BAS Financial

09/03/2026

Hypothetical, but the shape is common. Two San Diego companies, both doing $6M. One gets an offer the other cannot get close to.
The difference is not the top line, because the top line is identical. It is what a buyer has to replace after closing.

Owner A signs off on every bid, holds the three biggest customer relationships personally, and carries about half of revenue in one account. A buyer pricing that company is pricing the risk that revenue leaves when Owner A does, so they discount it, or they push most of the money into an earnout and make the owner stay to collect it.

Owner B has a sales manager who owns those relationships, revenue spread across thirty accounts, and work that recurs on contract rather than project by project. Same $6M, far less to replace.

Keep in mind this cuts both ways. The things that make a business easy to sell are mostly the same things that make it possible to take a month off, so the work is not wasted if the sale never happens.
What actually drives the number: https://www.bas-financial.com/san-diego-business-owners-valuation-exit-strategy-hub?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=weekly_2026-08-31&utm_content=wk0831_bizowner_valuation_fb

If you had to leave the business alone for thirty days starting tomorrow, what breaks first?

Small business valuation and exit planning for San Diego business owners. CEPA-certified strategy to maximize enterprise value and prepare for a seamless exit.

09/02/2026

Separate from service in or after the year you turn 55 and distributions from that employer's plan can avoid the 10% additional tax on early distributions. Per IRS Topic no. 558.
That exception belongs to the plan. Not to you.

Roll the balance to an IRA and it does not follow the money. The IRA has its own rules and 59½ is one of them.

Hypothetical: Marcus separates at 56 and does what almost everyone does, rolls the entire 401(k) to an IRA inside the first month. He just moved his penalty-free access from 56 to 59½, and nothing on the rollover paperwork said so.

The decision has to get made before the rollover, not after. Once the money is in the IRA, the plan exception is gone.

The post explains how the rule works and exactly where it stops: https://www.bas-financial.com/equity-compensation-at-separation?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=weekly_2026-08-31&utm_content=wk0831_ihe2_sep55_fb

Sitting on a separation date in the next year, happy to walk the sequencing with you: [email protected]/" rel="ugc" target="_blank">https://outlook.office.com/book/[email protected]/

09/01/2026

When a separation date is set, two things need decisions and only one of them is obvious.

The equity piece is a reading assignment. Which tranches vest on or before that date and which do not. What your plan document says happens to unvested awards. What it says about the window to act on anything already vested. Everyone's grants are stacked differently, so a coworker's answer is not your answer.

The old 401(k) is a mechanics question. A distribution paid to you rather than direct-rolled carries mandatory 20% federal withholding, even if you fully intend to roll it. You then have 60 days, and you have to replace that 20% out of pocket to roll the full amount.

Both have dates attached. Wrote up what to check and in what order:
https://www.bas-financial.com/equity-compensation-at-separation?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=employernews_2026-09-01&utm_content=emp_20260901_equity-at-separation_fb

Source on the 20% withholding and the 60 days: IRS, Rollovers of Retirement Plan and IRA Distributions.

09/01/2026

Two ways to cover a tax shortfall after an RSU vest. The IRS does not treat them the same.

Raise your W-4 withholding and those dollars are treated as paid evenly across the whole year, even if every one of them came out in December. Make an estimated payment and it is credited when you make it.

So this is a calendar decision, not a preference.
Hypothetical: Dana vests in March and comes up short. Nine months of paychecks left, so bumping withholding spreads thin enough that she barely feels it.

Same dollar shortfall in October and it has to come out of four paychecks. At some point the increase itself starts shrinking take-home pay more than she is willing to give up. That is where the estimated payment becomes the more workable lever.
Keep in mind the two are not interchangeable inside an underpayment penalty calculation.

The post walks through both, and when each one stops working: https://www.bas-financial.com/the-san-diego-h-e-n-r-y-strategy?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=weekly_2026-08-31&utm_content=wk0831_ihe1_rsushortfall_fb

Where in the year did your vest land?

