AWC Small Business Development Center (SBDC)

In my business as a tax professional, I’ve seen only one business client in the past six years who has come to me with all of her income and expense statements written out by hand. To be honest, I was stunned when I first saw these statements. But I was even more stunned to see that they had been done correctly.

I asked this business owner why she kept her books manually. Her response: “I just like doing it this way. Can you work with me even though I don’t do this on a computer?” The answer was yes, absolutely. This client understood what she was doing, kept meticulous records — and had fabulous penmanship.

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Online Request for SBDC Counseling

Many businesses both large and small make the mistake of trying to increase profits only by boosting volume or cutting costs. There’s another vital component that — oddly — tends to get overlooked: Pricing. But this is pricing on a regular, strategic basis — not the rampant, ad hoc discounting taking place now in the face of recession.

Millions of business owners are boarding the search engine optimization (SEO) bandwagon to boost their share of web traffic, or jumping into social media marketing with hope and a prayer. But those tactics won’t translate to bottom line success if you don’t also optimize your prices. Think of it as VPO, or Value Price Optimization. It boils down to a simple question: Do you know what your customers are really willing to pay, and why?

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Online Request for SBDC Counseling

IRS audits of small business tax returns are up – way up, and headed even higher. The Internal Revenue Service has said loud-and-clear that it believes roughly $100 billion of income from small business, home office and other solo-operator sources goes unreported each year.

As a result, the tax collecting agency has amped up an enforcement effort aimed squarely at a wide range of small business returns, including S-corporations, LLCs, partnerships and especially sole proprietors, who generally use a Schedule C to a personal 1040 return to report business-related income. The audit stats get ugly. Sole proprietors – the most dominant form of small biz ownership – are 10 times more likely to be audited than other business entities.

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Online Request for SBDC Counseling

Whether you already have a merchant account to process credit card transactions, are looking to switch or compare merchant account providers, or need a merchant account for the first time, there are many pitfalls to avoid. These include processing delays, changing fees and rates, rules on chargebacks — and the latest hot button on “holdbacks.”

Tight credit, rising business bankruptcies and changes in how consumers use their credit cards are contributing to an unusual amount of financial ferment involving credit cards.

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Online Request for SBDC Counseling

Financial ratios are a valuable and easy way to interpret the numbers found in statements. It can help to answer critical questions such as whether the business is carrying excess debt or inventory, whether customers are paying according to terms, whether the operating expenses are too high and whether the company assets are being used properly to generate income.

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