Small Business Owners

New Business Formation

Opening your own business is exciting and thrilling. It’s everything that comes after the excitement and thrill has worn off that dictates whether a small business will make it or not. It’s up to you to maintain and stretch out the “thrill and excitement” period forever.

A methodical plan of action is needed to fulfill your dream or goal of being your own boss and running a successful business. Success lies in the approach you choose to take. We help you avoid the common pitfalls that many new small business owners make when starting their new venture.

We help you…

Prepare an initial business plan to clarify your marketing, management, and financial plans.
Determine your start-up capital needs.
Identify sources of start-up capital and backup sources if needed.
Evaluate and quantify your borrowing power so you know how much money you can get your hands on if needed.
Select a business structure that best fits your needs by evaluating tax advantages, legal exposure, ease of operation and portability should you need to relocate.
Select the right accounting software by evaluating your budget, needs and hardware.
Prepare a Cash Flow Budget so you know exactly how much money you need to keep the business alive each month for the first few years. Unplanned cash requirements are always emotionally painful.
Establish billing and collection procedures to maximize your cash flow.
Establish procedures to monitor and control costs.
Setup a home office so you can maximize your tax deductions.
Prepare and file all required state and local licenses and permits.
Prepare and file your application for your Federal Employer Identification Number.
Provide payroll and payroll tax filing when you bring on your first employee.
Comply with employment laws so you don’t get hit with fines and unhappy employees.
Identify your business insurance needs.
Develop a solid Partnership Agreement. This is an extremely important document for all new partnerships and will help prevent a tremendous amount of financial and emotional problems down the road.

Business Accounting

As a small business owner you have more important things to do than to keep your own books. We take care of your books for you, so you can get back to the job of running your business and generating profits.

Each month or quarter we’ll do the following things for you…

Reconcile your bank account
Generate an income statement
Generate a balance sheet
Clean up your general ledger
Provide consultations as needed

These tasks form the solid foundation of your small business accounting system. You can customize the package of services you receive by adding payroll, tax planning, tax preparation, or any of our other services.

 Bank Reconciliation

Reconciling your business checking account each month allow us to keep your bank account, accounting, and taxes up-to-date.

Having us reconcile your account each month allows you to…

Identify lost checks, lost deposits and unauthorized wire transactions.
Detect and prevent excess/unjustified bank charges and ensures transactions are posted correctly by your bank.
Detect and prevent embezzlement of funds from within your company.
Know how your business is doing? You can’t really know unless all accounts are reconciled and properly accounted for on your financial statement.
Manage your cash more effectively. Proper management of funds not only saves money, it makes money for you.
Protect yourself. By timely reconciling and promptly objecting to your bank about any unauthorized, fraudulent or forged checks presented to your bank and paid by that bank, you can relieve your agency of responsibility for the shortfall and transfer the risk to the bank. This reason to reconcile alone should be enough. Crime exists.
Sleep Better. You will sleep more peacefully at night knowing your bank accounts are reconciled, in balance and that all escrow funds, accounts, checks and disbursed funds are properly accounted for.

Income Statement

An income statement, otherwise known as a profit and loss statement, basically adds an itemized list of all your revenues and subtracts an itemized list of all your expenses to come up with a profit or loss for the period.

An income statement allows you to…

Track revenues and expenses so that you can determine the operating performance of your business.
Determine what areas of your business are over-budget or under-budget.
Identify specific items that are causing unexpected expenditures. Like phone, fax, mail, or supply expenses.
Track dramatic increases in product returns or cost of goods sold as a percentage of sales.
Determine your income tax liability.

 Balance Sheet

A balance sheet gives you a snapshot of your business’ financial condition at a specific moment in time.

A balance sheet helps you:

Quickly get a handle on the financial strength and capabilities of your business
Identify and analyze trends, particularly in the area of receivables and payables. For example, if your receivables cycle is lengthening, maybe you can collect your receivables more aggressively
Determine if your business is in a position to expand
Determine if your business can easily handle the normal financial ebbs and flows of revenues and expenses
Determine if you need to take immediate steps to bolster cash reserves
Determine if your business has been slowing down payables to forestall an inevitable cash shortage

Balance sheets, along with income statements, are the most basic elements in providing financial reporting to potential lenders such as banks, investors, and vendors who are considering how much credit to grant you.

 Maintaining a Clean General Ledger

The general ledger is the core of your company’s financial records. These records constitute the central “books” of your system. Since every transaction flows through the general ledger, a problem with your general ledger throws off all your books.

Having us review your general ledger system each month allows us to hunt down any discrepancies such as double billings or any unrecorded payments. Then we’ll fix the discrepancies so your books are always accurate and kept in tip top shape.

 Unlimited Consultations

We are always available to spend time with you so you fully understand how to interpret and utilize the financial information we provide. Our consultations are already included in our price, so please feel free to call us whenever you have a question or concern.

Accounting Set up and Training

Selecting the correct financial software and setting up your chart of accounts and reporting is key to accurate understanding of your business’s financial operations. A cookie cutter financial set up will not provide easily accessible report so that trends can be spotted and success and failure seen quickly.

