Australian financial planners are among the most AI-aware professionals in the country — and among the most cautious. That combination is exactly right. The question isn't whether to use AI, but how to use it safely within your AFSL obligations and with genuine benefit to your practice.
This guide covers four practical Claude AI workflows for Perth financial planners: SOA drafting support, fact-find preparation, client communication, and meeting preparation. Each workflow includes a copy-paste prompt, a note on where your professional judgment is still essential, and guidance on privacy and compliance.
What Claude Is Good At — and What It Isn't
Before the workflows, a clear-eyed view of where Claude adds value and where it doesn't.
Claude is genuinely useful for: producing first drafts of written documents, summarising lengthy research or legislation, structuring complex information into readable formats, drafting client communications in your voice, and helping you think through a client situation before a meeting.
Claude should not be used for: generating specific investment recommendations, replacing the personalised financial advice process, making actuarial calculations, or producing advice documents that aren't reviewed and verified by a licensed adviser. The responsibility for advice quality, accuracy, and suitability remains entirely with you.
The FAAA has flagged concerns about Australians already seeking unlicensed financial guidance from AI tools — with high rates of errors and misleading responses. This makes the case for adviser-mediated AI use stronger, not weaker. You are the safeguard. Claude is the drafting tool.
Workflow 1: SOA Drafting Support
The problem
SOAs are among the most time-consuming documents in financial planning — lengthy, compliance-heavy, and requiring significant writing time even when the advice itself is clear. Many planners spend 3–6 hours on a single SOA.
How Claude helps
Claude can take your structured notes about a client situation and produce a first-draft narrative for key SOA sections — the client's situation summary, goals and objectives, and the basis for recommendations. It does not replace your advice logic, your product research, or your compliance review. It removes the blank-page problem and cuts drafting time significantly.
Example prompt (client situation summary section)
Critical reminder: Review every word before it goes into a final SOA. Claude is producing a draft based on your notes — it cannot assess suitability, verify risk profile accuracy, or apply your professional judgment. The advice remains yours.
Workflow 2: Fact-Find Preparation
The problem
Before a new client meeting, you need to prepare a fact-find framework tailored to their situation — questions that get to the heart of their goals, concerns, and current position quickly and efficiently.
How Claude helps
Given brief context about a new client, Claude can generate a tailored set of discovery questions structured around their likely needs. This saves preparation time and helps you surface issues you might not have led with.
Example prompt
Workflow 3: Client Communication
The problem
Financial planners write a significant volume of client correspondence — post-meeting summaries, market update communications, review meeting invitations, annual review letters, and sensitive communications like fee disclosures or advice to hold during volatility. Each one takes disproportionate time to write well.
How Claude helps
Claude can produce professional, warm, and clearly written client correspondence in minutes. The key is giving it the specific situation, the key points to cover, and your preferred tone. It will not add financial advice or specific recommendations unless you instruct it to — and you shouldn't instruct it to.
Example prompt (post-meeting summary)
Example prompt (market volatility communication)
Workflow 4: Research Summarisation and Meeting Preparation
The problem
Staying current with legislation, regulatory changes, and product updates is essential — but reading lengthy government documents, ASIC releases, and industry reports takes significant time. Before complex client meetings, you also need to synthesise what you know about their situation into a clear picture.
How Claude helps
Claude can summarise lengthy documents, extract key points from regulatory releases, and help you structure your thinking before a client meeting. You paste in the document or your notes — Claude gives you a structured summary.
Example prompt (regulatory document summary)
Example prompt (pre-meeting preparation)
Time Savings Across a Week
| Task | Without Claude | With Claude | Weekly saving (moderate caseload) |
|---|---|---|---|
| SOA drafting (narrative sections) | 3–5 hrs each | 1–2 hrs each | ~3–4 hrs |
| Fact-find preparation | 30 min each | 8 min each | ~1 hr |
| Client correspondence | 20–30 min each | 5–8 min each | ~2 hrs |
| Research & meeting prep | 45–60 min per meeting | 15 min per meeting | ~2 hrs |
At a billing equivalent of $300–$450/hr, 8 hours per week reclaimed is worth significant capacity annually — or simply the ability to take on more clients without working longer hours.
Privacy and Compliance — What Perth Financial Planners Need to Know
The two most common concerns from financial planners about AI are data privacy and accuracy. Both are legitimate. Here's how to approach them practically:
- Use a paid Claude plan. On Claude Pro or Team plans, Anthropic does not use your conversation data to train its models. Free-tier use does not have the same protections. For professional use, a paid plan is essential.
- Anonymise sensitive client data where possible. For drafting workflows, use placeholders ("Client A, female, 44, self-employed") rather than full names and identifying details. Reserve specific client information for when it's genuinely necessary for the output.
- AFSL obligations remain with you. Claude does not hold an AFSL. It cannot provide financial advice. Every output it produces is a draft that requires your professional review before it goes anywhere near a client.
- Privacy Act 2026 considerations. The updated Privacy Act (effective December 2026) strengthens obligations around automated processing of personal information. Applying care now — using paid plans, anonymising where possible — puts you ahead of the compliance curve.
- FAAA guidance. The FAAA encourages adviser-mediated AI use and emphasises that AI should support, not replace, the advice process. The workflows above are designed with that principle in mind.
Frequently Asked Questions
The FAAA "Reclaiming Your Time with AI" Webinar — What It Signals
The FAAA's decision to run a dedicated "Reclaiming your time with AI" webinar for financial planners in June 2026 is a clear signal: AI productivity is now mainstream professional development for Australian advisers, not a fringe topic. The profession is moving. The question is whether you lead that shift in your own practice or follow it.
The planners who build Claude fluency now — before AI is embedded in every platform they already use — will use those integrations far more effectively than those who encounter them cold.
Free 90-Minute Claude Workflow Clinic for Perth Financial Planners
We work through your actual SOA, fact-find, and client communication tasks together. You leave with ready-to-use prompts tailored to your practice. No tech knowledge needed.
Book your free clinic →