Hire an Offshore Paraplanner in Australia Without an Agency

If you run a financial planning practice in Australia, you know how hard it is to keep up with statement of advice (SOA) work. Paraplanners are the engine room of an advice business, but hiring one locally typically costs around $110,000 a year plus super, and the talent pool is thin. Most practices end up overloading their existing staff, turning clients away, or signing up to a managed paraplanning service that can cost almost as much as a local hire.

There’s a third path: hiring an offshore paraplanner directly. Not through an agency that takes a monthly cut on top of their salary. Directly, as your employee, working your hours, inside your systems. Our offshore paraplanner role page covers the tasks, software and screening in more detail.

Hire Offshore Paraplanner Australia: What Does an Offshore Paraplanner Actually Do?

A paraplanner supports financial advisers by doing the technical and administrative work behind advice. In a typical Australian financial planning practice, an offshore paraplanner can take on work that keeps the advice pipeline moving, including:

Preparing statements of advice (SOAs) and records of advice (ROAs) as part of end-to-end advice preparation, for the adviser to review and sign off

Running risk profiling and portfolio modelling

Researching product options (super funds, insurance, managed funds) for the adviser’s recommendation

Completing portfolio review work and rebalancing calculations

Liaising with fund managers, platforms and insurers

Updating client files, preparing file notes and tracking compliance documentation

Preparing pre-meeting packs for advisers

Routine data entry to keep advice workflows accurate and up to date

Filipino paraplanners working with Australian advice firms often have accounting or finance degrees and several years’ experience with Australian licensing frameworks, platform software like Xplan, IRESS and Midwinter, and the SOA structure ASIC expects. The candidates worth shortlisting are usually not fresh graduates. Many hold further qualifications and have worked for Australian BPOs or outsourced firms, so they have seen the compliance side of the work before.

What stays with you onshore: the advice itself. The paraplanner prepares and researches; the authorised adviser makes the recommendation and signs the SOA.

What Does It Actually Cost for Paraplanning Services: Direct Hire vs Local vs Agency?

Here’s where the numbers matter for your business. The figures below are typical market ranges, not quotes, and they move with experience and location.

Offshore direct hire (Philippines): An experienced offshore paraplanner typically earns around $1,900 a month (about $22,800 a year) in base salary. Add a modest equipment budget and any platform licences, and with no extra desk to fund in your office you’re looking at roughly $26,000 all-in a year.

Local hire (Australia): A junior paraplanner in Sydney or Melbourne typically starts around $65,000 to $80,000. Experienced paraplanners are typically around $110,000 a year plus super. Add employer super, payroll tax where it applies and leave loading, and you’re usually well above $120,000 for anyone experienced. See our Filipino staff cost guide for market salary estimates across key roles, or run your own numbers in the offshore hiring cost calculator.

Managed offshore paraplanning services: Managed providers use an outsourcing model, usually charging per SOA or on a retainer so you can match a variable workload. A full-time equivalent through these services often works out at around $55,000 to $75,000 a year. That’s cheaper than local, and some firms value the flexibility, but you’re paying for someone else’s infrastructure and you don’t build a working relationship with the person doing your work. You also pay a margin on every hour and every SOA for as long as you use the service. Our guide to how offshore agencies mark up their fees breaks down what you’re paying for with a managed service, and what you keep if you hire directly and build the capability in house.

Why Google Only Shows You Agencies

Search “offshore paraplanner” and the first page is mostly managed service providers, names like Satellite Office, Felcorp, TNW Solutions, VBP and Levera. Under that model the provider recruits, hires and manages the paraplanner on your behalf, and charges accordingly.

These firms rank well because they have large websites and marketing budgets. But for an advice firm, their model isn’t the only one available. You can hire a dedicated paraplanner directly: you hire them, you set the work, and you pay a one-time fee to find the right person instead of a monthly margin. The paraplanner works inside your own processes and systems, not as a shared resource. It takes more deliberate effort to set up, and it lets you build the team at your own pace.

