Business Services

As the owner or person responsible for your company's retirement plan, you like to:

• Be competitive in attracting the best and brightest available in the workforce.
• Maintain or improve employee morale.
• Have employees confident and well informed about their investment decisions.
• Maximize the amount that you can save for your own retirement.
• Capitalize on the tax advantages available to you by having an employee benefits program.
• Enable your employees to select the most appropriate options available to them in the plan you offer.

We work with professionals like you who are responsible for their organization's retirement plan to provide tools and resources to assist plan sponsor with plan oversight resposibilities for your organization. In addition, we assist the plan sponor with an annual plan review. We manage and monitor a benefits package that fits your organization's needs as well as attracts good employees and motivates them to grow with the company. We provide plan support so that you and your organization are able to take advantage of potential tax benefits in seeking to reduce costs, improve efficiency and enhance employee satisfaction.

TriSummit can also provide consulting services to structure additional Business Owner and Employee Benefits. Key Person coverage is a business benefit example. Who your company wants to cover with Key Person insurance depends on the nature of the business and its employees. In many partnerships, the founders are crucial to the success of the business, and so insuring against the loss of one or more partners is a smart business move. For some businesses, the entire management team might be considered difficult to replace, so Key Person insurance could be purchased for each member of the team. Some businesses may also have lower-level employees who have built up personal connections with major distributors or clients, whose loss could conceivably cost the loss of those clients.

The monies from Key Person insurance may go to pay for many different things. One of the most common uses of Key Person insurance is to buy back shares in a company from the estate of the deceased. Particularly in the case of the death of a founding partner or majority holder, this can be crucial to helping the business retain control over its own destiny. Key Person insurance payments may also be used to pay a headhunting firm to find a suitable replacement for the lost employee, to cover expenses while the business adjusts to the loss, or to cover lost cash flow from clients who leave with the loss of a key employee.

In addition to purchasing life insurance, many businesses also buy disability insurance as part of their Key Person coverage. This will help cover temporary losses in productivity while a crucial employee is rehabilitating. Key Person insurance can range in coverage from as low as $25,000 to well over $1 million, depending on any number of factors involved. Particularly in cases where the insurance is going to be used to buy back stock, the policy will need to be reappraised frequently to ensure that the payment will be sufficient to cover all expenses in the event of the key person's death.

For family owned or partnership based businesses, TriSummit offers the opportunity to sit down and focus on what matters most to a business owner with Succession Plan concerns. TriSummit can advise and educate on Buy-Sell Agreements, sometimes called a business buyout or partner buyout agreement. These agreements are a vital part of any small to medium sized business that has more than one owner including family businesses. But don't let the terminology confuse you. This is not about buying and selling businesses. It is an agreement between partners or co-owners governing the following areas:

• When and under what conditions a partner or co-owner can sell his or her interest in the business.
• Who will be allowed to buy into the business.
• Circumstances that would require a co-owner to sell.
• What the price for that interest will be and how it will be determined.

As a business owner you may have pressing buy-sell agreement concerns such as:

• How are they used?
• How are they funded?
• How does a business valuation play in?
• What about divorce, bankruptcy, or family issues?

Because there are legal and tax implications, TriSummit works in conjunction with your attorney and CPA during the succession planning process. Buy-Sell agreements often need to be carefully crafted to fit the individual needs of a small business and its partners. So it is important to retain a qualified attorney who can help your business draft a buy-sell agreement. A critical part of buy-sell agreements is placing a value on the business. Your tax preparer may assist in your business valuation.

TriSummit also works with business owners needing advice or education regarding Cross-Purchase Agreements. This is where a departing owner sells directly to remaining owners. These agreements work best for partnerships or corporations with no more than a half-dozen or so owners. In "stock redemption" or "entity-purchase" agreements, the business itself buys back the departing owner's interest and retires the shares, making each remaining owner's interest more valuable. "Hybrid" agreements combine elements of both. Once you have an agreement in place, review it regularly. Pay special attention to the valuation formula. Have the business appraised every few years as a crosscheck.