Summertime Strategies For Your Business

Summer is a great time of year for most businesses to pause for just a little while to take stock, congratulate yourself on what you’ve accomplished so far this year, and make big plans for your future.  Here are five summertime strategies to help you regroup, reassess, and rejuvenate your business.

1.     Mid-Year Review

If your business runs by the calendar year, 2014 is already more than half over.  This is a perfect time to stop and reflect where you’ve been, what you’ve accomplished, and where you want to go next.  You can make this process as informal or formal as you want.  Some firms hold complex retreats; you may simply need some quiet time on a weekend where all your family is busy doing something else.

If you’ve never done any planning and feel like you need a guide, consider the book, The One-Page Business Plan written by Jim Horan.

2.     Take a Vacation

There’s nothing better to rekindle your creative juices than to get away from the business for a while.  Summertime is when most people take vacation, so if your business is not having its busy season, this might be a good time to go away for a while.

If you’re anxious about being away from your business, you’re not alone.  In your annual planning process, plan for and block out your vacation time way ahead of time.  Book the reservations with no refunds several months in advance so that you won’t chicken out at the last minute.  There is life beyond your business, and you will be a better business owner when you take regular breaks away.

3.     Celebrate

Take time to pat yourself on the back and congratulate the people around you for the goals you’ve reached and the efforts your team has made on your behalf.  We all could use more praise and more celebrations in our lives.  Perhaps you can organize a party, or if you are not the partying type, a quiet word individually with your team can go a long way, maybe more than you know.

4.     Prune Your Projects    

Is your plate too full?  Most of us would say “yes” to that question, so the next step is to ask yourself what you can afford to stop doing that doesn’t make sense.  Is there a project or two that can wait?  If so, decide to stop stressing about not getting it done and give yourself permission to put it on the back burner for now.

5.     Focus

Ask yourself what one thing you could do today that will make all the difference in your profits, revenues, goals, or simply peace of mind.  And get that thing done.

Try these five summertime tips to rejuvenate your business.

Does Your Small Business Need A CRM?

Have you ever stayed at a hotel and then returned, finding that they have stocked your room with everything you asked for the last time you were here?  Your special allergenic pillow was already waiting for you, you were asked if you would like a dinner reservation made just like you always do the first night, and there were even extra hangars because you always need extra hangars.  None of this would be possible for the hotel if it didn’t have a CRM, customer relationship management, system in place.

Would your clients be impressed if you remembered all of the details about your last conversation, their last purchase, or their preferences?  If so, your business might benefit from a CRM system.

Businesses that have more than 30 or so clients may benefit from a system that allows you and your employees to enter detailed information about each client interaction that they have.  It can work for both current and future clients, i.e., prospects.  A CRM is basically a great big customer database at its core.  It contains master file information on a customer or client, such as name, company, address, contact info, and custom fields.  It is also transaction-driven in that you can log activity such as calls, meetings, proposal dates, and more.

A good CRM system is also integrated with your other internal systems, such as your accounting or POS system or both.  In some CRM systems, you can see invoice and payment history, so that when a client calls in, you can also peek to see whether they owe you money or what goods they ordered that they may be calling about.

There are literally hundreds of CRM systems to choose from.  The gold standard for large companies is SalesForce.com; however, some small businesses use it as well.  SugarCRM is the largest open source CRM, meaning its programming code is available to the public.  ZohoCRM is one of the largest small business CRMs and offers a suite of products for small businesses.  And Act! is also very popular and plays well with social media.

Before choosing a CRM, decide what you want it to do and how you will be using it.  One of the most important aspects of profiting from a CRM is to make sure it gets used, and that takes some habit-changing from you and your staff.  Once you have your requirements, you can evaluate the software options available, and choose the one that works best for you.

When your clients start talking about how great your service is and how much attention you pay to the details they care about, you’ll know your CRM is paying off for you.

Oops: Do You Owe Sales Tax And Not Realize You Do?

One of the side effects of our last economic slowdown was in state government budgets; states searched hard for new income, and many of them found a great source by cracking down on sales tax collections.  Their new hot buzzword:  nexus.

Nexus means a connection that a business has with a state, and it has to do with a form of presence.  In the sales tax world, you owe sales tax to a state if you have nexus in that state and you are selling taxable items.  The scary part for small businesses is what makes up nexus.

A Small World

Globalization and technology together have produced dramatic shifts in the way businesses can look today.  Not only can we access a pool of local talent to staff and grow our businesses, we can employ almost anyone around the world to work for us. Hiring employees or contractors located in other states can stretch our nexus to include that state.

As an example, if your company is located in Illinois and you hire an employee that works from her home in Nevada, you might have nexus in Nevada and Illinois, and you might owe sales tax in both places.  Sales tax nexus is not the same as state income tax nexus, but the presence of a worker in another state is a possible trigger for sales tax nexus.

Taxable in One State, Not in Another

The taxability of services has grown rapidly as states look to balance their budgets after Federal cuts and other shortfalls.  Not all services are taxed equally across states.  Web design services are taxable in Texas, but not California, as one example.

Some states have smaller jurisdictions such as counties and municipalities, making for a total of 10,000 jurisdictions in the U.S., not just 50.  Alabama, Colorado and Arizona, for example, have statewide rules as well as taxability rules for localities within the states.

Innocuous Survey Can Trigger Audit

You might receive a form that looks like a survey and asks innocent-looking questions such as how many employees do you have and what state do they work in.  The surveys don’t look like they are from a state government but they might be.  It’s their way of getting you to admit nexus.    Please do not let a worker fill these out; it could expose you to a huge liability.

Minimizing Sales Tax Audit Risk

Because of the high dollar impact on the profitability of your business, it’s best to get a sales tax professional involved in helping you determine the taxability of your items as well as interpreting nexus.  Many states are hiring auditors and aggressively pursuing businesses, so due diligence in this area is prudent.

