I am taking over a business in January. What do you wish you had asked your CPA? small business |
- I am taking over a business in January. What do you wish you had asked your CPA?
- Quickbooks invoicing
- Rule of Thumb for a salary range I can afford to pay, if I know the revenue?
- Need advice for small business.
- #askfounders - Interviewing inspiring startup founders in cars ����
- How do I obtain complete articles of Organization for my LLC?
- I inherited 150 acres of land between SC and GA, I want to try to turn some of it into a greenhouse but I don't know the resources to start with.
- 401k and small biz
- Capital One Spark discontinued its mobile app for most of 2018. What alternatives should I be looking at?
- Small business and growth problems
- Communicate, Log Hours, Set Tasks
- Bookkeeping programs
- Looking for advice on creating articles for existing website
- Am I doing E-mail management wrong?
- Email and storage
- What would this kind of investment be called?
- Collabing with another business- what should I consider when setting up terms?
- Anyone here run a mobile pushcart business?
- Need help interviewing potential employees for specific traits!
- How to start getting sales
- Virtual Office Options
- New Manager - Seeking Words of Wisdom
| I am taking over a business in January. What do you wish you had asked your CPA? Posted: 04 Sep 2018 07:49 PM PDT I am currently manager of a small business which just celebrated their 40th anniversary. In January, the owners will retire and I will take over the business. The store currently has three employees (including me) and the two owners. I am meeting with the CPA tomorrow and have been trying to compile a list of questions to ask her. In terms of annual income and company debt, I already am aware. The CPA has the most recent tax return. I have been running the store for three years, but I'm pretty clueless when it comes to taxes, etc. What would you ask during this meeting? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 04 Sep 2018 03:29 PM PDT Hi all, I have been in business for about 15 months and have finally started using Quickbooks. The first year was a huge learning curve for me on the work the business is doing. Now, I feel like I have the breathing room to get my financials in shape. I have been using Invoiced this entire time and it has served well as a free platform to create nice invoices/estimates for clients. Question is: Should I go into Quickbooks and write up each invoice for the last 15 months? Is there a way to upload Invoiced to Quickbooks ? Or should I forget about it and just move on using Quickbooks in the future and build another invoice and customer log? Or, should I be using another estimating and invoice platform. I'm in construction and do about 15 bids a month [link] [comments]  |
| Rule of Thumb for a salary range I can afford to pay, if I know the revenue? Posted: 04 Sep 2018 07:40 AM PDT I'm running a small business doing professional services consulting. We know the price per FTE that we will be paid per year upon contract award. With that, I need to figure out how much I can afford to pay a person. For example lets say I need to hire someone out of Dayton, OH. How do I calculate what range I can afford to pay them if I know that my total revenue for that person will be 150k? I need to take into account profit, health care, insurances, etc. Is there a website, a service, a golden rule, etc? *EDIT* Thank you everyone for your responses so far, I really appreciate it. For clarity we are a federal SDVOSB, and an LLC, who have won a subK slot on a large contract and are in the process of staffing Task Orders that we are competing for. Upon award I will know the FFP that the gov will pay us over the course of the year, so I'm working in reverse from there. THANKS! [link] [comments]  |
| Need advice for small business. Posted: 05 Sep 2018 03:02 AM PDT Hey. I need advise. I am planing to buy apartment, but I need some extra cash. I am planing to do Massage. I have done that, but a while back. And not for money. (for family and friends) Now I think I can turn it in to a businese. Or to get some extra cash. Does somebody have Done that?! Need advice. [link] [comments]  |
| #askfounders - Interviewing inspiring startup founders in cars ���� Posted: 05 Sep 2018 12:09 AM PDT I interview inspiring startup founders in cars. 🚘🎙 "Mostly, the stories you hear about startups, it's always just a happy talk but nobody tells you how fu**ing hard it is to work 13 hours a day, work on weekends and being available all the time. It's really hard. It can give you burnout or all those creepy things you hear on television or see on social media." - Michel Strotz, founder and CEO of Depixit and Neon Marketing Technology Watch the first episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kkb4nE2NHvY&t=38s [link] [comments]  |
