Explorer — Scenario Comparison
The Explorer compares two manual salary/dividend scenarios side-by-side, each with independent pension settings and optionally different tax years. Use it to quantify the impact of any change — salary adjustment, pension restructure, or year-on-year comparison.
Enter Company pre-tax profit — shared across both scenarios. Set the Single-employee company flag and Employment Allowance if applicable — these also apply to both. Then configure Scenario 1 and Scenario 2 independently: each has its own tax year, salary, dividends, and pension settings (employer mode/amount and employee mode/amount). Click Copy from Optimiser to pull the last Optimiser result into both scenarios as a starting point — useful for testing variations around the optimal.
The waterfall chart shows the financial impact of switching from Scenario 1 to Scenario 2 across four dimensions. Each bar represents a delta (Scenario 2 minus Scenario 1): Personal tax + NI Δ — how much more or less personal tax and NI you pay; Corporation tax Δ — how CT changes; Net pension wealth Δ — the change in pension net wealth impact; and Combined net wealth Δ — the overall difference. Red bars mean Scenario 2 costs more or generates less wealth; green bars mean Scenario 2 is better on that dimension. In this example, switching from Optimal to Manual costs nearly £43,000 in net pension wealth and nearly £19,000 in combined net wealth.
The Explorer’s Personal statement has three columns: Scenario 1, Scenario 2, and Difference (Scenario 2 minus Scenario 1, coloured green for positive/better, red for negative/worse). The structure mirrors the Optimiser’s Personal statement: Income Sources, Tax Calculation – Salary (personal allowance, band amounts and tax, Employee NI), Tax Calculation – Dividends (allowance, band amounts and tax), Pensions (employer paid, employee net/gross, AA used, tax saved, net wealth impact), and Simulated Payslip (gross salary, dividends, all deductions, net benefit). The Difference column makes it immediately clear which scenario is more tax-efficient at every line — in this comparison, Scenario 1 (Optimal) generates £100,000 net benefit vs Scenario 2 (Manual) £48,737, a difference of −£51,262.
The Company statement comparison follows the same IFRS-style P&L structure as the Optimiser report, with the Difference column showing how the company position changes between scenarios. Key lines to watch: Profit before CT (differs because salary and pension costs differ), CT saved due to pensions (larger employer contributions generate more CT relief), Net CT payable, and Retained profit. The Company contribution to director’s net worth section at the bottom totals all company-driven wealth: dividends, employer pension, retained profit, and CT pension saving. In this example Scenario 1 generates £112,700 company-driven wealth versus Scenario 2’s £62,134 — a difference of −£50,566.
The Consolidated statement distils the comparison to four summary lines with a Difference column: Company retained income (Scenario 2 retains £39,457 more because less was paid out as dividends), Personal net income after tax (Scenario 2 generates £15,262 less take-home due to higher taxes), Net pension wealth increase (Scenario 1’s £40,000 employer contribution generates £42,840 more pension wealth than Scenario 2’s smaller contributions), and Combined net wealth (Scenario 1 wins by £18,645). This is the definitive bottom line: the Optimal scenario (S1) generates £18,645 more total wealth than the manual accountant approach (S2).