08/29/2026

If your equity is options rather than restricted stock, the exercise window is the one to handle first.

It opens when you separate and closes on a date set by your plan document, not by a general rule. Two grants at the same employer can run on different terms. Past the date the option is gone, in the money or not, with no appeal and no extension.

Exercising costs cash in a year your income just dropped. You pay the strike price, and with incentive stock options the spread at exercise is an alternative minimum tax adjustment even though nothing was sold. That bill arrives at filing, months after the cash left.

Letting the window close costs you the spread and ends it permanently. Neither is obviously right.

What makes it hard is that the date sits in a document from the year you were hired, not in the packet you were handed on the way out.

Find the date first. Everything else can wait a week.

https://www.bas-financial.com/equity-compensation-at-separation?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=employernews_2026-08-25&utm_content=emp_20260825_option-exercise-window_fb

08/28/2026

Question for the business owners in this group: if you had to pick ONE thing that moves your cash flow the most, what would it be?

Is it how fast customers pay you? How fast you have to pay your vendors? Or just plain old margin on what you sell?

Drop your answer in the comments — we walk through all seven real levers (and the ones most owners miss) here:

Maximize cash flow predictability and enterprise value. Expert tech-driven cash flow management strategies for San Diego business owners and founders.

08/28/2026

Most people estimate how much of their net worth sits in their employer's stock by opening one app and looking at one balance.

That balance is the smallest piece of it. The real figure includes vested shares moved somewhere else and forgotten, unvested RSUs already on the calendar, ESPP shares, and company stock inside the 401(k) if the plan offers it. Plus the piece nobody counts: your own future earnings, which are a claim on the same company.

Someone with 30% of assets in employer stock and 100% of income from that employer is far more concentrated than the 30% suggests.

New long-form video walks through how to run both numbers, why a large appreciated position is genuinely expensive to unwind, and four levers with the actual price of admission on each. No prescription. The right answer depends on your basis and your bracket.

08/28/2026

Four decisions arrive with a separation date and equity on the books. Only two of them can be lost by waiting.

Unvested RSUs end at the separation date. That one is not a decision, and naming it early takes it off the list.

Vested shares are a tax-timing question and a concentration question at once. Severance, final pay and everything that vested this year already occupy the bracket a sale would land in.

The option window is the one with a hard date, and the date comes from your plan document rather than from a general rule. Past it, the option is gone whether it was in the money or not.

The 401(k) is the one people handle first, and it is the only one of the four with no deadline at all.

First the option window. Second the shares. Third the 401(k).

https://www.bas-financial.com/equity-compensation-at-separation?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=employernews_2026-08-25&utm_content=emp_20260825_equity-comp-at-separation_fb

08/27/2026

There are four levers for reducing single-stock concentration and every one has a price of admission. Here's the cheapest.

When RSUs vest, the value is taxed as ordinary income that day, and the vest-day price becomes your cost basis. Sell at or near that date and there's almost no additional gain to recognize on top of the tax you already owe.

The catch is that it only works going forward. It does nothing about shares you already hold, and you give up the upside on every share you sell. For someone still receiving grants, it changes the trajectory without touching the existing position at all.

Worth deciding before the next vest lands rather than after.

https://www.bas-financial.com/the-san-diego-h-e-n-r-y-strategy?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=weekly_2026-08-24&utm_content=wk0824_ihe_reel3_sellintovest_fb

08/27/2026

Owners price the business off revenue, or off what the shop down the street sold for. Buyers price off transferable earnings and how much of the value walks out the door with the owner.

That gap is where deals get repriced late, usually after diligence starts.

The post breaks down what actually moves the number: https://www.bas-financial.com/blog/what-actually-determines-what-your-business-is-worth?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=weekly_2026-08-24&utm_content=wk0824_bizowner_valuation_fb

Happy to walk through where yours sits today: [email protected]/" rel="ugc" target="_blank">https://outlook.office.com/book/[email protected]/