How to Hire an Offshore Paraplanning Professional Directly: 7 Steps

Step 1: Define the role precisely. Be specific about what you want them to own, based on your current advice process. Which platforms will they work in? Will they prepare full SOAs or just the research, modelling and strategy sections? What’s your current SOA turnaround time, and what do you need it to be? The clearer your brief, the better your hire.

Step 2: Source candidates with Australian experience. Advertise on Philippine job platforms such as JobStreet and LinkedIn, and target candidates with Australian paraplanning experience. Filter for Xplan, IRESS or Midwinter depending on your setup, and check each candidate against your systems and workflow. Don’t hire someone who has never seen an Australian SOA. There are plenty who have.

Step 3: Use a structured screening process. Written application, then a video screen, then a technical task. The practical task is non-negotiable. Give candidates a sample client scenario and ask for a draft research summary, analysis, product comparison or SOA section. This tells you more about their ability than any interview. For reference, Tarino typically starts with 1,000+ candidates per role and screens in stages: CV and quality screening (40% remain), video screening (20%), practical assessment (10%), structured interview (5%) and finalist review (2%), before sending you a shortlist of 3–4.

Step 4: Check references and run background verification. Background checks in the Philippines (NBI clearance, employment verification) are inexpensive and worth doing. Don’t skip this step: the paraplanner will have access to client data, so security matters.

Step 5: Set up a compliant employment structure. As a general rule, Australian super guarantee obligations are not built around people who live and work overseas under Philippine employment law, but your obligations depend on how the arrangement is structured. Our compliance overview for hiring offshore talent in Australia shares general guidance, including data handling under the Privacy Act. It isn’t legal or tax advice, so get independent advice before you sign an employment contract.

Step 6: Prepare your systems and access. Before they start, have Xplan logins, file access, SOA templates, your compliance checklist and training material ready. A well-prepared start sets the relationship up well. Our first 30 days checklist walks through what a good onboarding looks like for offshore hires in professional services.

Step 7: Start with structured output targets, not just hours. Week one: shadow one SOA through to completion together. Week two: they draft independently and you review together. Week three onwards: increase autonomy as their drafts meet your standards for accuracy and turnaround. Clear role expectations from day one, and time invested early in onboarding, make the biggest difference to how quickly they come up to speed.

What to Look for in an Offshore Paraplanner: Data Security Considerations

Not every offshore paraplanner is the same. The ones who work well with Australian practices usually share a few characteristics and produce consistent SOA drafts:

Australian platform experience: Xplan, IRESS, Midwinter, Adviser Logic or similar. They should be able to work inside the systems you already use, otherwise onboarding takes much longer.

SOA familiarity: They should understand what ASIC expects in advice documents, including fee disclosure, best interest duty framing, replacement product warnings and the related compliance checks.

Accounting or finance background: A degree in financial planning, accounting or economics.

Strong written English: Paraplanners produce client-facing documents. Written communication quality matters.

Data handling: They will see client financial information, so ask how they have handled access controls, password management and file storage in previous roles. Our offshore staff security checklist covers setting up their access safely.

Timezone overlap: The Philippines is 2 hours behind AEST, or 3 hours behind during daylight saving in NSW and Victoria. Hires can work your business hours, which gives you full overlap with your advisers.

The right hire frees your advisers to spend more time with clients and less on document preparation.

Ready to Start?

Tarino finds offshore paraplanners and other specialist finance staff for Australian financial planning firms. You hire and pay them directly. Our fee is $250 upfront to start the search plus $4,750 when you hire, $5,000 excl. GST in total, and the $250 is credited back when you hire. There are no monthly fees and no ongoing margin. See pricing for the detail.

We source and screen 1,000+ candidates per role and send you a shortlist of 3–4 finalists in about 2 weeks, so you’re choosing from screened candidates instead of starting from scratch. More than 95% of our placements are still in the role at 6 months, and if a hire doesn’t work out, our 6-month replacement cover for the same role applies, with the conditions set out in the Scope of Work and terms.

If you want to talk through whether a direct-hire paraplanner is right for your practice, and how it could give your advisers more time for clients and less admin, book a 30-minute call.