Building a business and building personal wealth are not the same thing.
Most SME owners are asset-rich and planning-poor. The business absorbs everything. Meanwhile, pension contributions are inconsistent, protection is underweight, and the exit plan does not yet exist. We bring the personal and business picture together.
The director's challenge: when your finances and your business are tangled together.
Most generic financial advice treats personal and business finances as separate worlds. For SME owners and directors, that is rarely how life actually works. The decisions you make about how to draw income, when to invest, how to fund retirement, and how eventually to step away all sit in the overlap between the two.
Get that overlap right and you build personal wealth efficiently while keeping the business resilient. Get it wrong, or simply leave it unmanaged, and tax leakage, missed reliefs and unprotected positions accumulate quietly over years.
The big financial questions for business owners.
What directors and owners most want to understand.
What is the most tax-efficient way to extract money from my company?
Am I building enough personal wealth alongside the business?
What happens to my business, and my family, if I die or cannot work?
How do I structure an exit to minimise tax and maximise what I keep?
How does the Finance Act 2026 change my pension and inheritance tax planning?
How do I make sure my business and personal plan are joined up?
Where we focus for business owners.
Six areas where good advice pays for itself.
Pension and remuneration strategy
How best to combine salary, dividends and employer pension contributions, accounting for corporation tax, personal tax, the annual allowance and carry-forward. For most directors, this is the single highest-value planning conversation. Employer contributions paid directly from the company attract full corporation tax relief and sit outside the personal allowance calculation.
Exit and succession planning
Whether you are selling, passing the business to family, or stepping back gradually, the financial planning around an exit is best started years in advance. Business Asset Disposal Relief, sale structuring, and the post-exit investment plan all sit here. We work with your accountant and solicitor to make sure the personal and corporate planning are aligned.
Director and key person protection
What happens to the business if a key director cannot work, becomes seriously ill, or dies? Key person cover, shareholder protection and cross-option agreements close gaps that often go unnoticed until they matter. We review what is in place, identify the gaps, and recommend cover proportionate to the risk.
Tax-efficient retirement funding
Director-focused pension structures including SSAS and SIPP, employer contributions, and how the pension can interact with company assets. Where appropriate, a SSAS can hold commercial property used by the business, creating a tax-efficient structure that benefits both the company and your retirement. We model the options clearly.
Business Relief and inheritance tax
The Finance Act 2026 capped Business Property Relief at 1 million pounds of qualifying assets, with 50% relief above that threshold. For owners with significant business interests, this changes the inheritance tax planning conversation materially and may bring forward decisions that previously sat comfortably in the future.
Family and legacy planning
How the business passes, when it passes, and who it passes to are decisions worth making deliberately rather than leaving to a will alone. We work alongside your solicitor and accountant to ensure your personal estate plan and business succession plan are aligned, including the interaction with the Finance Act 2026 pension changes.
The business owner's financial journey.
Most business owners move through a broadly predictable financial sequence. Where you are in that sequence shapes what we focus on first.
Protect your income
Income protection, life cover and critical illness while the business depends on you personally.
Protect the business
Key person cover, shareholder protection and cross-option agreements.
Build pension wealth
Consistent employer contributions, carry-forward, SSAS or SIPP structures.
Invest surplus profits
Tax-efficient extraction and investment of profits that sit beyond business need.
Plan the exit
BADR structuring, sale preparation, pre-exit pension maximisation.
Retirement and legacy
Post-exit investment, income planning, inheritance tax and estate strategy.
The Finance Act 2026 changed the planning picture for business owners.
Two significant changes came in under the Finance Act 2026. First, Business Property Relief was capped at 1 million pounds of qualifying assets from April 2026, with a 50% rate applying above that threshold rather than the previous 100% relief. For owners whose business interests exceed this threshold, the inheritance tax exposure on their estate has increased materially.
Second, from April 2027, unspent pension funds will be subject to inheritance tax at 40% for the first time. Until now, pensions sat outside the taxable estate entirely. For business owners who have been making large pension contributions as a tax-efficient strategy, this changes how the pension should sit within the broader estate plan.
