In our last blog – Have you got an exit strategy? – We gave details of the options you may consider when selling your business. Regardless of which way is the best for your business, here are some tasks that you should undertake to make sure that your business is ready for you to exit.
Planning ahead will give you the maximum opportunity to consider the option that will give you the best financial gain on exit.
Get your accounts in order
Whether you decide to close your business and liquidate your assets or sell your business, you need to have all your accounts in order. If you are self-employed you need to tell HMRC and file your final tax returns, for more information look at – stop being self-employed. For Limited Companies, you need to notify all interested parties including HMRC and strike off your Limited company from Companies House.
If you plan to sell your business or are planning a management buyout, you will need at least two years of financial records to show that you are a profitable and growing company.
Get your business valued
It’s important to get your business valued so you have some idea of how much it will potentially be worth if you sell it. Your accountant should be able to advise who can help you to do this. If the valuation is lower than you expected you may want to take some time to grow your business so you are in a better position when you sell.
Start putting systems in process
The sooner you start to put processes in place within your company the better. Record everything you do and how you do it so anyone can come in and take over. Your customers will expect the quality to be maintained once the business has moved on to new ownership and this is a good way of ensuring this happens. Plus it will help employees as they go through this transition.
Succession planning needs to start
If you have employees that may be interested in taking on the business or a family member then start planning for the future as early as you can. Ensure they have access to training so they can start to learn the skills they need to manage the business. You may also want to start to step away from the business to give them more responsibility and allow them to start making key decisions, this is a good way of slowly passing over ownership and staying in an advisory capacity.
If you would like some advice on planning your exit strategy contact us and we can support you and also bring in professionals that can offer more specialist support depending on which exit strategy you choose. You can call us on 01623 490 120 or email