What Is Financial Planning for Business Owners?
Financial planning is the process of creating a comprehensive plan to save and budget money for your future.
It involves proactive planning for life’s major financial events including:
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putting the kids through college
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buying a home or building your dream home
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starting or selling a business
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retirement or a work-optional lifestyle
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buying a vacation property
Usually, the ultimate goal of financial planning is to ensure you have enough savings to live comfortably when you retire.
For small business owners, financial planning requires taking a long-term approach that includes evaluating your financial situation, setting long-term goals, taking steps to accumulate money through budget-setting and savings, 401ks, IRAs, and more.
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360's Financial Planning for Business Owners
Financial planning for business owners requires the expertise of specialists who understand the unique needs and challenges of business owners.
Doing what’s right for the business and balancing that with what’s best for your personal goals is an art.
At 360 Financial, we help business owners and entrepreneurs create greater synergy between their long-term business and personal financial goals.
Our Services Include:
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Business Owner Cash Flow Planning
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Retirement Savings and Tax Strategies (such as implementing retirement plans (401(k)s, SEP IRAs, and SIMPLE IRAs)
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Risk Management
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Succession Planning
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Investments
Succession Planning vs. Exit Planning
Succession planning and exit planning are two different strategies that can be utilized by business owners who are ready to leave their business or retire.
Succession planning usually involves transferring the business to new leaders within an organization. Often this can involve family members or other key employees in the company.
Exit planning involves preparing a business for sale to a new owner or management team. Both have complex legal implications that require careful planning with the help of experienced legal professionals.
The Importance of Succession Planning
Succession planning is extremely important because all business owners will eventually need to consider what happens to their company after they leave or retire.
A well-considered succession plan can create continuity that ensures a smooth transition that keeps the business stable and profitable. Ideally, succession planning is a long-term process where future leaders and owners are identified and developed years in advance of the transition.
We usually recommend a 3 to 10-year time horizon to our clients.
Whether you’re passing the business on to a family member or selling it to a new leadership team, such as a private equity firm, the best succession plan should maximize your return while setting the new owner up for continued success.
5 Important Financial Planning Tips for Small Business Owners
1. Use an Experienced Advisor. There’s a lot at stake for business owners. An advisor that doesn’t have experience with the unique financial planning challenges of business owners probably isn’t the best advisor for you.
2. Keep Personal and Business Finances Separate. Mixing your personal and business finances can create headaches and complex tax challenges. It’s best to do separate financial planning for each, even though they ultimately end up impacting one another.
3. Maintain Good Credit. Keeping a good credit score gives you access to capital loans that can be used for improvements, growing the business, or even acquiring another company.
4. Manage Your Risk. Mitigating risk is essential for business owners. Having the right types of insurance, such as life, liability, property, key person, and health insurance, can protect you and your assets from risk.
5. Do Annual Reviews. You should meet with your advisor to review your financial plan annually and make changes as needed when business or personal circumstances change.
Getting Started with Estate Planning
Being a business owner adds complexity to doing your estate planning.
Yet it is vitally important to have a solid estate plan in place that outlines your wishes for how you would like the business assets distributed if you die or become incapacitated.
In many cases, a business owner’s net worth is higher, which may mean the estate could be subject to estate taxes at the state and federal levels.
Utilizing estate and tax planning strategies in advance can save your beneficiaries the expense and headache of probate and reduce their overall tax liability upon inheritance.
Business Planning vs. Personal Financial Planning
Business planning and personal financial planning are two separate disciplines.
Business planning and personal financial planning are two separate disciplines.
The level of complexity involved in managing income, taxes and investments is much greater for businesses than for individuals.
But if you are a business owner, it’s important to understand that your personal finances impact your business finances — and vice versa.
While each should be managed and planned for separately, you should do planning for both simultaneously to have the clearest view of how one impacts the other.
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Creating a Retirement Plan as a Small Business Owner
Creating a retirement plan as a small business owner is a complex process that should consider multiple factors.
It should be built around what matters to you the most and designed to support the lifestyle you envision for yourself in retirement. Since the business is likely your largest asset, its value when you sell it will be a key part of your retirement plan.
But just like any non-business owner, there are a number of other ways you should be investing along the way to grow your personal retirement wealth.
As a business owner, you’ll likely have more money to do it with and more opportunities to benefit from tax-deferred investments that can lower your personal taxable income.
Creating an Investment Plan
The value of your business is a key piece of your retirement planning puzzle.
But you should also be growing your personal investment portfolio in the years leading up to your retirement. Investments like 401(k)s, IRAs, or SEP IRAs allow you to grow your retirement accounts tax deferred.
The more successful your business becomes, you may be able to take cash distributions that you can use to further diversify your investments to include things like real estate, tax-efficient bonds, and emergency savings.
Your 360 Financial advisor can work with you on a holistic, tax-efficient investment plan that meets your personal goals while simultaneously benefitting your business.
Diversifying Beyond Your Business
It’s wise to diversify beyond your business because relying on its value to fund your retirement is not an ideal strategy.
It’s risky because it places too many proverbial eggs in a single basket. Not all businesses are profitable, and some lose money, or even fail altogether. Building a diverse portfolio of personal investments protects you in the event that the value of your business isn’t enough to fund your retirement.
We can help you with a variety of diversification strategies for both your business and your personal finances.
Managing Risk for Yourself and Your Family
With more money comes greater risk.
Our risk management specialists can provide insurance and other risk management tools for your business, as well as yourself and family.
One of the biggest risks to the value of a business if an owner suddenly passes away or becomes incapacitated. The abrupt loss of a key leader could be devasting to the company’s ability to function.
Important risk planning initiatives like key person insurance and drafting key legal documents that govern how a deceased owner’s shares of a company are distributed, such as buy/sell agreements, are musts for any business owner.
On the personal side, having life insurance for yourself can provide for your family if you die and give them funds to cover funeral expenses and any tax they may owe after they inherit your assets.
Additionally, having insurance for larger personal assets like your home, boats and vehicles as well umbrella policies for liability, are all smart ways to manage risk and protect your wealth.