The IRS says that you should normally keep your records for 3 years, and for some situations you should keep them for 6 to 7 years. However, I strongly disagree and here is what you should do and how to do it: Tax returns: Do you want to know the prudent answer to how long […]
Technology
Be Careful When Making Online Payments to the IRS
We usually recommend that taxpayers make their tax payments online to the IRS and states. Here are the benefits, but a few caveats to watch out for: Benefits: When making payments online, your payments are generally credited on the day that you make the payment. Additionally, you can clearly apply your payments to a prior […]
3 Ways to Turn Around a Struggling Business
After the Great Recession there are still some businesses that may be struggling and don’t know what to do about it. Here are a few ways to turn around a struggling business: Upgrade: The rate of change nowadays seems to be accelerating at a pace that has not existed in the past. This includes technology, […]
How and Why to Strengthen Your Personal Finances to Increase Profits
Most people view their business to be a completely separate entity from their personal finances, and rightly so. This is generally true from a legal, tax, and accounting standpoint, whereas your business operations and finances should be separated from you personally. However, most small business owners are completely dependent upon their business to support them, […]
Don’t Change for the Exception
Most people don’t like conflict and make a great effort to avoid uncomfortable situations with people, especially those who are difficult to satisfy. It’s important to learn from these situations and consider their feedback, but you probably should not change your business practices because of them. Actually, if you listen to them you may seriously […]
Struggling Business Fail to Spend Money on These 3 Things
There are characteristics of successful business and also for struggling businesses. It is almost as if they do the exact opposite of each other. Three areas that struggling business owners tend to ignore because they see them as costs instead of improvements to support and grow their business are technology, people, and infrastructure/equipment. Let’s take […]
If You Want More Success Then Know the Difference Between Important vs Urgent
Important vs. urgent. Many people confuse the two, but if you want to be more successful, then you need to be able to discern between them. Important items have great significance or value while urgent items require our attention immediately. Here are some examples: Important: These are items that you need to do, but do […]
How a 10% Productivity Increase Can Increase Profits by 35%
A simple way to increase the profits of a business is to increase employee productivity. Each business and industry is unique, and here are several simplified illustrations to show the impact. The assumption is that if productivity increases by 10%, then sales will also increase by 10% due to extra capacity as long as there […]
Don’t Be a Co-Signer Unless You Want to Pay Someone Else’s Debts
Your friend, child, brother, or parent can’t get a mortgage or a car loan so they ask you to be a co-signer. Of course you will be a hero and co-sign for your loved one! But beware of the dangers before doing so. In reality, the lender is assuming that the odds are fairly high […]
Getting More from QuickBooks
The most popular small business accounting software by far is QuickBooks. It can be easy to use, is very affordable, and can help you to run your business better. Unfortunately, QuickBooks is quite often not used to its potential. Here are some things you should be doing with QuickBooks: Running Financial Reports: To know how […]