| How do I obtain complete articles of Organization for my LLC? Posted: 04 Sep 2018 08:41 PM PDT It has been a few years since I did it and my current lender is asking for them. Business is located in NM. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 04 Sep 2018 03:29 PM PDT Does anyone work in horticultural fields around here that could give advice? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 04 Sep 2018 06:36 AM PDT I own a small business. 2 owners/employees. And we have a 401k set up. My wife recently left her job and her 401k behind. Can I roll her 401k into my company's 401k plan to better manage the funds? I understand she won't be able to contribute unless she begins a paying position at our company. Some background, my plan is averaging about 7.5% return while hers is at about 4%. But that does beg the question, can I contribute to her 401k at my plan while she is contributing at a plan at her new job? It would reduce my company's taxable income by 18k (is that the max?) and add to our collective savings. Thanks [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 04 Sep 2018 05:57 PM PDT I use Capital One Spark for my real estate business. All I do is deposit checks and pay bills there. Spark was 100% free but in 2018 discontinued the app. Its inconvenient to use the website in chrome to run the business. What free online bank alternatives exist w/ a mobile app? [link] [comments]  |
| Small business and growth problems Posted: 04 Sep 2018 07:47 AM PDT It is a good problem to have, but a difficult one to solve. We are just coming down off of our one busy season and things need to change, so I am coming here for ideas. Our company has 2 generally unrelated business lines. The first product line (Product A) our busy season is fairly steads and predictable from September - May and then it dies to nothing from May - September. (The product is targeted at college students). The second product line is busy from June - August (with the insane season being the last 2 weeks in August). Both business lines account for approximately 50% of our revenue. Product A we have logistics pretty well figured out and we have adequate space to prepare and assemble the product. We know what styles of product will be in demand at certain times of the year and we can plan for that by purchasing raw materials and calling in additional temporary staff. Product B is where we are having problems. We currently lease a 4000sf warehouse, the majority of which is used for storing raw materials and supplies for Product B during our busy season, however, our volume for Product B was so heavy this year that we ended up storing some raw materials in a rented truck as well as my home garage and we were still tripping over ourselves because we needed so much raw material to fill orders. Obviously, we need a larger space, the problem is we only need the larger space for 4 months of the year, the remaining time, our current warehouse is virtually empty. Leasing a larger space year round will eat into profits and it seems like a bad business decision, however, we can't sustain the level of demand next year in the same place. Other than biting the bullet and leasing a larger space any other ideas? We were thinking of leasing a temporary space in an unused retail store (many of which sit vacant for 18-24+ months), but we weren't sure if a landlord would be too keen on renting to us for 4-5 months in case a new long term tenant expressed interest. Any other ideas to explore. I estimate we need at lease 10,000sf - 15,000sf to allow us to grow. With inexpensive warehouse space going for $0.70/sf + NNN, that is $10K a month (a hard pill to swallow when our current space is about $3200/mo). The next problem is also with problem B but with staffing. Most of the product assembly and delivery takes place the last 2-3 weeks in August. This means we need to go from a very small staff of about 2 to about 20 for about 3-4 weeks. In the past, we have relied on college and high school students, but we have found that they start becoming unavailable in the last week of our busy season. Any thoughts on how best to handle this temporary surge in staffing for both product assembly and delivery? [link] [comments]  |
| Communicate, Log Hours, Set Tasks Posted: 04 Sep 2018 03:59 PM PDT Hello all, I recently started a personal assistant job and we're looking for a program (ideally free or cheap) that lets me and the business owner communicate, lets him set tasks for me and logs my hours. We tried Zoho but that was extremely convoluted and seemed to be pretty poorly designed. I was wondering what suggestions you have/ use for your business? It doesn't have to be all one entity but that's a plus too. Thank you! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 04 Sep 2018 03:02 PM PDT Hello all! I have recently started a pool cleaning service and right now I have a modest 10 customers, but wish to grow to around 60-80. Currently still keeping all my accounting and records in just simple excel documents, but I was wondering if I should get quickbooks or perhaps something else? Also what would be the best way to send customers invoices via email? For now I'm just using PayPal, but I've heard google wallet is good too, any suggestions or advice? Thankyou! [link] [comments]  |
