By Pro Care Home Health Srvc at Citysearch May 16, 2011
I have used Syd Highley for many years. He prepares my corporate and personal tax returns. I have came back to Syd each year because of his high degree of professionalism, honesty, integrity and his thorough knowledge of the all latest tax code issues. Syd has my trust, confidence and continued business. I have recommended him to everyone I can who is seeking a true tax professional!\t\nDave D. ...read more
By Mariano J. at Judy'sBook March 04, 2011
I highly recommend Thomas Mischley as your accountant. He's very professional, service oriented and very knowledgeable in helping with getting your taxes prepared at a low cost. His staff is very friendly and customer service driven. Let Th... ...read more
By My Life Coach March 04, 2011
If you're looking for a friendly and knowledgeable CPA, then Thomas is your man. I highly recommend him and his staff. ...read more
More often than not, many small businesses approach the accounting system as a tool for paying bills, invoicing clients, and recording all other transactions. However, the accounting system is rich in features that provide users a wealth of information about the decisions they made. It is fundamentally a tool for recording strategically important decisions for the business. Viewed from this angle, success or failure of the business hangs in the balance. The financial statements within the accounting system provide the business with vitally important information from past decisions and their impact on the future. The financial statements are documented efforts of decision making for the business. The challenge for business owners is to link decision making to the financial statements and to view decisions through the prism of the financial statements and other management reports the accounting system yields. Using the data then becomes a matter of learning and interpreting the statements. Once interpretation skills are accomplished, managers and owners become more successful in managing the business. Additionally, the link between decision making and the financial statements highlights the importance of internal controls and planning. Once decision making becomes translated into the numbers on the financial statements, this raises the future to a very high priority. This is especially true when considering funding for working capital and its various sources (whether internally through sales or externally through loans or equity financing) for growth.Obtaining funding from the lender depends on sound financial controls and the decisions reflected in the business' financial statements. Lenders use these two criteria along with the business credit score for funding a business for growth. For more on the use and interpretation of the financial statements toward successful decisions making in growing business, call us at (916) 585-9612 ...read more
By AFB Business Solutions June 15, 2011
Now that you have written your business plan, what next? You have to sell it! Yes as a business owner with the next best idea, you have just become a sales person. You may have thought, "But I'm the thought leader and must develop the product/services for the market. I just want the lender or investor to give me the money I need to get to market." Just like writing a book for publication, you must convince the publisher that it will take on Amazon and the bookstores in a huge way. You have to sell it or the publisher may not be interested in it as the next best seller. A book proposal is normally accompanied by an introductory or query letter that places you in the best light as an author. You have so many words to convince the publisher that he or she must publish you book. The same holds true with a business plan. Your summary must be powerful and persuasive and have the WOW factor. Read Bill Reichert's article on this: http://www.openforum.com/articles/part-iii-top-10-tips-for-pitching-your-wow-statement-bill-reichert. But it's not enough that you have a grand opening for your business plan. You have to pitch it in person. Presentation makes your pitch person-to-person. This is where the double WOW comes into play. Consider the following Presentation factors for presenting your plan to a lender: 1. Hit a home run with your initial 30-second commercial - It's all about you so tell them your story. 2. Start out with a question that points to a success factor (i.e., "How would you like to be on a team that..."). 3. Get the investor/lender to say yes to every query/question. 4. What's your product? How will it make a difference? Whenever I hear about some get-rich-quick scheme advertised on TV or radio about some Internet business that you can work parttime, I wince. I don't hear about a product. What's the product? 5. So what? How are your products/services different? How do you stand out in the crowd of a dime a dozen products? 6. Know your market - In a couple of sentences, explain your market, who's in it, and why your customer will buy from you rather than from your competitor. Never say, "There's no competition." Is the market growing, and is there room for you in it with a wrinkle? 7. Who's your customer? Give a simple and speedy profile. Speak as though you know them personally. 8. What are your risk factors? Obstacles? Roadblocks? How will you address them? 9. Proforma - When will you make a profit? How much do you need? What is the exit strategy? 10. Close the sale - Ask for the money. An offer isn't done until you ask for the sale. Leave room for questions, and return to #3 and how many yes's you got and capitalize on them in the close. ...read more
By AFB Business Solutions June 01, 2011
Proactive targeting is the simplest definition for budgeting. This brings together the process and the business purpose and eludes chance management and passivity (reliance on historicals for forecasting). According to Peter F. Drucker, the guru of modern management - now deceased, management is process (tasks, responsibilities, practices). It is a process that leads from the present to the future. Historicals are important but the decision supercedes historicals and is proactive while pointing to targets. This budgeting is proactive targeting and not simply numbers derived from historicals with an attempt to overlay them on the future by some means of top down and bottoms up methodology. The decision takes precedence over methodology and drives the Drucker process. Proactive targeting is deciding on what the numbers will be based on relevant and useful information contributing to where the company wants to grow. This brings more success than relying on historicals or the top down bottoms up method. The important principle behind proactive targeting is ownership. Ownership drives the success. To a lot of my small business clients, budgeting is completely ignored. But when they do engage in the budget process, they go to the past and use ratios to project expenses to forecasted revenues not considering that numerous parameters change in a given year (i.e., payroll and income tax rates and a number of other tax laws affecting capitalization and so on). The CFO guiding the process must be attuned to tax law changes for the plan. Otherwise, miscalculation could be costly to cash flow. A large number of small businesses don't even consider tax, environmental, or other laws and their implications in the planning process. They fail to factor these into the process and subsequently become surprised when their BVA's reflect wide variances. The key to the question asked in this discussion is on which I focused is "successful." I watched a TV show in which the moderator compared the success of those who had ownership of private property versus those who did not, and the differences were stark. Those who worked from the model of private ownership had an infinitely greater success rate than those who did not but relied on others or the government to provide for them. That's the reason I cited ownership as the key to success, a key that many modern business enterprises appear to be brushing aside. To the extent that they do, their successes are not as great or become temporal. Consider Ford versus General Motors or Chrysler. And I speak generally when I put this forward. Ford is far more successful than the other two, because the CEO drives the ownership priniciple while the other drove the bailout principle and drive right off the cliff (pun intended). The same hold true on the micro-level (i.e., within the corporation). When individual executives or managers assume ownership and are incentivized as owners, they act like entrepreneurs, driving the business entity toward success.It is important to consider past trends in the budget process, but it takes a much lighter weight than external and internal variables or top down bottoms up or some other model. Additionally, effectiveness of business leaders does to a large degree depend on incentive associated with ownership. They didn't get where they are at without the experience, knowledge, and skill to manage. Entrepreneurship is a large driver for their effectiveness, and entrepreneurial decision making drives a greater degree of success than results driven by other factors.All of this may appear obvious, but I like the sports coaching model: "Practice the basics and build on them." If you don't practice the basics, sloppiness sets in followed by failure. Taking ownership should be among the top values statement in a corporation.Call us for more information on the budgeting process for your business. (866) 314-0344 ...read more
By AFB Business Solutions April 27, 2011
Payroll accountants are responsible for tracking the expenditure of money and assets through a company. Their job is to help companies track their income and maintain a timely payment record for expenses and bills. If you are interested in becoming a payroll accountant, you will have to be... ...read more
Computer files can sometimes be deleted by accident, get lost or damaged. This could be a potential nightmare, especially if these are small business accounting files. You have peace of mind by knowing how to use the "Backup and Restore" function in Microsoft Small Business Accounting. With a few keys... ...read more
