Early retirement planning pays off

When Chris and Jessica came to us, they were in their late 40’s, married with three children and running a personal training/fitness business. They wanted to grow their business so that they could sell it and use the proceeds to fund their retirement.

We started off by preparing a valuation for the business to confirm where they stood.  We worked with them and their Karaco Accountant to calculate the gap between where they were and where they’d need to be, in order to retire when they wanted and enjoy their desired standard of living.

Karaco Accounting helped transition the business to a live cloud-based accounting platform so that Chris and Jessica could spend less time attending to bookkeeping and more time growing the business. The accounting team prepared budgets for the business and met with Chris and Jessica on a quarterly basis to review the results, identify problems early in the process and discuss strategies for growing sales.

On an annual basis, we undertook a fresh valuation of the business to measure the progress made towards their goals as a result of our collaboration.

After 10 years of working with us, Chris and Jessica sold their business. They invested the proceeds into a self-managed superannuation fund, which will provide a healthy nest egg allowing them to retire and spend their days travelling as they eagerly await grandchildren.

In addition to helping grow the business, we also identified other issues that needed to be addressed to ensure Chris and Jessica’s financial security and peace of mind.

We sought to restructure the business from being in joint names to a family trust, ensuring a greater degree of asset protection for the family home, while avoiding any tax imposed through the use of the small business restructure rollover provisions.

Furthermore, once we saw the interest rate that Chris and Jessica were paying on their home loan, we arranged for refinancing, which saved Chris and Jessica approximately $9,000 a year. We helped them to update their wills, which when combined with an insurance review, provided peace of mind that their children would be properly looked after in the event of a tragedy.