Posts Tagged ‘diane kennedy’
Being an Entrepreneur Requires Flexibility
THE STORY I am a software consultant. I had an appointment with my client at his house to teach his wife how to use my software. They were about an hour’s drive away from my house and I had a general idea of where they were located. I left an hour and a half before [...]
...It Takes a Team to Run a Successful Business
Story A successful business that lasts takes all types of business skills. You need the sales guy, the innovator and you need the guy who gets the work done and creates the system. In this business, the owner was a sales guy all around. But he hated paying attention to details like fulfillment and profit [...]
...Review Your Expense Items on a Regular Basis
The Story I have a client who spends thousands of dollars every year on advertising. Their advertising budget is one of the company’s largest expenses. The problem is that they have not reviewed their advertising expense account in over 5 years. Company’s management assumes since they are running a successful company, they do not need to make [...]
...Never Judge a Bookkeeper By Their Cover
Situation: We have a client who engaged our small accounting firm to do monthly closes, bank reconciliations, financial statements, commentaries, tax planning, etc. All of the normal things a good firm does. The company’s office manager sat in on our first meeting. She was very attractive, professional, articulate, and all around quite impressive. It was [...]
...Nonfiling Bites You At The Weirdest Times
Problem: I have a new restaurant client that hadn’t filed tax returns for the last SIX years! They figured that they had a loss, so they didn’t owe taxes anyway. However, looking at their books…I had to remind them that cash flow and income/loss are not the same thing. They had some large loan payments [...]
...Employees can misrepresent your business
Problem: I seem to attract interesting employees to my business. For instance, I once had an employee who seemed to hold on to things from the past, and let them affect her employment. I asked her one time to get in contact with the Yellow Pages salesperson; and get the ad set up. Well, after [...]
...Employees Are Always Your Weakest Link
Problem: The following actions by employees are certainly unintentional in most cases. My firm is here to help with putting data security measures in place for that; but we can’t fix what we don’t know is broken. In this case, we were retained by a financial industry client to complete an IT security penetration test. [...]
...The 3 Biggest Mistakes You Can Make with Payroll
There’s more to payroll then just writing a check every few weeks to your employees. Don’t make these three mistakes with payroll! Payroll Mistake #1: Not paying yourself or your spouse. Hopefully, you’ve taken the smart business path, and you are operating your business as either an LLC-S or as an S Corporation. Income from [...]
...The 7 Risks You Must Address If You Own a Business
Being a business owner can be challenging. Here are 7 risks to watch out for, plus what you can do about them 1. Does the IRS Know that You Are a Business? The IRS wants to know if you’re really running a business, especially since you can take tax deductions against any business expenses. There [...]
...Sometimes IRS Audits Can be a Good Thing!
Problem: A friend of mine owned a print shop with a partner. My friend was the sales guy, putting together great deals for the shop and breaking in clients, hand over fist. He was also great at finding used equipment at rock bottom prices. His partner handled all the work back at the shop while [...]
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