The financial planning conversation with a client starts from what is already in the file: the accounts, the tax computation, the director's loan account, next year's budget. Six situations in that file are reasons for a conversation with a financial adviser.
Retained profit has grown for the second or third year running and extraction has not kept pace. Money is building inside the company with no plan for it.
A balance sheet showing cash well above the working capital the business needs. Part of it is a buffer. The rest has options attached, such as employer pension contributions, and unused pension annual allowance drops out after three tax years (gov.uk, Tax on your private pension contributions). The tax rules that bear on it are in surplus cash held in a client's company.
The normal minimum pension age is 55, rising to 57 on 6 April 2028 (Finance Act 2022). A director talking about stepping back in the next five to ten years is describing a retirement income question, and you hear it in the year-end meeting.
A shareholder loan, a personal guarantee on a commercial mortgage, a business that depends on one working director, and no key person or shareholder protection in place. The exposure is visible in the accounts.
New premises, a first significant hire, stock finance, an equipment loan. Growth changes the risk in the business and the owner's personal position at the same time.
An approach from a buyer, a family member being prepared for succession, a shareholder wanting to be bought out. From this point the personal planning and the eventual deal need to run on the same timetable, because business asset disposal relief has a two-year qualifying period (gov.uk, Business Asset Disposal Relief) and employer pension contributions end with the sale. See financial planning before a business sale.
Each question comes from something you can see. Describing what you can see is not regulated advice.
With the client's agreement, you make the introduction in your portal, in your firm's name, and the Equity & General financial adviser takes the regulated conversation from there, working from the same facts you hold. No advice is given by the accountancy firm, no FCA burden lands on it, and the relationship — and the fee, where applicable — stays attached to your firm throughout. The steps are in how the partnership works for one client.
Equity & General holds the FCA authorisation. There is no charge to your firm, and a named partnership manager works with you from the first introduction.