If we can help in any way, please reach out and let us know.

Seven Profit-Boosting Entrepreneurial Habits

As an entrepreneur, you are responsible for shaping your business success.  Any habits that sabotage your success in your personal life can often carry over to your business.  Becoming aware of these is the first step to success.

Here are seven success-boosting habits to double-check against your own.

1. Being able to say “No.”  

   Do you say “yes” to too many things that don’t serve your life purpose, help your family, or move your business forward?  If so, you’re not alone.  Saying “yes” in a weak moment when you feel like you can do it all can be a downfall for many entrepreneurs.  It can also distract you from success if you are not working on the right things for you.

   You may need to re-evaluate the value of your time and your priorities.  Practice making smart decisions by having a structure and a higher purpose that helps you decide what you should and shouldn’t do with your time, money, and life.   And if you tend to be one of those who says “yes” to everything, you may need to practice saying “no” in front of the mirror to break your habit.

2. Hiring fast and early. 

   The best time to hire is just before you need your new team member.  It can be easy to put off hiring if you fill with dread when you think about large stacks of resumes and endless phone calls.  Not hiring soon enough can cost your business in reduced service and sales.  The smartest entrepreneurs stay ahead of the game in this area.

3. Strategizing proactively.

   How much time do you spend in reactive mode versus proactive mode in your business?  Reactive mode includes answering emails, fighting fires, serving clients, and managing employees.  Proactive mode includes developing new products and services, creating and implementing your revenue plan, and training employees.

   Sometimes we have to really push ourselves to look beyond the daily fires.  One way to do that is to plan time every day for proactive activities and be ruthless about keeping that time slot on the calendar.

4. Setting tight scope and polite boundaries with customers.

   Successful entrepreneurs set clear boundaries when it comes to delivering their products and services to customers.  Especially in service companies, it’s not always clear to the client what’s included in a fixed fee contract unless it’s clearly spelled out.

   If you are asked to do something that’s not included in the contract, you now have a choice.  Do you give it away for free, or do you have a change order process where you can easily provide an estimate for that extra work?

5. Measuring results.   

   Only what can be measured can be improved, and smart entrepreneurs know this.  Track — in real time, not a year later — what’s important to you.  New customers, new leads, closed sales, revenue per day, sales per day, monthly net income, certain costs, profit margins, profit per customer, profit per job, and profit per location are just a few of the many metrics you can choose to track for your business.

   Once you measure it, you can now set goals to improve it.

6. Curbing irrational spending.   

   Invest in things that will last, such as your own education, great systems, team training, and assets that you really need.  Avoid spending on items that are used up quickly, such as elaborate entertainment expenses that don’t generate significant revenue, excessive utilities, and stopgap equipment.

   This area can be a tough one to evaluate objectively because there can be emotion and attachment involved in the spending.  Let us know if you need help in this area; we can help you look at your spending with fresh eyes and provide a new perspective.

7. Maintaining focus.

   Great entrepreneurs have clear focus.  If you have too many projects going on at once, you end up delaying all of your project completion dates, and nothing gets finished.   Ask yourself, what’s the most important thing I can do today?  And work on that until it’s done.  Then ask yourself the same question again, and wash, rinse, repeat your way to success.

Seven Habits

Which of the seven habits are you best at?   Celebrate your natural gifts while keeping an eye on the habits you need to work on.  That will move you to the success you deserve.

Five Essential Components Of An Entrepreneur's Compensation

The two major ways entrepreneurs can take money from their business is through draws or by receiving a paycheck.  The type of entity in which their business is set up will determine which method can be used. In either case, entrepreneurs need to be careful not to shortchange themselves.

Especially if you’re running a service business, it’s easy to initially think you can do well with a similar hourly rate that you earned as an employee.  Here’s a quick list of five elements that should be included in the compensation of every entrepreneur:

1. Competitive pay 

   If you were doing the same work for a company that hired you, what would your pay be?  Are you making at least market equivalent or better?  A lot of times, as entrepreneurs, we tend to focus only on this piece of our compensation when we set our pricing, and that’s a big mistake. It’s only 75 percent of what our total pay needs to be.

2. Profit.

   As an entrepreneur, you take extra risk when you own your own company, and you should be compensated accordingly.  Your capital is tied up in your business and should be earning a good return in addition to your reasonable compensation.

3. Benefits

   Employees get vacations, health insurance, and bonuses; and you should too.  This should be part of your compensation package as an entrepreneur.

4. Taxes.

   Although our individual taxes are not deductible as business expenses, we need to compensate for them so that we’ll have enough cash for our living expenses.  It’s a huge chunk too.  We work about three and a half months every year, just to pay for our taxes.

5. Retirement plan

   When you work for yourself, no one is going to fund your retirement for you.  Although the Social Security program helps a lot of seniors, it’s up to you to set additional money aside for a comfortable future.

Complete Compensation

Your compensation should include all of these components.  If it doesn’t and you feel like you can’t afford to pay yourself that much, then your pricing might not be reflecting all of these items correctly, you might have a volume problem, or your business model may need some adjusting.

It’s normal to take a smaller paycheck the first few years as we’re building our businesses, but if you’re still doing it after several years or constantly having cash flow issues, then something may be wrong.

If you’d like our help in this area of your business, please reach out and let us know.

Make sure your future is bright and financially secure by including all five components in your entrepreneur compensation.

Is It Time For Spring Cleaning Your Business Files?

How much time do you spend each day looking for information about orders, customers, vendors, or employees?  If it’s a lot, a little spring cleaning might pay off.  Here are five quick tips to assess and improve your information access.

Your Librarian

Large companies often have a librarian on staff that is in charge of stored documents, both physical and virtual.  It’s not a bad idea to have this function in your small business, although you certainly don’t want to devote an entire headcount to it.

