Architecture, not products

What does a financial adviser in Perth actually do?

A financial adviser designs the structure around your money — entities, superannuation, tax sequencing, investments and protection — then coordinates the specialists who implement it. At Wealth Gap Advisory the work is strategy-led: we charge for advice and coordination, with fees agreed before any work starts and any life insurance commission disclosed.

Most high earners in Perth do not have an advice problem. They have a coordination problem. The accountant optimises the tax return. The broker optimises the loan. The super fund optimises nothing. Nobody is sequencing the whole thing, and the gap between those three opinions is where the money quietly goes. Three good opinions, given separately, do not add up to a plan.

How is a financial adviser different from my accountant?

An accountant reports what has already happened and lodges it correctly. A financial adviser decides what should happen next — how income, gains and contributions are sequenced across entities over years, and how superannuation, investments, insurance and estate arrangements fit together. The two roles are complements, and the best outcomes come from them talking to each other.

This is the single most common question we are asked, and the honest answer is that a good accountant and a good adviser are doing different jobs on the same set of facts. The accountant's horizon is the financial year. Ours is the decade. When your accountant asks in June what you would like to do about the profit, that is not a tax question that arrived in June — it is a structuring decision that should have been made eighteen months earlier.

Which service do I actually need?

Most people start with one of three: a second opinion if you are not sure whether your current arrangements are working, retirement planning if the question is "am I on track", or tax structuring if a business or a large gain is driving the decision. If you are unsure, the second opinion is the cheapest way to find out.

What we do

Seven areas, one plan. The detail lives on the pages below — this is what each is for.

SMSF strategy and advice — deciding honestly whether a self-managed fund is worth the responsibility, and if it is, running it as part of the architecture rather than as an annual compliance exercise. ASIC's November 2025 review of 100 SMSF establishment advice files found 38 demonstrated compliance with the best interests duty; the decision deserves more rigour than it usually gets.

Tax and structuring — designing the entities and ownership behind your wealth, and sequencing income and gains through them legitimately. This is the most time-critical area on the site right now: the capital gains and negative gearing rules change from 1 July 2027, and a structure built for the old rules was built for a world that ends next financial year.

Retirement and superannuation — replacing "am I on track?" with a modelled answer, then building the contribution, investment and drawdown strategy that funds it.

Investment strategy — allocation designed around your goals, horizon and the entities holding the assets, because the wrapper an asset sits in often matters more than the asset choice. We coordinate with your existing investment managers where that makes sense.

Estate and succession — making sure wealth survives an ownership transition intact, whether that is a business exit, a generational transfer or a death, and helping the next generation understand what they are inheriting.

Wealth protection — personal and structural risk: life, TPD, income protection and trauma cover, plus the asset protection that stops one event derailing the plan. The unglamorous part of the architecture, and the reason the rest of it gets time to compound.

The Wealth Optimisation Review — the second opinion. It exists because the most common question we hear is not "can you help me", it is "am I already fine?" That deserves a real answer before anyone discusses an engagement.

What happens when we work together?

The first meeting is a conversation about how you want to live, not a data-gathering exercise. From there we diagnose which of the five wealth gaps applies, design the architecture, then implement in a deliberate sequence with your accountant and solicitor. Nothing is recommended before the goals are written down.

The process has a name and a shape, because doing this in a random order is how people end up with three structures and no strategy. It runs Goals, then Architecture, then Pathway — The G.A.P. Method™ sets out each stage and what you receive at the end of it.

What we ask of you: honesty about what you actually want, and the patience to fix the structure before optimising the investments. What you should expect of us: a stated fee, a written plan, and a direct answer when the answer is no.

What does a financial adviser cost, and how are your fees charged?

Our fees are discussed and agreed with you before any work starts. Depending on the engagement they may be a fixed dollar amount, an hourly rate, a percentage of the portfolio under advice, or a combination — each scoped to the complexity of your situation. Where life insurance is recommended, the insurer pays us a commission at no extra cost to you, always disclosed. The full schedule is in our Financial Services Guide.

We set out how we think about fee against value, in full and without euphemism, on our value of advice page.

Who is this not for?

We are not the right fit if you want stock tips, tax avoidance, a product sale, or the cheapest possible price. We are also not the right fit if you want someone to take the decisions off your hands entirely — the work requires you to engage with it. Saying so up front saves everyone a wasted meeting.

There is no version of this where we are the cheapest option, and we would rather be clear about that on a public page than halfway through a first meeting.

How do I start?

The first step is a Wealth Gap Conversation — a no-obligation discussion about how you want to live, where the gaps are, and whether we are the right fit. It is a mutual assessment, not a pitch. Justin Porrins responds personally within one business day.