BUSINESS PLANNING

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, James River Wealth Advisors can help you, in a wide variety of ways, prepare for and plan for business and personal financial success.

Strengthening Personal Finances and Building Wealth
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.

Protecting Your Business against Loss of Key Employees
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.

Protecting a Business Partnership
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.

Preparing for Retirement
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.

Developing an Exit Strategy
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.

Retaining the Company within Your Family
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.