Today, a company librarian might be in charge of the company’s document portal, which is a very secure area where company documents can be stored.  It might be on the company server or in a secure area of the cloud.  There are companies that offer secure file storage, accessible through document portals.

The librarian will also be in charge of creating recordkeeping policies and procedures.

What’s in a Name

One such procedure that brings order to chaos is setting naming conventions for client files and folders.  Set consistency by using a naming standard such as having a client file name always start with the last name of the client followed by a birth date, or something else unique.

It will save time each time you look up a file because you’ll always know where to look.  Even if it’s only seconds saved per lookup, that time will add up to minutes and hours saved over a year.  That will save you labor costs.  A naming standard will also look professional in front of the client.

Permanent vs. Transactional

Get uber-organized by separating your important long-term legal papers from your transactional documents.  Long-term papers such as your corporate by-laws and tax returns should have a special place away from your day-to-day invoices and receipts.  Also keep major purchases such as settlement documents from real estate transactions in a special file that you’ll keep for many years.

Your daily transactional files should be batched up by month or year and stored accordingly.  You’ll be able to delete these files after their retention period is up, while you’ll want to keep your long-term legal papers almost forever.  You still won’t be able to throw away your annual documents too soon – some agencies require you to keep transactional documents for as long as 11 years.

Paper or Paperless

What percentage of your business documents is scanned and stored online?  If you’d like to increase this percentage, then make a plan to convert your paper into scanned documents you can access online.  So that it’s not such an overwhelming task, break it down into smaller chunks:   start with one area of your business at a time or one vendor at a time.

Purchase a scanner for everyone in your office, and you’ll soon find your office getting more and more paperless by the week.  You can also have fun taking pictures of receipts on your cell phone and uploading the documents to your document portal.

A Backup Plan

So that you don’t lose your documents to a catastrophe, theft or any other disaster, make sure you have a backup of all of your documents so you are able to recover them.

This is where paperless shines over paper, because there is always risk of fire with the latter.  It’s also where a secure document portal beats your company server anytime because of the elaborate layers of security that are required for secure commercial data centers.

After you implement these five tips, you may not even need to do a spring cleaning.  You’ll be organized and efficient, and that’s good for business.

Nine Tips To Dazzle And Retain Your Top Customers

Your top customers are your most important customers in your business, and it’s important that you hang onto them if at all possible.  It’s much more cost-effective in most business models to retain repeat customers than it is to find new ones.   Here are nine tips you can use to dazzle and delight your top customers:

1. Know who they are by name.  
   Do you know which customers generated the highest sales for you last year?  If not, let us run a Sales by Customer Summary sorted by descending revenue for you to be sure.  Your top customers will be listed on the first lines of this report.  These are the customers you should be contacting at least once a month, having lunch with periodically, or doing a few extra things for.

2. Know who sent the most business to you.  
   Do you track referrals?  If not, you may want to consider adding a field to your accounting system if there’s room.  At the least, you can use the report generated above and add a column to it labeled referral source.  Drop in the person’s name that referred the customer to you.  Once you’ve completed the field, you can re-sort it to total up the dollar value of each referral source.

   You should be in monthly contact with these folks, just as if they were your top customers and even if they’re not a customer at all.  Make a plan to lunch with these individuals and/or do something extra for them periodically to let them know you appreciate their referrals.

3. Ask customers how they would like to be contacted.  

   Do your customers prefer to be contacted via email?  Phone? Text? In person?  If a customer hates being called on their cell phone, wouldn’t you want to know?

   Everyone is different, so find out by asking, and make a note in their file.  Also find out how often they’d like an update.  Some worriers might want to know daily, others prefer a short monthly email.  The best time to do this is during customer onboarding or at the time of the first sale.

4. Find out what customers need from you.

   At the end of each project, ask your customer two things:

   a. How could we have served you better?
   b. What else can we do for you?

   Then empty your mind and really listen.  Take copious notes, don’t defend yourself, and thank your customer.   Think about what they said, and implement what makes sense.

5. Provide a customer service contact and great support.  

   Does your customer know who to call when they need to talk with someone in your business?  If the customer has a follow up question on their purchase or service, let them know what to do ahead of time so they won’t feel lost.  This will make the customer feel at home and will have them coming back because of your great support experience.

6. Practice “consumption marketing.”  

   Consumption marketing is helping the customer fully consume their purchase from you.  The more likely they are to get benefits from your product or service, the more likely they are to come back for more.

   Help clients use your products and services to their fullest by creating a consumption marketing program that includes tips sheets, educational aids, how-to videos, instructional blog posts, and the like.

7. Develop multiple relationships.

   If your customers are from large companies, strengthen that business by meeting multiple buyers within the company.  If one employee leaves, it won’t be such a crisis to your account if you know multiple people in the company.

8. Say thanks promptly.  

   Send a thank you note to a new customer or referral source within a week of their purchase or referral.  Acknowledge their action quickly and generously so that you make a great personal impression.

9. Create and implement a client retention plan.

   Be proactive about customer retention by planning touch points throughout the year and systematizing the contact process with your top customers.  This can be as simple as taking your top 12 customers out to lunch, one each month, or as complex as planning some kind of touch point – a newsletter, email, or thank you note – once a month for each of your top clients and referral sources.

   Try any of these nine tips to dazzle your top customers and boost your customer retention for stronger sales.

Do You Know Your Weakest Business Link?

You’ve already built a solid business that you have great pride in.  Yet, if you’re like most entrepreneurs, you’re on a constant search for how to make your business better.   One way to focus your search is to look for the weakest link in your business.

From a return-on-investment standpoint, working on and fixing your weakest link is the highest payback thing you can do.  It lifts your entire company up and makes it stronger.   The key is to look as objectively as possible at what might be holding your business back from being even greater than it already is.

