Most business owners have two financial lives. In one, an accountant sees everything — the profit, the dividends, the director's loan, the cash quietly piling up. In the other, their personal finances drift: a pension from an old job, some life cover bought years ago, a vague plan to "sort it out eventually". The two lives almost never meet, because the professionals in charge of them never speak.
That separation is the quiet cause of most of the planning failures we see. It is not that owners get bad advice — it is that they get disconnected advice, or none at all. Only 9% of UK adults have paid for financial advice in the last two years, and the adviser market is consolidating around wealthy retirees. The average new IFA client brings a £400k portfolio; the average IFA client is 59. A 47-year-old owner whose wealth is locked inside a trading business was never in the market's sights.
The joined-up alternative
Joined-up advice means one picture, two specialists. The accountant keeps doing what they do best — the numbers, the tax, the structure. The financial planner handles the regulated work: pensions, protection, investments, retirement income. The difference is that they work from the same facts, at the same time, on behalf of the same person.
In practice, that looks like this:
- Profit extraction that considers the pension — the salary–dividend–pension decision made once, properly, instead of by habit.
- Surplus company cash with a destination — a working-capital buffer agreed with the accountant, and the true surplus put to work by the planner.
- Protection that matches the balance sheet — cover sized against the actual loans, guarantees and shareholdings the accountant can see.
- An exit plan with two workstreams — corporate finance maximising the price, personal planning making sure the price buys the life the owner wants.
The client stops managing two financial lives and starts managing one.
Why the accountant is the key
Research consistently shows the most effective route into advice is a personal recommendation from someone the client already trusts — face to face. For a business owner, that person is their accountant. You see the triggers first: the strong year, the idle cash, the owner turning 55, the buyer's approach. The planner can act on those moments, but only if someone opens the door.
That is the entire logic of the Altro partnership: accountants introduce, regulated advisers advise, and the client experiences one seamless team. No FCA burden lands on the accountancy firm; no relationship leaves it either.