when one decision affects several parts of your finances, such as buying property, changing jobs or moving closer to retirement.
How we approach ongoing financial planning
At PictureWealth, ongoing financial planning is about helping you see how the different parts of your finances work together.
The focus is not only on individual products or one-off decisions, but on how your broader financial position supports the goals you are working towards over time.
Rather than treating cash flow, super, insurance, investments, debt and retirement as separate conversations, your adviser can consider how a decision in one area may affect another.
It also gives you someone to turn to when something changes. Investing, buying property, changing jobs, growing your family or preparing for retirement can all create new financial questions.
Having an adviser who already understands your position can make those conversations more connected and easier to put into context.
If your income, family, mortgage, insurance, super or goals have changed since your last review, speak with the PictureWealth team about looking at the whole picture.
Frequently asked questions
What is ongoing financial planning?
Ongoing financial planning is a continuing advice relationship that can include regular reviews and personal financial advice as your circumstances and goals change.
What can a financial adviser help with?
Depending on the agreed scope of advice, an adviser may help with cash flow, super, investments, insurance, debt, retirement planning and other financial decisions.
How often should I review my financial plan?
An annual review is a common checkpoint, but significant changes to your job, income, family, debt, property or retirement plans may justify an earlier review.
Is ongoing financial planning only for retirement?
No. Retirement planning is one area of advice, but ongoing financial planning can also cover cash flow, debt, super, insurance and investments throughout your working life.