Here are four major areas where you can look for your weakest link:

1. Client-facing interactions

   A great area to start looking is where you have interactions with clients.  These include things like phone greetings, email, websites, your storefront, your presence at networking meetings, client service interactions, your proposals, invoices, and thank you notes.

   What jumps out at you as the weakest link when you look through the above list?  Perhaps it’s as simple as recording a more friendly voice mail greeting or as complex as getting your website redone.  Don’t get overwhelmed if a lot of these items need attention; instead focus on the one weakest link.  That’s the place that needs your attention.

2. Your team 

   The toughest area to have a weakest link is when it involves people.  If you have an underperforming employee or contractor that is undermining sales or service, you’ve got a tough decision ahead of you.  If it’s your weakest link, don’t bury your head in the sand like we all want to do.  You need to act so that the person does not drag down your entire business.

3. Internal systems

   If you feel stymied at the lack of information in your business, you might be in need of better internal systems.  As your business grows, this is the area that changes the most over time.

   Businesses that are newer or smaller need a great accounting system as well as a good point of sale or billing system.  As the business grows, it might need better inventory systems, a good CRM or customer relationship management system, a project management system, or more specialized systems depending on the industry it’s in.

   As the business matures, the functionality of the accounting system should expand to meet the growing data demands.   Integrating the accounting system together with the company’s other systems can become important to control costs and improve margins.

   If you feel like your weakest link may be in your systems, we’re happy to help.  Please reach out and let’s have a conversation about your needs.

4. Skill set

   No one was born an entrepreneur; it has to be learned.  What keeps it more exciting is that new skills are required at each level you master on the entrepreneurial ladder.  Some of the skills that you need at the entry level include client service, delivery of your service or product, and sales and marketing.  As your business grows, you’ll need to master financial skills, negotiation skills, hiring, and supervisory skills.  Leadership and strategy skills will serve you well when your business is mature.

   Which skill set do you consider your weakest link?  If it’s finance, you’re not alone.   Let us know how we can help.

5. Focusing on the Payback

   The good news is when you’ve improved your weakest link, you end up improving your entire company and lifting it up to a new level.  Once you’ve fixed your weakest link, congratulate yourself.  Give yourself a reward, and wait a little while.

   Your old weakest link is no longer the weakest area in your business, but something else is.  Since you’re on a constant search for improvement in your business, you can repeat this formula over and over again to keep lifting your company up using this low risk, high payback approach.

Five Browser Productivity Tips

Most of us spend a lot of time browsing the Internet, and that means using browser software.  Google Chrome is the most popular browser with roughly 40 percent market share.  Internet Explorer follows with about a 30 percent share and Firefox is third with less than 20 percent.

Since most people use Google Chrome, we’ll use that browser to describe our five productivity tips.  If you don’t use Chrome, you can still look for the features we list on your browser of choice.

Better with Bookmarks 

Do you have a half dozen or so sites that you like to visit every day?  If so, bookmark them on a toolbar so that you have one-click access.  In Chrome, click the icon with three horizontal lines that is located on the web address bar at the top of your browser.  We’ll call this the Chrome Commands button from now on.  Mouse over “Bookmarks,” and make sure “Show Bookmarks Bar” is checked.

Type in your favorite site URL.  To add it as a bookmark on your bookmarks bar, click the star on the right side of the web address box.  It will turn gold, and then you can name your page as well as select whether you want it more prominently in the bar or simply in your list of bookmarks.  Repeat this for each of your most visited sites.

Now that all of your sites are listed on your bookmarks bar, you can visit them in one click.

Enlarge the Page

If a page is too small and you want to enlarge the entire thing, you can do so with your mouse wheel.  On your keyboard, hold down the CTRL key and roll your mouse wheel away from you while you’re on a web page.  The page will get larger.  Roll your mouse wheel toward you to reverse the effect and make a page smaller.

You can also customize your fonts by going into Chrome Commands, Settings, Advanced Setting, and Web Content.  You can find your font options there.

Download Redux

Do you need something you downloaded earlier today and forgot where you put it?  Access it again here by typing this into the web address box or selecting “Downloads” from the Chrome Commands.  Hey, even better, if you need this a lot, make it a bookmark.

chrome://downloads/

If you’re a history buff – that is, if you closed a browser screen and find you want to re-visit that page, then look for the History command under the Chrome Commands button.  It’s super-handy and will save lots of time when you need to backtrack.

Autofill

Tired of filling out forms?  Chrome will do it for you by remembering certain fields and matching them up with their form fieldnames.  You can have Chrome remember addresses and credit cards; however we can’t really recommend the latter for security reasons.  Manage this feature and its settings by clicking the Chrome Commands button and Settings.  Scroll to the end and look for Advanced Settings, then look for the Autofill area and Manage Autofill Settings.

Instant Dictionary

While browsing, have you ever come across a word or phrase you don’t know or want to know more about?  If so, highlight it right there on the web page and then right-click.  Select “Search Google for “the phrase you highlighted” to bring up the information you want.

Most of us have never had a formal class on our browsers, but it’s not a bad idea.  Hopefully, until you can get to that class, these tips will help you discover a little more about the browser you use every day.

How Painless Is Your New Customer Experience?

Is your business easy to do business with?  Or is it difficult?   The answer could impact your revenue as well as your reputation for service.  Here are a few tips to help you stand in your customer’s shoes for just a few minutes to answer those questions.

First Impressions

What is the first image of your business that your future customer sees?  Is it your website?  A sign in your office window?  An ad?   Whatever it is, take a look at it with fresh eyes, like you’ve never seen it before.  You may have several images to consider if clients approach your business in many different ways.

What do you notice first?  Is the website simple or cluttered?  Is your sign rusty and crooked or new and cute?  Do you need to make any changes based on what you see?

Voice Time

If a customer calls, how many times does the phone ring before it’s picked up?  Does the voice sound inviting and excited that someone called, or is it as if you were just interrupted?  Or worse, did they get a recording?