| Looking for advice on creating articles for existing website Posted: 04 Sep 2018 02:12 PM PDT I hope this is an OK place to look for some help on this topic.. I'm the community manager of an established website that gets decent amount of traffic. The problem is that it's a very outdated website and getting my boss to make the update to something more modern hasn't happened yet. He keeps talking about me writing articles to help bring more views, but there is no where to post these articles. I want to use some 3rd party website that I can start posting too that can include links back to pages on my normal site. I figure once I can generate some traffic from there, my boss will finally be motivated to update the whole site... Anyone have any advice on which website is easiest to use for creating quick articles? Thanks in advance [link] [comments]  |
| Am I doing E-mail management wrong? Posted: 04 Sep 2018 02:09 PM PDT Hey all, I run a small business with a staff of two (soon to be three). My time is split about 90/10% out doing service work vs in the office at my desk. I currently perform all of my business service/installation/sales work and have an Office Admin answering phones and doing paperwork. I will be hiring a new technician soon and plan on migrating myself into the office more to focus on business development and growth. Our business uses the G-suite platform and our calendar, shared cloud storage and email are all integrated in to the Google Apps for Business platform, and have been for about 6 years. I use the Gmail app on my Android phone, and the Gmail web interface on my desktop computer and laptop. I've never really paid attention to how I manage my E-mail inbox, nor have I learned from anybody regarding best practices for E-mail management. My typical procedure is to respond to urgent emails immediately, but generally I keep everything in my "Inbox" and then review my new unopened emails daily. I get a lot of spam from suppliers or trade newsletters, but never take the time to read them unless they directly have something of interest to me in the subject line. I also don't bother to delete those spam messages because doing so would take up time that I don't have. If I need to reference an old email with a client, I use my Gmail's search function to find a client's name and then check the search results for what I'm looking for. I've just finished setting up my new Office Admin to use Outlook 365 to manage her work Gmail account. It's what she's used to, and it sounds like Outlook is pretty much the standard E-mail application for Business use. I tried doing a search for pros/cons of Gmail vs Outlook but can't really find any reasons to use Outlook to manage my Gmail instead of sticking with Google's app/web platform. Does anyone else seem to run their business E-Mail like this? What are some strategies for managing a busy inbox, and how do I prevent having something important buried in junk? Would using Outlook to manage my E-mail be of value, and are there any online learning platforms to teach me how to handle E-mail efficiently? Thanks in advance for your advice. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 04 Sep 2018 07:04 AM PDT Hey all. I work for a charity so obviously money is quite an issue at times. However we have a problem that our email system is terable just like our online storage. I'm thinking of moving our email system to Google or Microsoft so we have the emails, storage and multiple people can edit the documents at the same time as more often than not we are in calls in different areas of the country. Does anyone have any recommendations or ideas for us? Wether moving just our storage to Google or Microsoft is good for the live editing and then finding a cheeper place of our emails? Or if its a good idea just to do it all on one system to keep it simple. Any other advice or ideas would be helpful too. [link] [comments]  |
| What would this kind of investment be called? Posted: 04 Sep 2018 12:31 PM PDT I have a family member who is willing to front the down-payment for my first rental property. She wants some interest back, but she neither of us wants to deal with the headache of partnership or sharing cuts of the profit. She basically wants to give us the money, have us pay her back in installments, and earn more than she invested. What would this kind of investment be called, and/or how much is a good percentage to give her? If this is the wrong place to ask this question, would someone please point me in the right direction? [link] [comments]  |