We will assist you in

Selection of your software
General Ledger formation
Use of Classes and Profit Centers for quick determination of reviews
Design custom reports that provide you ready access to status and outcome of your goals
Provide training for you and / or your staff to properly utilize your chosen system.
Provide ongoing support and review as required.

Cash Flow Analysis & Management

A cash crisis can occur in a financially successful business. It can be exhausting, time consuming and emotionally devastating. It can even topple your business. Analyzing your existing cash flow practices, creating a management plan and managing the plan can reduce risk. Our cash management service allows you to…

know when, where, and how your cash needs will occur.
know what the best sources are for meeting your additional cash needs.
be prepared to meet these needs when they occur, by keeping good relationships with bankers and other creditors

The starting point for avoiding a cash crisis is allowing us to develop a cash flow projection for you. We can help you develop both short-term (weekly, monthly) cash flow projections to help you manage daily cash, and long-term (annual, 3-5 year) cash flow projections to help you develop the necessary capital strategy to meet your business needs.

We also prepare historical cash flow statements to help you gain an understanding about where all the money went.

Creating an accurate cash flow projection is just one of the many cash management services we provide. You also get…

Help obtaining an appropriate line of credit
Cash collection acceleration techniques
Proven effective collection policies
Proven effective payment policies
Help obtaining the maximum rate of return on your idle cash

Bank Financing

Seeking a business loan or line of credit without adequate preparation sends a negative message to the lender. It pays to be prepared and organized in your approach to financing. Acquire your financing BEFORE you need it. Put your best foot forward by allowing us to prepare a winning loan proposal for you. Our proposals have a high likelihood of success because they’re created from the lender’s perspective.

You get the money you need because we know exactly what banks want to see. Even more importantly, we know how to prove to them that you’ll be able to pay them back.

Our winning loan proposals come complete with…

Executive Summary: Where we concisely state the purpose of the loan, the exact amount of money required, an explanation of what the loan will be used for and why it’s needed.
Pro-forma Cash Budgets and Financial Statements: We use your data and underlying assumptions to prepare information that your banker can easily read and buy in to.
Owners Personal Financial Statements: We make copies of the last 3 years of personal tax returns for the bank as well as identify the collateral being pledged as security for the loan.
Representation: We help substantiate your financial needs/position to your banker in person.

Succession Planning

Developing and implementing a well-designed succession plan is essential to the survival of a family business or preparing for a potential sale. If you own a family business, retirement isn’t simply a matter of deciding not to go into the office anymore. You’ve got some critical questions to answer like…

“What happens to the business when you’re no longer running it?” and
“Will you have enough money to retire?”

The family dynamic complicates the whole transition because of the relationships and emotions involved. Most people are not comfortable discussing topics such as aging, death, and financial affairs.

Comfortable or not, succession planning should be a priority for any family business considering that more than seven out of ten family-owned businesses fail to survive the transition from founder to second generation, typically falling prey either to estate taxes or family discord – or both.

Developing and implementing a well-designed succession plan is essential to the survival of a family business from one generation to the next.

We help you with these key issues –

Keeping it in the family. Are you going to pass the business on to your family or sell it to a third party? We help you weigh the advantages and disadvantages of each of these options.
Who’s going to run the business when you’re gone? Management and ownership are not one and the same. You may decide to transfer management of your business to just one of your children but transfer equal shares of business ownership to all your children, whether they’re actively involved in the business or not.
Minimizing the tax bite. The tax burden when transitioning a family business can be significant. The challenge is that a family business is not generally a liquid asset, but taxes are typically due when ownership is transferred.
Making it fair. Transferring family ownership often adds a tremendous amount of stress to individual family members. We talk with each of the family members to ensure that they feel they a getting an equitable and fair share of the pie.

What we do for you…

Once we understand how you feel about the key issues above, we begin constructing your succession plan focusing on these 5 issues…

Business Valuation
Business Restructuring
Tax Consequences
Retirement Projections
Tax Projections

Account Reconciliation

Bank Reconciliation

Reconciling your business checking and credit card accounts each month allow us to keep your bank account, accounting, and taxes up-to-date.

Having us reconcile your account each month allows you to…

Identify lost checks, lost deposits and unauthorized wire transactions.
Detect and prevent excess/unjustified bank charges and ensures transactions are posted correctly by your bank.
Detect and prevent embezzlement of funds from within your company.
Know how your business is doing? You can’t really know unless all accounts are reconciled and properly accounted for on your financial statement.
Manage your cash more effectively. Proper management of funds not only saves money, it makes money for you.
Protect yourself. By timely reconciling and promptly objecting to your bank about any unauthorized, fraudulent or forged checks presented to your bank and paid by that bank, you can relieve your agency of responsibility for the shortfall and transfer the risk to the bank. This reason to reconcile alone should be enough. Crime exists.
Sleep Better. You will sleep more peacefully at night knowing your bank accounts are reconciled, in balance and that all escrow funds, accounts, checks and disbursed funds are properly accounted for.