If they walk in face to face, how are they greeted?  What does your waiting room look like?

Service

What is the interaction like with you?  Are you able to answer the prospect’s questions?  Do they feel comfortable with you or are they intimidated?    What do you suspect it’s like for your clients?

If the prospect becomes a client, what do they have to do?  Are there lots of forms to complete?  How organized are you in getting the client started and serviced for the first time?  Are you respectful of their time if they are in a hurry?

Mystery Shoppers

You’ve probably heard of mystery shoppers who are hired to give their opinions of what their client experience was like for them.  They go through a similar process, evaluating every client touch point and suggest ways to make it a smoother experience.

Almost every business could benefit from periodically reviewing the client experience to discover where the weakest links are and how they can be fixed.  Ask yourself these questions to see where you can improve your client’s experience and make it easy to do business with you.

Five Ways To Go Green With Your Accounting

With St. Patrick’s Day and spring arriving, March is a great month to have “green” on the mind.  There are green shamrocks, green beer, the green of new vegetation, and there’s even green accounting too.  Here are five ways to make your accounting a little more green.

Business Receipts     

When you spend money on your business, ask for an emailed receipt rather than a paper one if you have an option. More and more vendors are providing this option.   Then when the receipt comes in your email, you can forward it to your bookkeeper and/or upload it to your accounting system.

Smile for the Camera

If the vendor does not offer an emailed receipt, do the next best thing:  take a picture of the receipt with your cell phone.   Some accounting systems allow you to upload the receipt right from your phone, and if you don’t have that feature, you can always email it or upload it to your PC.

PDF Invoices

If you invoice customers, send a PDF invoice via email.  More and more businesses are abandoning the snail mail and getting it to customers faster via email.  They’re getting paid faster, and speeding up your green is usually a good thing.

Online Banking

Many people adopted online banking about a decade ago.   If you’re still getting paper statements, you can get those stopped and download your statements once a month from your online account.  It’s better not to get your statement in the mail anymore; it reduces your risk of identity theft from stolen mail.

Software and Supplies

When possible, purchase your software online and download it rather than making a gas-guzzling trip to the store and purchasing a box.  You can also order your office supplies online and have them delivered.   As long as you buy local, it should be a green purchase, and it will save you tons of time too.

These five ideas will help your accounting become a little more green.

How To Avoid Seasonal Bumps In Your Cash Flow

Many businesses operate with seasonal peaks and valleys.  Retail stores just completed their busy holiday season.  Construction contractors are busy when the weather is good.   Accountants are very busy from January through April, but also experience a quarterly peak in July and October.

Your business many have its own calendar of busy and slow times.  If your business goes through slow times, then your cash flow may suffer at certain times of the year.  But having seasonal sales is only one of the reasons for a bumpy cash flow.

You might also have a business where annual payments are made for many items such as equipment purchases, software licenses, insurance renewals, and other large costs.  On the revenue side, it could be that your clients pay you annually, which can be hard to predict.

There are many solutions that can help to smooth out the seasonal bumps, and here are a few ideas for your consideration.

Plan for Prosperity

When income and expenses go up and down and up and down, it’s really hard to know if you have enough money for obligations coming up.  Creating a budget can help a great deal.  Consider creating two budgets:  one that shows the ups and downs and one that averages a year’s income and expenses into twelve equal parts.

With both budgets, you’ll be able to see which months will be deviating from average and by how much.  From there, it’s easy to create some forecasts so you can stay on top of your cash requirements.

Cash vs. Accrual Basis 

It might help your business decision-making to convert your books from cash basis to accrual basis.  This is a huge decision that should be made with an accounting and tax expert, as there are plenty of ramifications to discuss.

In some cases, the accrual basis of accounting will help keep those annual payments from sneaking up on you as 1/12 of the payment can be accrued on a monthly basis to a payables account.  This also keeps your net income figure steadier from month to month.

If your clients prepay their accounts on a yearly basis, you can book the income monthly and keep the difference in a Prepaid account.  This spreads your revenues out and recognizes them over time.

“Hiding” Money

If you feel accrual basis accounting is a little too much of a commitment, your accountant can still work with you to help you avoid the impulse of spending too much during the cash-rich busy season.  Perhaps the excess cash can be put into a savings account until it’s needed.  You can draw out 1/12 each month as you need it.  A little planning such as the above suggested forecasts will help you determine how much you can take out each month.   You can even name the Savings account “Do Not Spend!” or “Save for a Rainy Day.”

If it’s just too tempting to have all that excess cash building up in the good times of the year, try one of the ideas above to take back cash flow control and smooth out those bumps.

Is Your Business Using The Right Accounting System?

Have you ever tried on a shirt or jeans and found they didn’t fit at all?  They looked great on the hangar, but that was the end of it.  Accounting systems come in all sizes, shapes, and colors just like clothing; and just like clothing, some accounting systems fit your business better than others.  It’s not that easy to spot in a mirror when an accounting system does not fit a business, but there are other signs that will give it away.  Here are five of them:

Numerous Workarounds

A workaround happens when your current system cannot do all the things you need it to do.  A workaround can take the form of a spreadsheet, a report, a program, or a database that is created with extra time spent every month so you can get the information out of your system and manipulate it the way you need it to run your business.

Since no accounting system is a perfect fit for any one business, it’s normal to have some workarounds in place to meet your unique business needs.  If you have too many, it might signal that you’ve outgrown your current system and need to find an accounting system that provides you with more functionality.

Downtime or Wasted Time

If you are unable to access your system when you need to do your job, then you are experiencing downtime in one form or another.  You may be waiting for a file to be fixed, or the system may actually be down.  If your system runs slowly, then that’s another form of downtime that wastes your time.  If you have to take time to make backups and perform restorations, this type of activity does not add value to running your business.   When you have too many of these time-wasters, it could be time to look for a better way.

