Planning for the Owner and the Business
Most owners have their income, their retirement and much of their family's future tied up in the company. We plan the business and the household together, from what you pay yourself this year to the day someone else runs the place.
Your Business and Household Finances
For many owners the company is worth more than everything else they own, and it pays the household every month. Its sale or handover often pays for retirement. How it changes hands decides what the family inherits.
That is why the business cannot be planned on its own. We look at it with your tax return, your retirement income and your estate in view, at the same time and in the same office.
From the First Payroll to the Handover
Owners come to us at every stage, and the questions change as the company does. Pick the stage you are in.
- 01
Build
Cash flow, clean books and help with financial decisions.
- 02
Protect
A plan for the company if you cannot work.
- 03
Reduce Tax Drag
The entity, your pay and the timing of income.
- 04
Prepare for Retirement
Income for the years after the business stops paying you.
- 05
Transition the Business
A sale or a handover, planned years ahead.
- 06
Preserve the Legacy
Who inherits the business, and who runs it.
Build
Financial information to help you run and grow the company.
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Cash Flow and Decision Support
A thirteen-week cash forecast, a budget, and a read of your financial statements before you hire, borrow or buy the next truck.
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Books That Reconcile
Cleanup when the books have fallen behind, then monthly bookkeeping done here if you want it, so every decision starts from records that tie out.
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Fractional CFO
Monthly financial reporting, cash planning and a standing review with you, for a company that needs a CFO’s attention without a full-time hire.
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Buying a Business
Before you buy a competitor or a practice, we read the seller’s numbers and show you what the purchase does to your cash flow and your taxes.
Protect
What keeps the company standing if something happens to you.
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What Happens If You Stop
Illness, a partner leaving, an offer you did not expect. A buy-sell agreement and a funded plan behind it keep any of those from becoming a fire sale.
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Key Person and Disability Coverage
What the business would lose if you or a key employee could not work, and whether the coverage you already hold would carry it through.
Reduce Tax Drag
Keeping more of what the business earns, year after year.
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What You Pay Yourself
Salary against distributions on an S corp, and what the split does to payroll tax, the 199A deduction, and what a lender will lend you.
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Entity Structure
Sole proprietor, S corp, partnership. We review the structure as the business and its profits change.
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The Tax Bill, Before It Arrives
Estimated payments, timing of purchases, and the elections that only work if you make them before year end.
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Business Returns
S corporation, partnership, C corporation and Schedule C returns, filed from books that reconcile.
Owner pay affects more than payroll. Your pay affects payroll tax, the qualified business income deduction, retirement contributions and how lenders assess your income. We look at those effects together.
Prepare for Retirement
Income for the years after the business stops paying you.
Retirement planning-
Retirement Plans for Owners and Employees
Whether a SEP, a SIMPLE IRA or a 401(k) fits the company, what you and your employees can put in, and what it saves in tax.
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Your Own Retirement
What the household needs once the company stops paying you, how much of that the business has to provide, and when you can afford to step back.
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Social Security and Medicare Around the Exit
Claiming dates and Medicare premiums planned around the year the business sells, because the proceeds count toward the income that sets both.
Transition the Business
A sale or a handover, planned years before the closing date.
Succession and exit planning-
Valuation and Exit Readiness
A planning-level estimate of what the business is worth and what drives the number, years before a buyer tells you. It is not a certified appraisal.
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Succession to Family or Key Employees
A buyout the successor can afford, ownership passed on over time, and a fair answer for the children who do not work in the business.
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Preparing the Business for Sale
Financial statements a buyer’s accountant will accept, your personal expenses separated from the company’s, and the hard questions answered before they are asked.
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Brokering the Sale
For a sale outside the family, we find and screen buyers and negotiate the terms, weighing each offer by what it leaves you after tax.
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Tax on a Sale or Transfer
Selling the assets or selling the shares, how the price is allocated, payments spread over several years, and what the proceeds do to your bracket.
Preserve the Legacy
Who inherits the business, who runs it, and what everyone else receives.
Estate and legacy planning-
Estate and Legacy Coordination
The buy-sell agreement, the estate documents and the beneficiary forms, read against each other so the business goes where you intend.
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The Next Generation
Preparing the people who will own the company, and dividing the rest of the estate between the children who run it and the children who do not.
Through the Year
Planning continues throughout the year.
We review estimated payments before they are due and help you assess purchases, hiring and money taken out of the business while you are making those decisions.
Owners who want that all year work with us through Tax Planning and Advisory, or with us as their fractional CFO.
Common Questions
Should I be an S corp?
It depends on profit, and the right answer changes as profit changes. The salary and distribution split affects payroll tax, the qualified business income deduction, what you can contribute to a retirement plan, and what a lender will lend you. Those move together.
Can you tell me what my business is worth?
We can estimate it at a planning level. That covers what drives the value, what a buyer is likely to focus on, and what the figure means for your retirement. It is not a certified appraisal. A sale, a gift of shares or an estate filing can call for a formal appraisal from a credentialed appraiser, and we will tell you when yours does.
Do you do bookkeeping?
We do, in-house. Books have to reconcile before we file a business return, so cleanup comes first when they have fallen behind. After that we can keep them current every month.
Do you only work with businesses of a certain size?
Sole proprietors filing a Schedule C through to partnerships and S corps with payroll. What matters more than size is whether the business and the household finances are being looked at by the same person.
Bring Last Year's Return
That, and a rough idea of what you want to be doing in ten years, is enough for a useful first conversation. There is no obligation on either side.