A Partner for CPAs
A Financial Resource For You & Your Clients
Tide Creek Financial Group works alongside CPAs and tax professionals to help their business-owner clients address the financial questions that require additional support.
We're Here to Help You Provide More Holistic Advice
If you work with business owners, you already know the pattern. A client comes in for tax planning. The conversation turns to a buy-sell agreement they don't have, a key employee they can't afford to lose, or a retirement plan they've been putting off. The questions are real and they matter. But answering them with certainty isn't what you were hired for.
That's where Tide Creek Financial Group comes in.
We work with CPAs and tax professionals as a complementary resource, not a competing one. Our focus is on the financial planning, insurance, and business planning decisions that affect your clients' long-term outcomes: the ones that don't show up cleanly on a return but have a significant impact on what finally ends up there.
The goal is simple: Your clients gain additional perspective on planning, and you have a resource you can introduce for additional planning support.
The Questions Your Clients Are Already Asking
Business owners rarely separate their financial lives cleanly. The same client who comes to you for tax work is often carrying unanswered questions about what happens to the business if something goes wrong, whether they have enough saved outside the company, and what their exit is going to look like.
Here's specifically where Tide Creek typically enters the CPA-client relationship:
Business Continuity & Succession Planning
Buy-sell agreements. Key person insurance. Ownership transition planning. When a business depends on one person, or two people who haven't formalized what happens if one leaves the business, there may be financial risks that planning strategies are designed to help manage.
Retirement Planning for Business Owners
From 401(k) plan design and fiduciary support to personal retirement income strategy, we help business owners build retirement security that doesn't depend entirely on the eventual sale of their company.
Life Insurance as a Business Tool
Key person coverage. Funded buy-sell arrangements. Executive retention strategies. Personal estate liquidity. When structured properly, life insurance is a planning instrument, not just a financial product.
Exit Planning
Exit planning sits at the intersection of business valuation, tax structure, personal financial readiness, and retirement income planning. Tide Creek has three Certified Exit Planning Advisors (CEPAs) on staff, ready to help business owners build a plan that accounts for all of the above: well before they're ready to act on it.
Personal Financial Planning
We offer investment management, income planning, estate coordination, and long-term financial strategy for the individual behind the business.
A Referral Relationship Built on Coordination, Not Blind Handoffs
We understand that referring a client to another professional involves trust. You've worked to build that client relationship, and you want to know that whomever you send them to will reflect well on you and communicate clearly along the way. Here's how we approach it:
We keep you in the loop
When a client you've referred engages with us, we coordinate with you on the areas where our work intersects with yours, particularly on anything with tax implications.
We don't overstep
Our focus is on the financial planning and insurance side of the equation. We're not tax advisors, and we're not trying to absorb more of the client relationship than we've been invited into.
We're straightforward about what we do and don't do.
If a client comes to us with a question that belongs back in your corner, we'll say so right away. It’s in everyone’s best interest for the right professionals to answer the right questions.
What Makes a Relationship With Us Worth Your Time
We specialize in business owners
The questions your business owner clients carry, around succession, exit, retirement, and protection, are the questions we spend most of our time on. We're not generalists who dabble in these sensitive areas.
We have the credentials to back it up.
We have three Certified Exit Planning Advisors (CEPAs) on staff, reflecting our focus on exit and succession planning, i.e., it’s more than just a passing interest.
We communicate like professionals
You'll hear from us when something relevant to your area of expertise comes up, and you won't hear from us when it doesn't.
We're local
Tide Creek Financial Group is based in the Baltimore-Washington corridor, with offices in Elkridge and Hunt Valley. Most of our clients, and most of our CPA relationships, are here..
Let's Have a Conversation
If you work with business owners and find yourself fielding questions outside your wheelhouse, we'd like to connect. No pitch, no pressure. Just a straightforward conversation about how we work and whether it might be a fit for you and your clients.
Any referral or introduction to our firm is not contingent on compensation unless otherwise disclosed. All services are provided based on individual client needs, and no outcomes are guaranteed.
Securities and investment advisory services offered through qualified registered representatives of MML Investors Services, LLC. Member SIPC. Tide Creek Financial Group is not a subsidiary or affiliate of MML Investors Services, LLC, or its affiliated companies. Supervisory Office: 11350 McCormick Rd., Executive Plaza IV, Suite 200, Hunt Valley, MD 21031. (410) 785-7654. CRN202909-12095163