Hire an Offshore Financial Planning Assistant in Australia Without an Agency

If you’re running a financial planning or advice practice in Australia, you already know the pressure: more clients, more compliance requirements, and not enough hours in the day. A financial planning assistant (FPA) takes the administrative and paraplanning support load off your shoulders: managing client records, preparing Statement of Advice (SOA) documents, handling CRM updates, and keeping the back office moving so your adviser can focus on client relationships.

The problem is that when you search to hire an offshore financial planning assistant in Australia, you mostly find agencies. Managed outsourcing businesses that want to supply a staff member to you, charge you a monthly margin on top of their salary, and sit between you and your hire indefinitely. This guide explains how to skip that model and hire a financial planning assistant directly, paying a one-off placement fee instead of an ongoing markup. It covers the costs, compliance considerations, and realistic onboarding expectations that most agency sites leave out.

What a financial planning assistant does at an Australian advice practice

A financial planning assistant in an Australian context typically handles the operational layer that sits below the financial adviser and alongside (or instead of) a paraplanner. Day-to-day tasks include:

Client record management: maintaining client files in platforms like Xplan, AdviserLogic, or IRESS, updating personal details, and tracking review dates

SOA and ROA preparation support: pulling together client data, preparing draft Statements of Advice and Records of Advice for adviser review, and formatting final documents

CRM and workflow coordination: tracking task queues, managing adviser diaries, and following up outstanding items with clients or product providers

Compliance administration: maintaining fee disclosure records, preparing Financial Services Guide (FSG) documents, and supporting annual review processes

Lodgements and applications: submitting insurance applications, investment rollovers, and product switches on behalf of the adviser

Client communication support: drafting correspondence, coordinating appointment scheduling, and sending review reminders

In short, this is the role that keeps an advice practice running, and it translates well offshore because it’s process-driven, document-heavy, and does not require the FPA to be physically present with clients. Tarino recruits for this work under two role profiles: the offshore paraplanner and the client services officer.

What it actually costs: offshore direct hire vs local hire vs agency

Here’s a straightforward comparison of what you’d typically pay for a qualified financial planning assistant, depending on the path you take. The figures are market estimates, not quotes:

Local hire (Australia): typically around $90,000 a year in base salary, plus superannuation, leave loading, workers compensation, and the cost of recruitment. Total employment cost typically around $104,000–$106,000+ per year depending on location and experience level.

Offshore via an agency (managed service): agency models typically charge around $3,000–$6,000 per month per staff member. That’s around $36,000–$72,000 per year, often more than the staff member’s actual salary, with ongoing monthly fees even after the person is well-established on your team.

Offshore direct hire (Philippines): a qualified Filipino financial planning assistant typically earns around $1,400 a month (about $16,800 a year) in direct salary. You pay their wages directly, with no ongoing middleman markup. The one-off cost to find them is a placement fee: with Tarino, $250 upfront and $4,750 on hire, $5,000 excl. GST.

The difference between the agency and direct-hire paths compounds over time. In year two and year three, you’re still paying the same agency monthly fee, while with a direct hire, you’re paying only the staff member’s salary. That gap is real money that stays in your practice. To see it for your own numbers, use the offshore hiring cost calculator.

It’s worth noting that neither path is cost-free beyond salaries. Onboarding a new offshore hire, whether through an agency or directly, typically takes four to eight weeks before the person is contributing independently. Industry experience suggests that a proportion of offshore hires do not pass probation, either because of skills gaps that only become visible on the job or because of workflow-fit issues. Building in a realistic onboarding buffer, both in time and in management capacity, is part of an honest cost assessment for any practice considering this route.

Understanding employer of record costs and Philippine compliance

Australian practices hiring an offshore financial planning assistant based in the Philippines need to understand the employment structure before committing. Because the staff member is Philippines-based, you generally cannot hire them directly under Australian employment law. There are two common approaches:

Independent contractor arrangement: the FPA operates as a sole trader or freelancer under Philippine law. This is simple to set up but requires care: Philippine labour authorities can look at the substance of the relationship, and a worker who is engaged full-time, exclusively, and under your direction may be treated as an employee regardless of how the contract is labelled. Misclassification is a compliance consideration to take seriously, for both you and the worker.

Employer of record (EOR): a Philippine-registered EOR hires the FPA locally and invoices you as the client. The EOR handles Philippine tax withholding (BIR obligations), Social Security System (SSS) contributions, PhilHealth, and Pag-IBIG fund contributions. EOR fees typically add around $200–$500 AUD per month to your cost base, a real but manageable overhead that should be included in any like-for-like comparison with agency pricing.

For general background on structuring an offshore hire, read the compliant way to hire offshore talent in Australia. Tarino shares general guidance but does not give legal, tax or compliance advice, so get independent advice before you commit to a structure.