| Collabing with another business- what should I consider when setting up terms? Posted: 04 Sep 2018 12:00 PM PDT I have a bakery that recently began selling wholesale to a new ice cream shop that opened about 20 mins away from me. My stuff is doing really well there and the owner has offered me the option of using her location as a satellite shop basically. She would still buy some stuff wholesale for her shop (cookies and brownies to go with the ice cream), but I could increase my line of what I sell to the customers. We haven't discussed actual terms yet. And she hasn't expressed a figure or deal she's looking for. So first I'm deciding if it's better to do a commission based set up or just a flat rental rate for having my stuff on her counter. The 2nd is she sells coffee as well and is planning on opening for breakfast and wants me to sell my croissants and muffins. She mentioned maybe I could run the morning shift from like 7-10/11. I have my hands full at the bakery so I'd really have to hire someone for that (she said she can't hire anyone right now). If I did that, I was considering offering hiring the employee myself, sell my stuff there for free or a reduced commission (maybe like 5-7% to help cover credit card fees and what not), and she can keep the revenue from coffee sales. (I'll ask my insurance guys, but if I did that, I can make sure my employee is covered working at her location, yeah? ) She also wants me to have cake and holiday pie order forms for people so I was thinking offering a commission (percent or flat rate?) on those. It's a win win set up for both of us to hook up like this- gives me a new revenue steam and increases my market base and then draws people into her shop in the off season. All that being said- am I crazy for thinking the most simple plan is for her to just keep buying it wholesale? And I can just switch it to Net 15 so she can sell it before she pays me? [link] [comments]  |
| Anyone here run a mobile pushcart business? Posted: 04 Sep 2018 07:44 AM PDT I'm starting a mobile Italian ice business and have a few questions I need help answering, I can't find a cut clear answers anywhere. My fiancé's brother is a CPA and told me to avoid getting business licenses in different locations because I will turn in my gross receipts and pay a fee for each one, but I am under the impression that if I want to do business in whatever city or county I will need a business permit even if it's just a handful of time a year. Can anyone give me some insight if they are in a similar situation? [link] [comments]  |
| Need help interviewing potential employees for specific traits! Posted: 04 Sep 2018 11:01 AM PDT Hey guys, Does anyone have any tips on how you go about interviewing candidates for a position where you want specific traits? Its easy enough to test for technical skills - just give them a test of some sort. But what about testing for things that are more qualitative? Like for example - dependability, honesty, organizational skills, etc.? I've had a very difficult time hiring people I can depend on to get stuff done to adequate standards for example. If I assign most of my past employees a task that is even slightly complicated, they don't get it done as well as I'd like. For example, I work in retail, and if I need them to work on a return authorization of a product to one of our vendors, they might email the vendor once, and if they don't get a reply back, they'll forget the issue exists until I remind them for an update weeks later. Or if I assign a task like doing an inventory check to make sure our inventory logs are accurate, I've had some employees added boxes that were clearly empty into our inventory for example, because they just went into autopilot mode and checked off everything instead of taking a half second to think. Its driving me absolutely crazy having to micromanage everything to make sure my employees accomplish everything to even just basic standards. I've had employees in the past I've felt I could trust to do a good job, but those type of people seem to be so hard to find. Anyways, anybody have any tips on what I can do to help identify these type of people? Obviously if you just ask in an interview "tell me about a time you were dependable" or something like that, most interviewees will have some canned statement ready to go. Need to find a way to actually TEST their dependability. For example, I was thinking about maybe in the interview, I could do some test involving a semi-complicated set of tasks, and see if they read all the instructions and complete it? Or something along those lines? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 04 Sep 2018 09:54 AM PDT Hi Everyone! Last month, I started a business venture. I decided to start selling Authentic Mexican products (mainly along the lines of fashion, garments, accessories etc) to Canadian Audiences. I came across these wonderful artesenal shoes from Oaxaca and I thought it would be a great product to sell in Canada (simply because home base is up here). The supplier already aware, so I'm basically starting up like a tupperware mom in the 70's! I can see this exploding into something huge. I lived in Mexico for a good 12 years and am always excited when I get to share it's beauty with others. If this goes well, I could expand into different products such as purses or blouses. I have big ideas for this. The only issue is starting up. I've already set up a Shopify, Facebook page AND an Instagram (I'm mostly just online for now). It's fairly early in the process but it's a good start, I suppose. I have made so far one sale, which makes me really happy! But it's starting to be a bit disconcerting that I haven't landed another sale. I know these things take time, but I feel as if I'm maybe not doing it right, so to speak. I have gained interest, but that's as far as people who visit my page go. I suppose it could be also a matter of trust the client has. What am I doing wrong or what am I not doing? Any tips on landing a sale? Closing a sale? I'm not a business expert by any means. My knowledge in sales is also very limited so any notes anyone has for me is appreciated! Here are the links to my Shopify store, my Facebook Page and my Instgram https://www.facebook.com/authenticmexicoshoes/ [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 04 Sep 2018 09:48 AM PDT Hello All, I have a small, one person shop (real estate business) and work from car, job sites, or home office. However, for my website, business cards, state license, and customer perception I need a commercial address. I am using a Regus location now at $50 a month (going to $75 on year 2) and it's great, but there has to be another option, or at least put effort see other options. I don't need mail scanned or phones answered. So really the provider does nothing, I just go there a few times a month to pick up the mail. I do not want a UPS Store address or PO Box. Thank you for any help. [link] [comments]  |
| New Manager - Seeking Words of Wisdom Posted: 04 Sep 2018 09:38 AM PDT I recently took a position managing two adjoining retail stores in a tourist town with extremely seasonal fluctuations in business volume. One store is specialty sporting goods and the other is sunglasses. The owner has several sunglasses shops but only the one "experimental model" sporting goods store. The previous manager opened the store with him 3 years ago. Earlier this summer the manager and another key employee moved on. I had worked super part time on the sports side as a sales associate for 2 years but had other (better paying) full time jobs which allowed me to gain some supervisory experience. I have zero management experience and went to school for communications -- not business. I've only worked in retail a little bit - it hasn't been my focus or preference of industry. Either way, here I am. And I need to get this shit together. There is an alarming lack of systems and procedures in place. We don't have an employee manual, job descriptions, training materials, or (until recently) those "required by law" break-room posters. There seems to be a huge issue with communications. Several employees have told me they were promised certain benefits by the previous manager that they had never received. When I asked the owner about those benefits, I was told that some people qualified and some people didn't but the status of who did and who didn't was never clear. He told me he was happy to reimburse for one employee (not a good one) but that another (better) employee didn't qualify and was never promised such things. We're getting ready to come into our busy season and I'm due to hire about 5 employees - more than doubling our current staff. This happens every year, but it's my first time doing seasonal hiring (or any hiring, for that matter). I want to make sure that new and existing employees have clear expectations for what their jobs and their benefits will be. We need training materials, a dress code (one of my assistant managers showed up to work in a ripped Budweiser shirt - wtf?) a disciplinary policy, etc. The problem is - this is not a priority at all for the owner. It seems that his idea of a store manager is someone who spends 40hrs a week behind the register, selling goods, cleaning, and doing inventory (and payroll, scheduling, etc.). He'd also like me to have time to manage our marketing as well (website, instagram, facebook, etc.) and promote our business(es). So policies and procedures fall to the bottom of my list. TLDR: I guess I'm wondering - as someone new to management - how to make the most of my role and improve the business. Is a store manager really just someone who works the shop, sets a good example, and does the schedule and payroll? When do other store managers find time to do marketing and generate policies? When it comes time to hire my new staff, how do I ensure they're trained properly and know their jobs? Any words of wisdom are greatly appreciated. Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
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