Your Business / Director & Owner Advisory
For business owners
Director and Owner Advisory
When your business and your personal finances are tangled together, decisions in one have consequences in the other. We help directors and owner-managers make those decisions deliberately.
This service supports clients who are:
Overview
Your business and your personal wealth, planned together
Generic financial advice treats personal and business finances as two separate worlds. For most directors and owner-managers, that is not how life works. How you take income, how the company pays into your pension, when you protect against losing a key person, when and how you eventually sell or step back, all of these sit in the overlap.
Our job is to make sense of that overlap. We work with you on the personal side, with your accountant on the company side, and bring it together into a plan that works for both. The aim is to build personal wealth efficiently while keeping the business resilient and your family protected.
The starting point is always your situation. How the business is structured, what stage it is at, what you want personally, and how soon. The plan grows from there.
Where we typically help
- Salary, dividends and employer pension contributions
- Pension structures including SSAS and SIPP
- Director and key person cover
- Shareholder protection arrangements
- Business Asset Disposal Relief and exit planning
- Family succession and intergenerational planning
- Inheritance tax and Business Property Relief
In detail
The areas where good advice tends to pay for itself
Not every meeting covers every topic. We start with what matters most for you now and build from there.
How you take your income
The mix of salary, dividends and employer pension contributions matters. Get it right and the same money in your pocket can cost the company materially less. We work this through with your accountant each year.
Pension contributions from the company
Employer pension contributions sit outside the salary tax trade-off and use a different allowance. For most directors, they are the most tax-efficient way of building personal wealth from the business.
Protecting the business
What happens if a key director cannot work, or dies? Key person cover replaces the lost profits. Shareholder protection lets the remaining owners buy the affected share without forcing a sale or borrowing.
Planning the exit early
Whether you sell, pass the business to family, or step back gradually, the planning is best started years in advance. Business Asset Disposal Relief, sale structuring, and what you do with the proceeds all sit here.
Inheritance tax and the business
The Finance Act 2026 capped Business Property Relief at £1 million per person. For owners with substantial business interests, this changed the IHT planning conversation overnight.
Family and succession
Who takes over, when, and on what terms is rarely a financial question alone. We work alongside your solicitor and accountant on the parts of succession that touch on personal wealth and long-term security.
Common questions
Frequently asked questions
How should a company director take income from their business?
The most tax-efficient income strategy for company directors typically combines a modest salary (up to or near the National Insurance secondary threshold) with dividend payments. Pension contributions made by the company are often the most efficient way to extract further value, as employer pension contributions are a deductible business expense and not subject to employer National Insurance. The optimal structure depends on business profitability, personal tax position and retirement planning goals.
How can a business owner use their company to fund their pension?
Employer pension contributions made by a limited company are generally deductible for corporation tax purposes. Directors can contribute significantly to a pension through their company, building retirement wealth tax-efficiently. Carry forward rules allow unused annual allowance from the previous three tax years to be used in a single year, which is particularly valuable in years of high business profitability.
What financial planning is needed before selling a business?
Business exit planning ideally begins three to five years before the intended sale. Key areas include: structuring the business to qualify for Business Asset Disposal Relief (formerly Entrepreneurs' Relief), maximising pension contributions in the run-up to sale, planning how the sale proceeds will be invested, and considering the inheritance tax implications of a significantly larger personal estate post-sale. The Finance Act 2026 pension changes are also relevant for business owners who have built substantial pension funds.
What is Aetas Workplace?
Aetas Workplace is the employee financial wellbeing programme operated by the Aetas Group for SME employers. It combines a Business Performance Review, employee financial education, and benefits review to address the hidden cost of financial pressure in the workforce. It is available at workplace.aetas-wealth.com.
See how we helped
A business owner planning the right exit
A real, anonymised example of this advice in practice.
The first conversation is free
Talk to an adviser who understands directors
Book a no-obligation conversation. We’ll talk through where you are now and explore whether we can help.
Book a meeting →The Financial Conduct Authority does not regulate Wills, Trusts, Tax advice or Cash Flow Planning. Tax treatment depends on individual circumstances and may be subject to change in the future. The value of your investments can go down as well as up, so you could get back less than you invested.