In the rush of day-to-day business activities, many small business owners may lose sight of what they had originally hoped to accomplish. As your company grows and develops, it’s important to keep your priorities on track so your business activities are consistent with your long-term personal goals and objectives. Drawing upon our decades of experience working with business owners, Matrix Financial Group can help you, in a wide variety of ways, prepare for and plan for business and personal financial success.
Many business owners become so engrossed in running their companies, they inadvertently put their personal finances on the back burner. This may occur if most of their liquid assets are tied up in the business. However, to achieve financial independence and build personal wealth, it’s important to make personal savings a priority. By working with our team to prepare regular financial reviews, and taking follow-up action as needed, you can help develop and strengthen your personal financial position.
All business success is dependent on its men and women whose knowledge, leadership, judgment, or connections are what make things happen profitably. The death of a key person can result in serious consequences for the business. When insuring a loss through death, Key Person Life Insurance can provide an important source of revenue replacement. Further, the insurance can be designed to accumulate reserves that may be used ultimately for retirement, a termination replacement, or the retraining of successors.
If a business partner dies, a Buy-Sell Agreement protects the business and remaining owners from inactive, uninformed, and potentially dissident shareholders and helps consolidate control in the hands of the agreed upon group. Additionally, it helps fix the value of each owner’s business interest. From the viewpoint of the heirs of a deceased business owner, a buy-sell severs their dependency on the surviving owners and the economic fortunes of a business that has lost a key person.
Many tax-deferred, qualified retirement savings vehicles such as Simplified Employee Pension Plans(SEPs) or 401(k) plans are available to business owners and their employees. The size of a company, as well as the ages and salaries of its employees, often determines which type of retirement plan is best in a given situation. In addition, non-qualified plans allow business owners to provide selective benefits for themselves, as well as their key employees.
Will your small business be marketable if and when you decide to sell? It’s important to develop an “exit” strategy that can help provide cash commensurate with the value of your business in the event you choose—or are forced (due to death or disability)—to divest.
If your company is operated by more than one family member, you may wish to keep the business in your family. In this situation, it’s important to learn about transfer tax issues and develop a business succession plan that will help secure your long-term goals and objectives.
You have spent a lifetime building a successful business. As you look ahead at your retirement and the divestiture of your company, do you want the final years of your career to end in a slowdown or decline? Or would you prefer to exit on a high note – making thoughtful provisions for your clients, employees and family; retiring on your own terms; preserving the value of your business; and continuing your company’s legacy for generations to come?
Although the choice may be obvious, the solution can be elusive. What most business owners don’t realize is that handing over the baton to a new owner, a key employee, or family member is a process, rather than a single event. And the more time allotted for planning, the better the outcome will be, particularly with regard to minimizing the tax consequences of transferring business ownership.
A business succession plan can maximize your business’s value and secure your own financial future when the time comes to sell, transfer or wrap things up. When planned properly, your transition should be smooth both emotionally and financially, not just for you and your family, but your employees and your successor as well.
As specialists in guiding business owners through the journey of succession planning, Foster Financial Group serves as your financial advocate to assure that your experience is as simple and smooth as possible.
In addition to offering you solutions that range from estate and tax planning to business advisory and wealth management, as well as looking after all aspects of the sale of your business, Foster Financial Group serves as your central facilitator to ensure that all necessary details are properly coordinated with your other advisors, including your accountant and attorney.
We know that your life and your life’s work are inextricably linked. So we take the time to gain an in-depth understanding of your personal, family and business goals, as well as the psychological factors and emotional hurdles that come into play. This way, we can help you find solutions and resolutions that accommodate all of your stakeholders’ needs.
To effectively manage the complexities of succession planning, we follow a proven process designed to help you ultimately reach your destination by taking it one step at a time.
During each step of the process, we work closely with you to: