One clear strategy. Built around your entire life.

Financial Planning for Business Owners

Q: How does Ocean 6 charge for financial planning?

Ocean 6 provides fee-based financial planning. We explain exactly how it works on your intro call.

Financial planning for business owners is the work of coordinating your corporation, your tax strategy, and your personal wealth into a single plan. When it works, the decisions you make in your business and the decisions you make at home pull in the same direction instead of against each other. For incorporated owners in British Columbia, that coordination is where most of the value lives. It is also where most of it quietly leaks away.

Most business owners are losing money without realizing it. When your corporate setup, tax strategy, and personal wealth aren’t aligned, you don’t just lose clarity. You lose money, quietly, year after year. We take that weight off your shoulders and build one strategy that connects every moving piece of your financial life, so the business stops leaking value and starts building long-term freedom.

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Why business owners need a different kind of financial plan

Most financial advice is built for employees. It assumes a steady salary, a workplace pension or an RRSP, and a fairly simple tax picture. None of that describes a business owner. Your income can come as salary, dividends, or a mix. Your wealth is tied up in retained earnings, equipment, real estate, or the value of the company itself. Your single biggest asset and your single biggest source of risk are often the same thing: the business.

That changes the job. A business owner’s plan has to answer questions an employee never faces. How should you pay yourself this year? What should stay inside the corporation, and what should come out? How do you invest retained earnings without creating a tax problem down the road? What happens to your family if something happens to you, and what happens to the business? How do you eventually step back, sell, or pass it on?

Every one of those decisions touches the others. Pay yourself differently and your tax changes. Leave more in the corporation and your investment options change. Restructure for tax and your insurance and estate plan have to follow. The trouble starts when these pieces are handled by separate people who never talk to each other: an accountant over here, an investment advisor over there, a lawyer somewhere else. The gaps between them are exactly where value escapes. Integrated planning closes those gaps.

What We Handle

Strategic planning that grows your wealth and lowers your tax, handled as one connected picture instead of a stack of separate problems. Here is what that covers.

Structure

Corporations, holding companies, accounts, and ownership, and whether they are helping you or quietly working against you. We look at how your entities are set up and whether that structure still fits where you are trying to go.

Strategy

Your goals, your timeline, and the clearest path to get there. We translate “what I want my life to look like” into a sequence of financial decisions that actually get you there.

Tax

Keeping more of what you earn, across both your corporation and your personal return. We coordinate how you pay yourself, how you invest, and when you pull money out, so the two sides of your tax picture work together instead of working against each other.

Protection

Insurance, contingencies, and the risks you can’t afford to ignore. We pressure-test what happens to your family and your business if something goes wrong, then make sure the right protections are in place, sized to what you actually need.

Coordination

We work directly with your accountant, lawyer, and other advisors to keep everything aligned. You shouldn’t have to be the messenger between your own professionals. We sit at the centre and keep the plan consistent.

Navigation

What matters now, what can wait, and how to keep more of what you earn along the way. Most owners don’t need to do everything at once. They need to know the right next move, and we give them that on an ongoing basis.

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How integrated planning protects your wealth

Here are the levers that matter most for incorporated owners, and how they connect.

Corporate structure and holding companies

How your corporation and any holding company are arranged affects your tax, your creditor protection, and your flexibility to move money where it’s most useful. The right structure can shelter retained earnings and simplify succession; the wrong one adds cost and friction. (See our guide: What is a holding company in Canada)

How you pay yourself: salary, dividends, or both

The mix of salary and dividends you draw affects your personal tax, your RRSP room, CPP, and how much stays available to invest inside the company. There is no one right answer. It depends on your income needs and your corporation’s position. (See: Dividend tax in Canada)

Investing retained earnings and passive income

Money invested inside your corporation grows differently than money in your own hands, and passive investment income can affect your access to the small business tax rate. Getting this wrong is one of the most common and most expensive mistakes we see. (See: The passive income tax rule)

Insurance and risk

As an owner, your income and your family’s security depend on you in a way that isn’t true for employees. Corporately-owned insurance can also be a tax-efficient planning tool, not just a safety net. We make sure coverage is right-sized and owned in the right place.

Estate, succession, and exit

Whether you plan to sell, pass the business to family, or wind it down, the decisions you make today shape what is possible, and what is taxable, later on. Building the exit into the plan early keeps your options open.