Why search results are dominated by agencies

If you’ve searched for “offshore financial planning assistant” or similar terms, you’ve probably noticed that the first page is almost entirely managed outsourcing businesses. There’s a straightforward reason: agencies have large marketing budgets and a strong financial incentive to capture this search traffic: every practice they convert to a managed service client generates recurring monthly revenue.

That doesn’t mean the agency model is wrong for everyone. Some practices want a managed service because they don’t want to be responsible for recruiting, onboarding, or handling staff issues. But for practices that are comfortable managing a team member directly, which is most established advice businesses, the direct-hire path is significantly cheaper and gives you more control over who you hire and how they work.

The information gap exists because direct placement firms don’t generate the same recurring revenue incentive, and job boards aren’t set up to help you find offshore candidates. This guide is designed to fill that gap.

How to hire a financial planning assistant directly: 6 steps

Here’s how the direct-hire process works in practice for Australian financial planning firms:

1. Define the role clearly. Write a specific job description that covers the tools your practice uses (Xplan, AdviserLogic, IRESS, Salesforce), the types of documents they’ll handle (SOAs, ROAs, FSGs), and the experience level you need. The more specific you are, the better your shortlist will be.

2. Source candidates from the Philippines. Filipino financial planning professionals are actively working in Australian-focused roles. You can source through local Philippine job boards (JobStreet, Kalibrr), or work with a specialist that has an existing candidate pool. Look specifically for experience with Australian financial services and familiarity with ASIC compliance requirements.

3. Screen with video interviews and practical tasks. A live video screen will quickly tell you whether the candidate communicates clearly and understands Australian financial planning terminology. Follow with a practical task: for example, ask them to format a mock client file update or review a template SOA for completeness. This step filters out candidates who look good on paper but don’t have the technical depth.

4. Run structured reference and background checks. Verify employment history, check any financial services licencing or accreditation claims, and run an independent background check. For a role handling sensitive client financial data, don’t skip this step.

5. Set up the employment relationship. Because the staff member is Philippines-based, they usually work as an independent contractor or through a local employer of record. It’s a well-trodden path for Australian professional services firms. A placement firm like Tarino can share general guidance, but get independent legal and tax advice to make sure your structure is right. For general background, read the compliant way to hire offshore talent in Australia.

6. Onboard for your systems and workflows. Give your new FPA at least two weeks of onboarding: walk them through your client file structure, document templates, and review workflows. The practices that get the best results treat this onboarding investment seriously. For a practical framework, see your first 30 days with an offshore hire.

What to look for, and what to avoid

When you’re reviewing candidates for an offshore financial planning assistant role, here are the signals that matter most:

Australian financial services experience. Look for candidates who have worked directly with Australian advice firms, not just general financial administration roles. They should be familiar with the Australian financial planning compliance framework and understand terms like SOA, ROA, SoFA, and ASIC.

Platform proficiency. Xplan is the dominant platform in Australian financial planning. A candidate with hands-on Xplan experience shortens your onboarding time significantly. AdviserLogic and IRESS are also common, so ask specifically which platforms they’ve used and for how long.

Attention to detail on document work. Financial planning documents need to be accurate. During the practical assessment, give them a real-world task involving a document with a deliberate error and see if they catch it.

Availability during Australian business hours. Your FPA should be working your hours, not time-shifted to the point where collaboration is difficult. Philippine staff working Australian hours is common and should be non-negotiable in your brief.

Red flags to watch for: candidates who claim Xplan experience but can’t answer basic workflow questions; candidates without a stable work history in Australian financial services roles; agencies that can’t provide detailed candidate profiles before you commit to a fee.

To understand the true cost difference between managed services and direct hiring, the offshore agency markups guide breaks down what you’re actually paying under each model, and what the margin structure looks like over a three-year period.

Ready to hire your financial planning assistant directly?

Tarino places financial planning assistants and other back-office roles for Australian advice practices for a one-time fee of $250 upfront and $4,750 on hire, $5,000 excl. GST. No monthly margins and no ongoing agency involvement. Once your hire is placed, you hire and pay them directly. See pricing for the detail.

You typically receive a shortlist of 3–4 finalists within about 2 weeks of your brief. We handle sourcing and screening: each search starts with 1,000+ candidates and narrows through CV and quality screening (40% remain), video screening (20%), a practical assessment (10%), a structured interview (5%) and finalist review (2%). You make the final call on who joins your team. Each placement includes 6-month replacement cover for the same role, on the conditions in your Scope of Work, and more than 95% of placements are still in the role at 6 months.

For a full breakdown of what offshore staff actually cost and how to budget for a direct hire, the Filipino staff cost guide covers real salary ranges for Australian SMEs across a range of roles.

If you’d like to talk through whether a financial planning assistant could work for your practice, book a 30-minute call with the Tarino team. No commitment required.

The Tarino team Tarino publishes what it learns from the work itself.