Tax-efficient pay in 5 minutes
You don’t need to understand every input to get a meaningful result. This guide walks you through the minimum — company profit, desired take-home, and one click — and shows you how to read the optimal salary/dividend split.
Navigate to the Optimiser from the home screen. Enter your Company profit before salary & dividends — this is your pre-tax company profit before any director remuneration is paid. Then enter your Desired personal income after tax — the net take-home you want to receive personally this year.
If you are the sole director and only paid person in your company, tick Single-employee company. This automatically disables the Employment Allowance, which you are not eligible to claim. Getting this wrong overstates your company’s Employer NI saving.
Leave all other settings at their defaults for a first run. Click Calculate scenarios. The Optimiser evaluates every £250 salary increment across your search range, then refines to within 50p using a golden-section search.
The Optimal Mix panel shows the recommended salary and dividend split. Your take-home confirms it hits your target. Company retained is the profit left inside the company after all costs, taxes and dividends. Combined net wealth is the sum of take-home + retained + net pension wealth impact — the single number the Optimiser maximises.
Scroll down to the Comparison Report. The Personal statement tab shows your complete personal tax position across up to four scenarios. The Company statement tab shows the company P&L and CT. The Consolidated tab shows the combined picture. See Guide T1 for a full explanation of every line.