FAQs
Frequently Asked Questions
Please click on the question to find the answer
• Am I qualified to be a client of Pro-Active Advice Pty Ltd?
• What does it cost to work with Pro-Active Advice Pty Ltd?
• Do you sell any product, receive commissions or get referral fees?
• What should I expect in the financial planning process? What kind of experience will it be?
• How do you conduct investment management?
• What information will I need to provide?
• What do I need to bring to the first meeting?
• Is there a cost for the first meeting?
• How many clients do you have?
• Describe the typical client of Pro-Active Advice Pty Ltd.
• What does Pro-Active Advice Pty Ltd really do for me?
Am I qualified to be a client of Pro-Active Advice Pty Ltd.?
Our clients typically enjoy household incomes of $100,000 or more and have investment portfolios of $250,000 or more. Under some circumstances, we work with clients who do not yet meet these thresholds but who are on the path to reach them in the near future.
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What does it cost to work with Pro-Active Advice Pty Ltd.?
A plan that addresses the multiple aspects of a family's personal finances typically costs $1,800 to $8,000 and takes approximately 3 weeks to prepare and 6 to 12 months to implement, generally involving 4 to 6 meetings.
Less extensive reviews, such as a Retirement Needs Analysis, have fixed project fees. When appropriate, we also work on an hourly basis. Consulting fees for senior advisors are $176 per hour.
Investment management fees are calculated as an annual percentage of the assets we manage on your behalf. Fees, paid quarterly, are set at an annualized rate:
• 1% on the first $500,000 of assets under management
• 0.75% on the next $1 million
• 0.50% on the next $2 million
• 0.35% on the next $3 million
• 0.25% on the next $3 million
• 0.15% for amounts exceeding $10 million.
Our minimum annual fee is $2,000.
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Do you sell any products, receive commissions or get referral fees?
Sometimes, if it suits client's needs. We generally work on a fee-compensated basis. There are never any third-party agendas at work but if a client cannot afford the fee from available cashflow we will allow them to set up the Fee For Service payment from their investments or superannuation accounts. We aim to be flexible to meet client needs and ensure commissions are not a factor in our recommendation process.
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What should I expect in the financial planning process? What kind of experience will it be?
The process begins with a “get acquainted” meeting. We'll review information you provide about your financial circumstances (such as taxes, insurance, investments, debt management, estate planning and retirement planning) and confirm that we understand your concerns, goals and priorities.
We will then work together to establish and prioritise objectives. We'll meet with you over several months to analyze and discuss each of them. We'll review the problems and opportunities facing you, examine the alternatives and recommend strategies and action steps. We will also help you implement the recommendations.
Once your initial plan is complete, we meet with you once or twice a year to review and update your plan, assess progress, and consider further actions that may be appropriate for you.
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What is your approach to investment management?
Our goal is to manage your assets in ways that work best for you, which is why we employ a number of different approaches (see Investment Management for details).We ensure that your portfolio is designed to achieve its targeted return without taking on more risk than necessary. In your personalized portfolio design, we may use:
- Only managed funds
- A combination of individual stocks, bonds and managedfunds
- Separate account managers (money managers who choose individual stocks or bonds with your specific needs in mind)
- Some combination of the above
Although we provide individualized asset management, we believe that some consistency in approach is important. In almost all cases, we:
- Assist you in establishing investment accounts at Colonila First State, Synergy, MLC, ASGARD or similar providers
- Recommend a diversified portfolio and employ multiple managers and investment styles
- Strive to make your investments as tax-efficient as possible
- Monitor your portfolio and rebalance it as necessary to ensure a consistent level of investment risk
- Avoid unnecessary trading to keep your expenses as low as possible
- Avoid chasing the latest "hot" sector or trying to outsmart the market by picking individual securities that a few believe are "certain" to outperform the market
- Provide thorough, quarterly reports that offer perspective and performance information
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What information will I need to provide?
This depends on the questions you want us to address and how you want us to help you. You can't give us too much information. We particularly want to know about your personal goals, values, concerns, and past experiences. In most cases, we’ll want to see tax returns, wills and estate plans, business agreements, insurance documents, investment and bank statements, employee benefit statements, pay stubs and other documents you think might be relevant.
To simplify this process, we give you an extensive questionnaire that includes a list of documents we’d like to see.
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What do I need to bring to the first meeting?
We ask you to complete a short, “About you” questionnaire before our first meeting. This gives us an overview of your financial circumstances and a preliminary idea of what you want us to help with.
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Is there a cost for the first meeting?
The first meeting is a “get acquainted” session at no charge. You have an opportunity to evaluate us and we have a chance to determine whether or not we can be of service to you. If, however, the purpose of the meeting is to render advice on a specific issue, we charge for our time at our normal hourly rate.
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How many clients do you have?
We serve approximately 200 investment management clients, most of whom use our financial planning services. We also work with a number of clients on a planning-only basis. Client
FAQs