Business Finance Articles

You cannot win a band competition without instruments, and you cannot succeed in business without a bookkeeping system. Hiring a bookkeeping service is normally the best choice for every business that isn’t large enough to have a bookkeeper on staff. Attempting a shortcut by assigning bookkeeping to an untrained employee as a side duty is [...]

[Read more →]

The allure of software for completely in-house bookkeeping and tax return preparation is a constant temptation to small-business owners. Unfortunately, the odds are against a mere software purchase achieving financial paradise. Bookkeeping software is only as reliable as the input. A substantial number of business owners don’t understand double-entry bookkeeping. Likewise, tax preparation software helps [...]

[Read more →]

Accurate payroll accounting is important to businesses of all sizes. Avoiding sloppy payroll accounting ensures accurate tax returns, reduced cost from accountant untangling and no omissions of valuable tax deductions. Few businesses realize that the Internal Revenue Service makes an accuracy assessment by comparing payroll figure consistency on a variety of filed reports. No business [...]

[Read more →]

Tip income is an important area of concern for several types of businesses. Employers are responsible for including tips received by workers on their W-2 forms. Workers must report to their employers the total tips received in a calendar month whenever the amount exceeds $20. Employers include reported tips in calculations for withholding of income [...]

[Read more →]

Generosity is a beautiful thing. But that doesn’t mean you should give away money to business customers who aren’t even asking for a handout. This is exactly what you’re doing, though, if you charge less than the value people are willing to pay. Business owners are always reluctant to raise prices. They worry that charging [...]

[Read more →]

Generosity is a beautiful thing. But that doesn’t mean you should give away money to business customers who aren’t even asking for a handout. This is exactly what you’re doing, though, if you charge less than the value people are willing to pay. Business owners are always reluctant to raise prices. They worry that charging [...]

[Read more →]

The bookkeeping process for a small business gets about as much respect as the children’s table at a big family reunion. You know it’s there, but coordinating the details isn’t too important. The excitement in business is conducting sales, creating marketing campaigns, implementing new technology, improving efficiencies, and expanding with new products or services. But [...]

[Read more →]

Small-business owners understand the expression that you have to spend money to make money. But that doesn’t mean you should spend unwisely. Wasting money is a luxury in good economic times and a path to certain doom in a strained economy. Determining expenses to cut is an effort that too many small-business managers find excuses [...]

[Read more →]

You don’t have to possess a high degree of financial expertise to manage a small business. But there are three critical areas you need to monitor: Input Efficiency The first aspect of business operations to examine is input efficiency. This is commonly measured by knowing how much cost you incur for everything you sell. It [...]

[Read more →]

The biggest headache confronting most small-business owners is payroll. An incorporated enterprise must prepare paychecks even if the owner is the only worker. That also applies to an S corporation or LLC that’s federally taxed as a corporation. Payroll calculations are complex and tedious. Computing payroll taxes, determining employee deductions, writing checks and remitting tax [...]

[Read more →]