The Terrors of Employee Turnover

By Ben Kinsey, CPA

Image courtesy Pixabay

Ask any business owner what’s one thing that keeps them awake at night and nine times out of ten they’ll say their employees.  Whether it’s a fear of having their employees do something that harms the business or sweating the fact that all too many employees simply punch the clock while others are all too easily swayed to jump onto a competitor’s ship, the credo of many a business owner is, “It’s hard to find good help.” 

Can the Right CPA Add Value to Your Business?

By Ben Kinsey, CPA

Image courtesy Max Pixel

Every business owner is always looking to add value to their business.  That’s why they spend so much money on everything from fancy offices to first class business cards and brochures.  As they say, perception is reality.  While most business owners employ a CPA, what many don’t realize is that all CPAs aren’t created equal.  What I mean by that is CPAs are like doctors in that many of them tend to specialize.  While they are all capable of helping a business maintain and reconcile its accounts, prepare financial statements and do basic tax prep work, some of them are more adept at helping a business find every tax loophole, while others are better at showing clients how to improve their processes to either save or make money.  Depending on the type of business you operate or the stage of development that your business currently is at the moment, finding the right CPA could have a huge effect on your bottom line.

Are Business Meals Feeding Your Face or Eating Your Lunch?

By Ben Kinsey, CPA

Image courtesy of flickr

One of the perks of being a business owner is being able to write off meals when you travel for business or take a client out for lunch.  That’s the good news.  The bad news is that the IRS rules for deducting meals are complicated.  Get them right and you can enjoy that free lunch you’ve always heard about.  Get it wrong and you can wind up running afoul of those same regulations, which could cost you deductions or even give the IRS cause to begin an audit that could well eat your lunch.  Below is some food for thought regarding meals.

10 Ways to Improve Cash-flow

By Ben Kinsey, CPA

Image courtesy Picpedia

Now that everybody is up to their necks preparing their yearly taxes, I thought I’d take the time to help you take the steps to improve your business cash-flow in 2019.  Cash-flow is like the old Mark Twain ditty that goes, “Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.”  By that I mean, most business owners are always asking CPA’s like me to give them tips on how to improve their cash-flow.  Then they rail at the advice, since it usually requires them to take the time to assess their policies and procedures, as well as changing some of the ways that they do business.  Below is a list of 10 ways to improve your business’ cash-flow:

5 New Year’s Resolutions for Businesses

By Ben Kinsey, CPA

Image courtesy of flickr

With January less than a week away, I thought I’d take the time to remind you that not only individuals should consider making resolutions for the new year.  So should every business owner.  That’s because if you start off the new year with the right goals in mind, it will only make it easier to help you keep your cash-flow positive and make the bumps in the road smaller.

How Far Will You Go When You Need to Grow?

By Ben Kinsey, CPA

Image courtesy of flickr

Being in business is a lot like being a dinosaur.  If you don’t evolve, you’re doomed to become extinct.  If you believe Fortune Magazine, they stated that 9 out of 10 startup businesses are doomed to fail.  While that statistic is shocking, what’s even worse is that the top three reasons startups fail is because there is either little or no demand for their product, they run out of funds, or they don’t have the right team.  It isn’t until numbers four, five and six that Fortune points out that some businesses fail because they are outgunned, overpriced or they ignore their customer’s needs.

So, You Want to Sell Your Business

By Ben Kinsey, CPA

Image courtesy of flickr

One of the reasons to own a business is to eventually sell it.  Whether the motivation to sell is to retire or simply to start another business is immaterial.  The most salient thing you need to consider if you hope to consummate a sale is to make the sale appealing to the buyer.  To accomplish that, you need to understand the process involved, the mistakes to be avoided and the time it takes to create a sellable business.

Sales Tax Shuffle

By Ben Kinsey, CPA

Image courtesy of flickr

Ben Franklin said it best when he coined the phrase, "In this world nothing can said to be certain, except death and taxes."  But as all business owners know, while death calls but once, there are many different kinds of taxes they are expected to pay at different times of the year. While income taxes are paid but once a year, business owners are required to frequently pay sales tax on many of the things they sell, as well as a number of things they buy.  The second kind of sales tax is referred to as Use Tax.

Can Professionals Capitalize on the Same 20% Deduction as Other Businesses?

By Ben Kinsey, CPA

Image courtesy of Pixabay

In my previous blog, Do the Right Thing & Save 20%, I covered the new tax laws in effect that allow many businesses to capitalize on deductions that apply to overflow income (business income minus your salary). The only rub is this deduction specifically excludes professionals. That’s the bad news. The good news is in today’s blog I will reveal how realtors, accountants, doctors, dentists, CPAs, engineers and any other business owners that provide a service may still have an opportunity to capitalize on this 20% deduction.