The interaction between these two changes, business interests, pension wealth and the overall estate, requires careful modelling. The options available before April 2027 are broader than those that will exist after it.
Aetas Wealth has been advising clients on both Finance Act 2026 changes since the legislation was announced. If you have not yet reviewed the impact on your specific position, a conversation with one of our advisers is the right starting point.
Alongside your existing advisers, not in place of them.
Most of our director and owner clients already have an accountant they trust, and often a corporate solicitor and a tax adviser too. We do not replace any of them. We coordinate with them.
In practice that means tax-efficient planning that does not unravel at year-end, succession decisions that align with the legal structure your solicitor has put in place, and a clear shared view of how the moving parts fit together.
If you are also thinking about how financial pressure shows up across your wider team, that is a separate conversation. Aetas Workplace is built around a no-cost audit and is designed for SMEs where the commercial case has to add up.
Questions we hear most from business owners.
How should a company director extract profits tax-efficiently?
The most efficient approach for most directors is a combination of a low salary up to the National Insurance secondary threshold, dividends to the higher-rate threshold, and employer pension contributions paid directly from the company. Employer contributions attract full corporation tax relief and bypass the personal annual allowance, making them the most efficient route to retirement savings for most directors. The right balance depends on your company's profitability, your other income, and your personal tax position.
What financial planning should I do before selling my business?
Exit planning is best started three to five years before a planned sale. Key areas include maximising Business Asset Disposal Relief eligibility, reviewing pension contributions to extract value before sale, structuring the transaction to minimise capital gains tax, and planning how to deploy the proceeds. The interaction between BADR, inheritance tax and the Finance Act 2026 pension changes requires careful modelling specific to your situation.
How does the Finance Act 2026 affect business owners specifically?
Two significant changes. First, Business Property Relief was capped at 1 million pounds of qualifying assets from April 2026, with 50% relief above that threshold rather than the previous 100%. Second, from April 2027, unspent pension funds will be subject to inheritance tax at 40% for the first time. Both changes affect how business interests and pension wealth should be structured as part of an estate plan.
Do I need key person insurance?
If your business's revenue, banking covenants or supply relationships depend materially on one or two individuals, key person cover is worth considering. It pays a lump sum to the company on the death or serious illness of a key individual, providing funds to cover lost revenue, recruit a replacement, or stabilise the business during a difficult period. The cost is typically modest relative to the risk it covers.
Read our companion guide: Business owner financial planning: the six decisions that matter most.
Running a business? Your team's performance affects your personal financial position.
If you employ staff, the cost of disengagement, turnover and underperformance sits directly on your bottom line. Aetas Workplace works with SME owners and leadership teams to measure and improve return on employee investment, the commercial return your business generates from its total spend on people.
As you plan your exit, the performance of your team affects valuation. Aetas Workplace helps you build the people and commercial foundations that a buyer or successor will want to see.
Explore Aetas WorkplaceBusiness Performance Review
A no-cost structured review of your organisation's return on employee investment. Identifies the cost of performance gaps, savings available in benefits and pensions, and a commercially grounded improvement programme if the numbers stack up.
- No cost. No commitment until proposal stage
- Works alongside your existing advisers
- Relevant from growth stage through to exit planning
Talk to an adviser who understands business owners.
A first conversation costs nothing and commits you to nothing. We will look at your situation honestly, tell you what we think, and let you decide whether working together makes sense.
Book a free consultation Available via video call or in person. We work with clients across the UK.The value of investments and any income from them can fall as well as rise. You may get back less than you originally invested. Past performance is not a reliable guide to future performance. The levels and bases of taxation may also change.
The information contained above is based on our understanding of legislation, whether proposed or in force, and market practice at the time of writing. Levels, bases and reliefs from taxation may be subject to change. The Financial Conduct Authority does not regulate tax advice, will writing or trust planning.