Business Owner Planning

    Financial planning for business owners

    Being a business owner goes beyond running your business day to day. To ensure that your business helps you meet your personal, family, and legacy goals, we offer business owner financial planning as part of our approach to serving clients at the highest level.

    The three most common challenges that we help business owners solve include:

    • Business exit planning
    • Retirement planning
    • Estate planning

    Here’s a little more about how we help our business owner clients in each of these important areas of life and business.

    Business exit planning

    While many business owners are great at running their business, figuring out how to exit their business can often be a daunting task.

    Business exit planning can be a complex process that involves figuring out a solid succession plan, funding for the sale, and navigating the potential tax consequences for the business owner. Our goal is to assist business owners to ensure a smooth transition, minimize tax liabilities, and protect their business and family.

    Here are some of the ways we help business owners with exit planning:

    • Finding a valuation company to estimate the value of the business.
    • Mapping out a deal structure that will be advantageous for the business owner while being mindful of tax consequences.
    • Crafting succession plans based on whether the business will be passed on to someone within the company, within the family, or an outsider.
    • Planning for liquidity needs to ensure future buyers have the cash or financing needed to fund the sale of the company.

    Because a business sale often has an impact on many aspects of a client’s financial life, we help clients consider and model the possibilities so they can plan and prepare ahead of time.

    Retirement planning for business owners

    Using the right retirement plan can help business owners maximize retirement savings and potentially reduce personal and business taxes. But sorting through all of the different retirement plan options for business owners can be confusing.

    We guide business owners in answering retirement planning questions like:

    • Should I use a SIMPLE IRA, a SEP IRA, a 401(k), or a cash balance plan?
    • How do I plan my cash flow needs so I can fund my retirement account consistently?
    • What do I do with retirement plans from previous employers?
    • How do I optimize Social Security contributions so my spouse and I can maximize opportunities to get a higher Social Security check in retirement?

    Together, we can help you figure out which retirement account might best suit your needs, create a plan to fund it, or help you optimize your current retirement plan to align with your retirement goals.

    Estate planning for business owners

    Estate planning for business owners requires a comprehensive approach to ensure that both the business and personal assets are handled according to your wishes.

    Some of the things that we help business owners with as it relates to their estate planning include:

    • Reviewing key documents like wills and trusts to ensure assets are distributed in the most tax-efficient manner to minimize the impact of taxes on the estate.
    • Evaluating buy-sell agreements to ensure the business owner has a solid plan for how their share of the business will be distributed to business partners in the event of death, disability, or retirement.
    • Ensuring the business has an accurate valuation for estate tax purposes and to facilitate smooth transition.
    • Considering life insurance to provide liquidity for estate taxes, business debts, or to ensure the financial security of the family in case of the owner’s death or disability.
    • Projecting the impact of selling or transferring business shares on income taxes and employing strategies to manage those taxes effectively.

    For business owners in Washington, it’s also very important to consider how the sale of a business could potentially trigger the Washington estate tax. We help clients assess the impact of this on their estate and advise them on ways to manage this effectively.

    Whether you’re looking for a financial advisor for entrepreneurs, small business owners, or owners of larger enterprises, get in touch to see how we may be able to help. Contact us here to schedule your introductory meeting.