My wife and I own a small business. When I started it I decided to put her as 35% owner. I invested all the upfront cost sold my house to invest in the business. Our business is trucking and construction. This is my only source of income. She is a RN and she dose our books and payroll. Our business dose Relatively well. The issue is when it come to drawn for ourselves. I have put over 150 cash into the business. With that said. I pull about 6k a month for my portion of the bills and some for myself. That about what I was bring home as a construction employee at 40 hrs a week. She has her nursing job and she definitely should get paid for the work she dose within the company. She is bad with money so I gotten frustrated a few time when she uses the business as her safety net. In the past we got into and she say she own 35%. I point out she not doing 35% of the work she then make it seem like she deserves the money she’s take out. So I told her to keep track of her hours. She average 10 a week. I told her if she was making 100hr it would only be 4k a month. I told her to look up bookkeeper wage for a small business like our or to see what a service would charge. So anyway a unlicensed bookkeeper for a small business make about 20 a hour. I ask her what’s a fair wage she brings up her bookkeeper duties at 10 hours a week vs answering the questions.
So I was to this. 65/35 is the portion of the business you own. So if the business net profit 100k I would make 65k and she would make 35k. With us both doing work for the company we agreed on a wage to pay ourselves but that’s separate for net profit because it could be a net loss. I work 50 to 70 hours a week. Running job hiring firing do actually physical work on site etc. If I didn’t do what I do there would be any business.
So we went on a few family vacations. I save my money from my 6k to contribute to the vacations she just pulled a additional 2k out the business account to cover her short coming on her portion of the contribution. This has happened a few time with thinks like that.
Any suggestions
I’m not the best at English literature so hopefully it all made sense tia
The way you’re doing it is not really how businesses with partners work.
She could ask for 35% of the profits to be distributed at the end of the year. Profits being the key word here. She is also responsible for 35% of any losses though.
If she’s going to act like a business partner you should draw up an operating agreement with these things outlined.
She isnt required to do 35% of the work for 35% of profits, you’ve already signed that portion of the business away.
You could look at getting an actual bookkeeper and pay them a wage, this would go against any profits the business has as an expense.
Your operating agreement will outline money that has to go back into the business. She would also be required to put that money up from her portion of profits.
Or talk could figure it out and act like a married couple trying to better both of your lives.
If you know that your wife is bad with money why would you want her to be the book keeper for your business? Seems like a recipe for disaster. Hire an actual book keeper.
Y’all are married. Act like it.
Seems like most married couples to me, at least by r/finance, r/relationships, and r/aitah standards lol
Think of it as wearing different hats. When you are doing the work, you wear your employee hat and get paid an employee wage.
Then you put on your owner hat. This is the hat you wear when making business decisions and other long term decisions. The owner gets any profit that is left after covering all the other salaries and expenses.
And hire a bookkeeper.
First suggestion is don’t let your wife who is bad with money do the books. Hire a professional.
did u have a prenup before this rofl
First: The money you put in needs to be paid back as a loan with interest.
Second: There should be set monthly pay for the work you do as employees
Third: After paying all expenses, including the loan and wages, the remaining profits are split 65/35
Lastly: As minority owner of the business, she should have no access to bank accounts to withdraw money
Do i understand this right?
She is on the business bank account to do as she wants with the money?
But you two keep your money separate in your private life and do not comingle funds?
Not necessarily but. But say we plan a vacation, and both of our contributions are supposed to be 2500 bucks. If she can only save 1500 bucks or she wants to do something outside of the budget. If she knows, we have plenty of money to cover our overhead she will sometimes ask or something mentioned when I’m not fully paying attention and pulling the money from the account. Then, when I check the account and there’s a random 1500 buck going, she likes itI used it for our vacation. I’m trying to get her from doing that. All our business bills are paid, and employees are all paid, but if this was a credit card she be in debt . Well, she technically is in credit debt. All my credit cards are at a zero balance. Since this post because I have other comments, I was able to find a structure to go off. Yes we keep out money separate in our privacy like we have a joint checking and saving for bill only.
This is actually a very simple and straight forward question.
Companies compensate employees and owners differently. Employee generally get salaries and owners get cash flow from dividends.
So, you should give yourself a salary for the time you spend working in the company. Your wife could also bill time if this makes sense.
The men at the end of the year, you do your accounts, figure out profits and issue dividends from that. You should be 65% of dividend and your wife should get 35%
I think you were too generous but that is done