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Guide

Business succession: one organised place for a conversation that takes years.

Handing a business to the next generation, or to a long-serving manager, is rarely a single transaction. It can run over several years and involve the founders, their children, family trustees, an accountant, a lawyer, a valuer and the bank. Documents arrive from all of them and are needed by some of them.

This guide covers what is usually involved and how to keep it organised and private.

The documents a succession plan draws on

Many New Zealand family businesses are owned through a family trust or a company owned by one, and many farms and orchards sit inside the same structures. That makes the paperwork wider than a simple sale.

  • Trust deeds, letters of wishes where the trustees choose to share them, and records of trustee resolutions.
  • The company constitution, the shareholders' agreement and the share register.
  • Financial statements, management accounts and Inland Revenue returns for the business and related entities.
  • Valuations of the business, its land and its other assets, and the information the valuer used.
  • Wills and enduring powers of attorney, where the family decides they belong in the conversation.
  • Bank facilities, guarantees and security, and the lender's view on new owners.
  • Employment agreements for family members working in the business.
  • Any agreements with siblings who are not taking part in the business, and records of advances or gifts.

Privacy within the family

Succession is personal. A sibling who works in the business may need the management accounts; a sibling who does not may only need the valuation and the proposal. Trustees may hold documents the beneficiaries do not see. A shared folder or a group email makes that hard to respect.

In a ShareAndGo room, each person or group sees only the folders you allow. Put the founders and their advisers in one group, each child in another, and the trustees in a third. A folder a group cannot see does not appear for its members at all.

Wills, trust deeds and personal financial information can sit in view-only folders. Pages are rendered on our side and carry the reader's name, email address and the date, so the original never reaches their browser.

A practical way to run it

  1. 1

    Start with an index

    Create folders for each entity and each topic. ShareAndGo's AI can suggest a folder structure and sort uploads into it, which helps when decades of paperwork arrive at once.

  2. 2

    Bring advisers in as a team

    Your accountant and lawyer join your team and sign in through MyAndGo with two-step verification. Family members read with a six-digit email code.

  3. 3

    Track what is outstanding

    A document request list keeps track of what the valuer or the bank has asked for, who holds it and what has arrived.

  4. 4

    Keep the history

    Each revised proposal becomes a new version with earlier ones kept, and the audit log records who read what.

A long-running room

Unlike a sale, succession may keep a room open for a long time. Invitations can have an end date, which is useful for a valuer or a bank that needs access for a few weeks, and you can extend one in one click or revoke it at any time. Family members can stay in the room for as long as the plan runs.

Search helps when someone asks, years later, what the trustees resolved about the farm lease. ShareAndGo reads text from documents, including scans of old resolutions, so search finds words inside them with highlighted snippets.

When the time comes to sign, SignAndGo opens with the same MyAndGo login, and BookAndGo can arrange family meetings with your advisers.

Frequently asked questions

Should the trust or the business own the room?
That is for the family and its advisers to decide. Many families have their accountant run the room so no single family member controls access.
Can a family member see who else has read a document?
Insights and the audit log are for the room's owners and team. Readers see the documents their group allows.
Can we use an AI assistant on the room?
ShareAndGo summarises and categorises documents itself. Owners can also connect Claude or ChatGPT to the workspace, and each room decides separately whether an AI assistant may read it. Many families keep that off for personal documents.

Related guides

A partner buy-out

When one owner buys out another.

Preparing for a business valuation

What a valuer needs to see.

All guides

Every business process we cover.

Privacy policy

How ShareAndGo handles personal information.