The highlight of the event will be John Younger, CEO of Accolo, speaking on staffing strategies in a tight economy. The Marin Business Forum event will be help March 22 at 5:00 p.m.
CPAs come with different specialties and can provide expert advice on a wide range of topics. There are different ways to identify a CPA who is right for your organization:
Starting with clean books and financial statements will not only streamline tax filing but also lower tax preparation costs, and give senior management a clearer understanding of the company’s tax position
Smart business owners need to be sure their accounting departments are sufficiently familiar with changes in tax law, or they need to seek help from accounting services that are paid to keep up with regulatory changes.
most managers only measure outputs, not inputs, which is like telling a Little League team to score more runs, rather than actually explaining how to swing a bat and make contact with the ball. Similarly, most companies measure traffic, revenue or earnings, without considering how to improve the company at an atomic level: how to make a meeting better, or an engineer more productive.
One of the primary reasons that the strategic planning process fails is because the plan is written and then set aside to gather dust. Once the plan is created, it needs to be communicated to the parties involved in its success. Provide metrics that align with the expectations for the plan’s outcome
The litmus test for each of your strategic objectives is that it has to meet each of these five criteria. If the objective fails to meet one or more of these criteria, then either assess it to determine if it is truly strategic, or revise it to make it more specific, measurable, actionable, realistic, and time bound.
Strategic objectives should be selected to address the major challenges facing the company. To make these SOs manageable and actionable, limit them to no more than eight, and it’s vital to prioritize them.
Many small businesses are structured as S corporations of LLCs, which means the owner’s personal taxes are intimately tied to their businesses. The flow-through income from the business has to be reported on the owner’s tax returns.
Many employees respond best when they feel their company cares about them and their ideas. Unhappy employees are less likely to perform at their best. How do you show you care?
In addition to checking the data accuracy and closing the books, you should think about and plan for the up-coming year. Be sure your tax objective is aligned with your business goals.
Closing the books means you are ending your official accounting period so you can start the next period with a clean slate. It means that once the books are “closed” there will be no more changes to the financial documents for the closed period. So accuracy is critical. The closed books are the “gospel” of what has happened in the financials for your company.