Old Technology

If your accounting system is more than about three years old and you’ve chosen not to update it, then you may be missing out on newer time-saving features that could help you reduce the amount of time you spend doing your accounting.  If your accounting system is more than six or seven years old, then you are definitely losing productivity.  It’s time to bite the bullet and learn a new system so you can experience better profit margins in your business.

Limited Users or Security

If your current accounting system does not provide you with enough users, then you might have more expensive employees doing lower level jobs, which is costing you more in payroll expenses.

You may also need certain user permissions to be more granular than they are in your current system as you grant access to certain parts of the system to different users.   If you’re on QuickBooks, that’s a really easy fix, so please talk to us about this.

We find that user access is a hot button with a lot of business owners, so if it’s true for you, please reach out and let’s have a conversation about this.

Limited Physical Access

If your accounting system is located on a private PC or server in your business, this limits access to your files.  If you have more than one business location, you like to work from home, or your employees work from their homes occasionally, then you may want to look for a system that accommodates “anywhere, anytime” accounting.  This is a pretty easy fix too, as this requirement is now quite common with business owners today.

The same can be said for mobile access.  New apps enable many accounting features to be completed from your mobile phone, such as checking bank balances, approving a bill, and taking a picture of a receipt and uploading it, to name a few.  If you want to do you accounting from your mobile phone, ask us about mobile apps that we can link to your system to enable this functionality.

Boosting Your Accounting Productivity

We might be a little biased, but accounting has gotten to be a lot more fun in the last few years with advancements in technology.  If you see any of the signs listed above, it might be worth a conversation to see if your accounting system is the best fit for your business.   Just reach out anytime.

Five Ways To Reconnect With Your Passion For Your Business

As business owners, we are a highly self-motivated bunch of people.  We love our businesses, we love helping our customers, and we work very hard at what we do.  Sometimes we work so hard, we get disconnected from our passion.  Occasionally, it’s a good idea to step out of the daily details of business and get ourselves re-energized, reconnected, and rejuvenated about what we do.  Here are five ways to do just that:

Remember Your “Why”

Do you remember why you started your business in the first place?  Many people saw a need and created their business to fill that need.  Others want to help people with the services and products they offer.  Still others have a wonderful skill that when shared, leave people better off.

To help you remember your “why” on a regular basis, consider posting visual clues around your office.  It could be pictures of you and your partner, you and your first sale, you and a product you’ve created, or you and a customer.  Posting these pictures will leave you feeling great and remembering why you sometimes work so hard!

Start a Long Desired Project

It might be time to give your business a gift and get around to that project you’ve wanted to complete.  The project might be a website update, a new internal system, some new equipment, or that new employee you are ready for.  Take the leap and make the change that will breathe fresh air into your passion.

Receive Gratitude

Gratitude always feels great – when we give it and when we receive it.  Ask your customers for testimonials of how your product or service has impacted them.  Then just receive and enjoy.

It always feels great when you know you are appreciated and are recognized for doing a good job.  And since we don’t have bosses, who else will tell us how we’re doing except our customers?

Take a Break

Stepping away from work brings perspective and fresh ideas.  Take a day off, or go on vacation.  Unplugging allows our brain to rest and relax, and when it does, you’ll have a whole new set of creative and passionate ideas to consider when you get back.

Give Yourself a Raise

If you’ve lost passion for what you do, then you might just be due for a raise.  Take a good look at your books, and see if you should increase prices or can find a way to improve your profit margin. Either way, you’ll boost your profits and be able to keep more of what you make.

Try these five ideas to restore the passion you have for your business.  When you are refreshed and rejuvenated, your customers will feel it too.

Six Business Topics And Trends To Study For 2014

Happy New Year!  The New Year brings new areas to benefit from and be aware of.  You’ve likely heard these topics mentioned in the news.  The question is, have you stopped and thought about how they will be impacting your business this year?

The Biggie:  The Affordable Care Act

This new law impacts both employer insurance and taxes of small businesses.  The law is complicated with many definitions and varying effective dates.  It impacts self-employed individuals, business with fewer than 25 employees, and businesses with fewer than 50 employees.

You may be eligible for tax credits, and under certain circumstances, you could be subject to penalties if you don’t act.  It’s best to consult with a tax professional to sort out what it means to you.

Big Data and Data Transparency

In large businesses, big data refers to all of the data that is collected from customer’s habits and purchases.  In small businesses, we do not collect data on the scale that large businesses do, but we do collect customer information.  It will become more important than ever to be transparent about what data is being collected and how it is used.

If you do not already have a privacy policy that you provide to your clients, this may be a good first step in becoming more transparent with your clients about data collection.

Mobile Accounting

Mobile everything is as hot as any trend out there, and mobile accounting is certainly keeping up.  You can now do so much on your phone:  swipe credit cards to take payments, scan receipts and upload them to your accounting system, check credit card and bank balances, pay for things, create invoices, and pay bills.

The days of men with green eye shades and long paper receipts in the back office are long gone.  Accounting goes where you and your phone go.  If you have not downloaded your mobile bank and accounting apps, let us know how we can help you get mobile.

Government Budgets, Shutdowns, and Last Minute Tax Laws

Last year’s tax filing season was compressed due to laws that were enacted at the last minute.  As you might imagine, last-minute tax law changes put the tax software companies and the IRS into a tailspin.  Once forms are finalized and interpretations are published, the accountants then get busy figuring out what’s changed.

Many forms were not finalized last year until early March, but the April 15th deadline remained fixed.  This makes tax accountants have to do a year’s worth of work in about six to eight weeks.  And it’s going to happen again this year because the government was shut down during a key time that the IRS needed to get their systems ready.

To help avoid adding stress to this year’s tax season, you can help your accountant as well as yourself by having your books up-to-date and accurate, getting as much as you can ready early by scanning key documents into digital files, and having a checklist of questions you want to cover at your meeting.