Who we work with

We work with incorporated business owners and professionals across British Columbia whose financial lives have outgrown off-the-shelf advice, including:

Incorporated professionals such as doctors, dentists, lawyers, and consultants with a professional corporation.
Owner-operators and founders with retained earnings to deploy and a business that’s a major part of their net worth.
Partners and shareholders coordinating personal wealth alongside a shared business.
Owners approaching a transition such as a sale, a succession, or stepping back, who want the financial side handled properly.

Our planning process

This isn’t a one-time plan you file away. It’s ongoing planning and support, because your life doesn’t stay static and neither should your strategy. The goal is not to optimize every last dollar. It is to reduce the mental load: to feel confident things are handled, to make fewer and better decisions, and to stop carrying this in the background of your life.

You can see how we work, step by step, on our Financial Freedom Journey page.

Financial planning for business owners in Vancouver and BC

Ocean 6 is a Vancouver-based wealth planning firm working with business owners throughout British Columbia. Being local matters: BC’s tax environment, the professional corporations common here, and the realities of running a business in this province all shape the right plan. Our office is at 300 – 240 East 2nd Avenue, Vancouver, and we work with owners both in person and remotely across BC.

Meet your advisors

Written by Jay Gangnes, CFP®, CLU®, CSC® · Reviewed by Dave Loncaric, CFP®, CLU®, CIM®, CSC® · Last reviewed May 2026

Jay Gangnes, CFP®, CLU®, CSC®

Jay has built Ocean 6 around a habit he has had since grade eight: solving problems in ways he wasn’t supposed to. That instinct for higher-level, innovative thinking is what drives the firm. Starting from a business owner’s full financial picture, he designs strategies to reduce taxes, grow wealth, and pass it efficiently from one generation to the next. A corporate finance graduate of the BC Institute of Technology, Jay is a Certified Financial Planner® professional and holds the Chartered Life Underwriter (CLU®) and Certified Cash Flow Specialist (CSC®) designations. Outside the office he mentors other advisors, travels (Hawaii especially), and spends time with his kids, Leo and Ever.

Dave Loncaric, CFP®, CLU®, CIM®, CSC®

Dave is as good with people as he is with numbers, which is exactly why he became a financial planner. As he puts it, he wants to take clients’ peace of mind to a level they didn’t know existed, which is the heart of the Ocean 6 vision, A new world of wealth®. A Coquitlam native with a BA in Psychology from Simon Fraser University, Dave is a Certified Financial Planner® professional who also holds the Chartered Life Underwriter (CLU®), Chartered Investment Manager (CIM®), and Certified Cash Flow Specialist (CSC®) designations. He focuses on building financial plans and long-term client relationships. A former personal trainer, he still enjoys fitness of every kind and travelling to the beach.

Frequently asked questions

What does financial planning for business owners include?

It covers your corporate structure, how you pay yourself, tax strategy across your corporation and personal return, investing retained earnings, insurance and risk, and your eventual exit or succession. The point is that all of it is coordinated into a single plan rather than handled in separate silos.

When should a business owner start working with a financial planner?

The best time is before a big decision such as incorporating, a strong profit year, a restructure, a major purchase, or a sale. There is rarely a wrong time, though. Most owners we meet have value leaking somewhere that integrated planning can recover, whatever stage they are at.

Should I pay myself a salary or dividends?

It depends on your income needs, your corporation’s position, and your longer-term goals. Each option affects your personal tax, RRSP room, and CPP differently. There is no single right answer, which is exactly why it should be decided as part of an integrated plan rather than in isolation.

How is planning for incorporated professionals different from regular financial planning?

Standard advice assumes a salary and an RRSP. Incorporated professionals deal with retained earnings, salary-versus-dividend decisions, passive income rules, and corporate structure. That is a different set of levers, and they all have to be coordinated with your personal goals.

Do you work with my accountant and lawyer?

Yes. We coordinate directly with your accountant, lawyer, and other advisors so the plan stays consistent across everyone. You shouldn’t have to relay messages between your own professionals.

How does Ocean 6 charge for financial planning?

Ocean 6 provides fee-based financial planning. We’ll walk you through exactly how it works on your intro call so there are no surprises.

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Find out how we can help you reach your financial goals.