Nexus

As states scramble to balance their budgets, they are constantly looking for new ways to tax businesses, and sales tax is one of their favorite ways.  Nexus means “presence.”  If your business has a presence in a state, you may need to collect and pay sales tax in that state.  If you hire employees or contractors that work from home and are located in a state other than where you are located, you may have nexus in those states.  Check with a sales tax expert who can guide you on these issues.

Engagement and Collaboration

Products and services in the accounting marketplace continue to experience a renaissance in accessibility and enhanced functionality.  This is exciting because small businesses can benefit most by the increased ability to collaborate with their accountant.  Gone are the days of once a year tax consults and never hearing from your accountant.  Now accountants can reach out more often, learn more about your business, and provide valuable collaborative advice to help you reach your financial goals.

If we can help you monetize any of these current events in accounting, please contact us, and let’s have a conversation.

Create A Theme For A Prosperous And Meaningful New Year

It’s almost 2014, and at this time of year, it’s natural for us to pause and reflect on where we’ve been and where we want to go.  For business owners, it’s especially important to raise our minds above the daily fires for a moment, take in some fresh air, and elevate our perspective.  Creating an annual theme is an easy and fun vehicle to do just that.

Deciding on a theme for the year will give you a focus and a new perspective on your work and your routines.   It can be highly rejuvenating to look at things through the lens of your new theme.

Ideas for themes are limited only by your imagination.  Some possible themes include:

• Organizing, detoxing, or cleansing.   Consider cleaning out your garage (or your office), upgrading your systems, re-designing your filing system, or going on a cleanse or a vacation or a retreat that will leave you feeling clutter- and worry-free.  

• Growth.  You might want to consider a growth-related theme, such as productivity or profitability.  You might also want to develop a new skill such as learning a new language, developing your computer skills, or taking a philosophy class at your local junior college.  

• Abstract themes, such as abundance, creativity, or diversity.  At the risk of sounding a little fluffy, an esoteric theme might be just what you need in 2014.  A theme with abundance will allow you to think big, be abundantly generous with others, and search for large contracts.   A theme with diversity will challenge you to be more open-minded.  You may also want to consider forgiveness, gratitude, humility, or service.  

• Relationships.  Your year might be dedicated to meeting new associates and building business relationships.  Your action item might be to spend more time networking, participating in groups, or going to your industry conference.

• A new service.  Perhaps you’re launching a new service and need to focus on developing this new line of business.  

• Giving back.  On a personal note, you might value volunteering and decide to organize your year around a couple of volunteer opportunities.  

• Exploring.  If you’ve retired or the business is starting to run smoothly without your day-to-day input, it might be time for that trip around the world.

As you choose you goals for 2014, make sure the majority of them support your theme for the year.  Themes can bring an overarching focus to our practices and our lives.

What’s your theme?  Let us know what your theme is and we’ll share ours!

Optimize Your Revenue Mix For More Profits In 2014

Many small business owners focus on generating more revenue every year, and that’s a great objective.  But not all revenue is created equally.  If you sell more than one product or service in your business, then you can benefit from looking at your revenue mix.

Although it’s fun to watch our revenues grow, it’s the profit number that really matters.  If your expenses grow faster than your profits, then you have a lot of activity going on, but you don’t get to keep as much of what you make, which is what really matters.

An insightful exercise to try is to take a look at your revenue mix.  Then you can ask “what if?” to optimize your profits.

Your Revenue Mix

Let’s say you offer three different services: Services X, Y, and Z. Your revenue pie looks like this:

X:  $1.4 million or 70% of the total

Y:  $0.3 million or 15% of the total

Z:  $0.3 million or 15% of the total

Total:  $2.0 million

In this example, Service X is clearly the service making you the most revenue in your business.  But is it making you the most profits?

The profit you receive from each of these service lines is as follows:

X:  $160K

Y: $20K loss

Z:  $60K

Total:  $200K

While Service X is generating the most profit volume for your business, it’s actually Service Z that’s the most profitable.  Earning $160K on $1.4 million yields 11.4% return on Service X, but earning $60K on $300K yields nearly double the return at 20%.  Service Z generates the most return.   And if possible, Service Y may need to be discontinued or turned around.

Optimizing Profits

Your strategy for a more optimum revenue mix might be to sell as much of Service Z as possible, while eliminating or fixing the problem around Service Y.

It’s fun to experiment with different revenue mixes.  And of course, there are many more variables besides profit, such as:

• Which service do you prefer to work on?

• Are you able to sell more of the most profitable service or are there marketing limitations?

• Is one service a loss leader for the others?

• Are you able to adjust price on the lower margin services to increase your profits?

There are many more questions to ask and strategies to consider to make you more money, which is why we love our job!

A New Year, A New Mix

We hope you’ll spend some time analyzing your revenue mix and having fun asking yourself “what if?”   If we can help you expedite the process or add our perspective, please reach out anytime.

What To Do When Calling The Help Line Doesn't Help

Have you ever called a help line and at the end of the call had a bigger problem than before you called?  Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon.

Navigating the help line process can be a challenge for anyone’s patience.   Here are a couple of tips you can try to make the process a little less painful.

Repeat Business

If you get someone that does a good job of solving your problem, ask them if you can contact them directly.  You will begin to establish a rapport, and you’ll have an inside ally you can turn to.  They’ll also begin to know your issues, the product you’re calling about, and how you use it.

Fly First Class

Sometimes, it’s just worth it to pay for a higher level of access.  You can check that out yourself, or you may have expert vendors you can tap to access their higher-level resources.  By paying for a higher level of service, you can get priority service and access to more highly trained personnel.

Learn the Language

How you communicate your request to the help line personnel can make all the difference in the world when it comes to saving time.  To speed up the process, have the following things handy:

• If an error message is involved, take a screen print or write down the exact wording or error code, if any.

• If software is involved, be ready to let your technician know the operating system you’re on, what browser you’re using if the Internet is relevant, and other details that will isolate the problem.

• If software is involved, they may ask you what version you have.  You can find that by choosing File, Help from the menu, or they can walk you through it.

Call Off-Peak

For shorter wait times, try to call when no one else in calling.  For hardware and software support, this may mean avoiding Mondays and rush hours.  For questions to the IRS, it may mean calling earlier in the season.

Hire an Expert

Some of your vendors (including us!) may have access to a higher level of support based on their connection with the company.  For example, certain QuickBooks ProAdvisors have access to an elite group of support technicians and get priority services as well.  Accountants have a special line in to the IRS.

You may be able to save money and especially time by delegating these help line calls to those privileged vendors.  (And if we can help save you time and frustration in this area, please let us know.)

Try these tips to improve both the speed and accuracy of your help line calls.

Five Tips To Get Ready For A Pain-Free Tax Time

With the holiday season just around the corner, it’s a perfect time to get your financial records in order.  Tax moves you make now can mean finding more “green” to spend on family gifts and festivities.  Here are five quick tips for you to feel more prepared about your financial status as you go into year-end.

Avoid Penalties

This time of year is ideal to double-check your tax payments to make sure enough has been paid in, and even more important, to avoid overpaying so your money is not tied up unnecessarily. If you’re not sure of your 2013 tax liability, check with your tax preparer.

Balanced Books

Rather than wait until the busiest time of year for accountants and bookkeepers, you can get a head start now on catching up your books  You’ll have more of their attention and you may even avoid a rate increase if you get your books done early.  Completed bank reconciliations are a very important part of catching up.

Forms

It’s not too early to get your orders in for the forms you need at year-end like your W-2s, W-3s, 1099s, and 1096s.  That way, your forms will be onsite when you’re ready.

Records

Information that’s missing at the last minute can take up extra time and be costly.  It’s a great idea to do an audit now of W-9s to grab missing addresses and tax ID numbers of your contractors.  Also do a scrub of your employee payroll records so that your W-2s will be complete and accurate.

New Tax Changes

Be sure to check with your advisors on new laws affecting individuals and businesses next year.  One of the biggest ones making news is avoiding the fine involved regarding the new health care requirements for individuals.  And there are many more you’ll want to get up to speed on so that you’ll know how they affect your situation.

We know it’s early to be talking about taxes, but we’re also all about saving you money and time.  Try these five tips so you’ll have better peace of mind and be more prepared for year-end.

Five Best-Practice Accounts Payable Tips For A Smoother Cash Flow

Watching the cash balance is one of the most frequent activities of a small business owner.  Besides making sure you have enough cash for payroll and bills, there is another huge opportunity you can benefit from: lowering the cost of processing your bills.  It can be expensive and time-consuming to process bills and handle the paperwork involved.  We’ll take a look at a couple of the many ways you can streamline your accounts payable processing costs in this article.

Opportunity #1:  Go Digital

The Intuit Payment Network (IPN) is a best-kept secret when it comes to sending and receiving money.  It’s free to set up your account, and it’s also free for your receiver to set up an account.  All you do is add your bank account, and you can easily transfer funds between the two accounts just by knowing the receiver’s email address.

The receiver of money only pays 50 cents per transaction, so when you have a large transfer of funds, it’s totally worth it.  It saves you postage, check stock, envelopes and the related mailing labor.  You could even increase your payment by 50 cents so that your receiver receives exactly what you owe them.

Another way to go digital is via PayPal.  Fees vary, and are usually paid by the receiver.

Opportunity #2:  Get Control

When it comes to finances, it’s never a good idea to mix business and personal, especially when it’s coming out of the same bank account.  Keep separate accounts for business and personal, and your bookkeeping costs will go way down.  Do the same thing for credit cards as well.

If you’re comfortable with credit cards and you can maintain control of your spending, it saves accounts-payable time when you can charge everything you spend on business to your credit card as long as you pay it off every month.  Using your card is faster at checkout than writing a check these days, so you’ll save time on errands as well.

Opportunity #3:  Automate

Put recurring expenses such as utilities, rent, accounting, and other monthly bills on bank draft or autopay if the vendor has that option.  This will save you a huge amount of time, supplies, and postage.  You can also be more accurate with the timing of the payment which will allow you to keep your money for as long as possible until the due date arrives.

Opportunity #4:  Verify

We hope you never pay bills that aren’t yours, but it can happen.  To avoid it as much as possible, implement a three-way matching process on all your payables, especially those related to inventory.  The three-way part refers to the three documents involved in accounts payable:

• The purchase order

• The packing slip

• The invoice

Before any invoice is paid, these three documents should be matched line by line – for quantity, price, and description — to ensure you ordered and received what you paid for.  Only then should your bill be approved.  This will ensure that you don’t pay a fraudulent bill, you don’t pay for out-of-stock that didn’t ship and that you paid the correct price you agreed to in the first place.

Please feel free to reach out and ask us about this if you’d like to know more.

Opportunity #5:  Tell Yourself a Little White Lie

There’s an old saying:  “robbing Peter to pay Paul.”  If you’re always moving money around form one checking account to another to cover bills and payroll, you’re not the only small business owner who juggles funds.  It takes up valuable time to make all these transactions, and then it costs to record them and track them.

Reduce all that by telling yourself a little white lie about your bank balance.  If your bank balance is $10,000, tell yourself it’s only $5,000 (or whatever amount makes sense for you).  That way, you’ll always have a cushion in your account that will help you reduce transfers.  There are several ways to set this “little white lie” up in your books.

More A/P Ideas

These are only five of many ways you can reduce your processing costs and save time on accounts payable processing.  Give these five accounts payable ideas a try, and if you’d like to know more, please reach out and let us know.