Business Services

As a small business owner you have more important things to do than to keep your own books. We take care of your books for you, so you can get back to the job of running your business and generating profits!

Each month or quarter we’ll do the following things for you…

• Reconcile your bank account
• Generate an income statement 
• Generate a balance sheet
• Clean up your general ledger
• Provide unlimited consultations

These tasks form the solid foundation of your small business accounting system. You can customize the package of services you receive by adding payroll, tax planning, tax preparation, or any of our other services.

Bank Reconciliation

Reconciling your business checking account each month allow us to keep your bank account, accounting, and taxes up-to-date.

Having us reconcile your account each month allows you to…

• Identify lost checks, lost deposits and unauthorized wire transactions
  
• Detect and prevent excess/unjustified bank charges and ensures transactions are posted correctly by your bank
  
• Detect and prevent embezzlement of funds from within your company
  
• Know how your business is doing? You can’t really know unless all accounts are reconciled and properly accounted for on your financial statement
  
• Manage your cash more effectively. Proper management of funds not only saves money, it makes money for you
  
• Protect yourself. By timely reconciling and promptly objecting to your bank about any unauthorized, fraudulent or forged checks presented to your bank and paid by that bank, you can relieve your agency of responsibility for the shortfall and transfer the risk to the bank. This reason to reconcile alone should be enough. Crime exists
  
• Sleep Better. You will sleep more peacefully at night knowing your bank accounts are reconciled, in balance and that all escrow funds, accounts, checks and disbursed funds are properly accounted for.

Income Statement

An income statement, otherwise known as a profit and loss statement, basically adds an itemized list of all your revenues and subtracts an itemized list of all your expenses to come up with a profit or loss for the period.

An income statement allows you to…

• Track revenues and expenses so that you can determine the operating performance of your business
  
• Determine what areas of your business are over-budget or under-budget
  
• Identify specific items that are causing unexpected expenditures. Like phone, fax, mail, or supply expenses
  
• Track dramatic increases in product returns or cost of goods sold as a percentage of sales
  
• Determine your income tax liability.

Balance Sheet

A balance sheet gives you a snapshot of your business’ financial condition at a specific moment in time.

A balance sheet helps you…

• Quickly get a handle on the financial strength and capabilities of your business
  
• Identify and analyze trends, particularly in the area of receivables and payables. For example, if your receivables cycle is lengthening, maybe you can collect your receivables more aggressively
  
• Determine if your business is in a position to expand
  
• Determine if your business can easily handle the normal financial ebbs and flows of revenues and expenses?
  
• Determine if you need to take immediate steps to bolster cash reserves
  
• Determine if your business has been slowing down payables to forestall an inevitable cash shortage?

Balance sheets, along with income statements, are the most basic elements in providing financial reporting to potential lenders such as banks, investors, and vendors who are considering how much credit to grant you.

Maintaining a Clean General Ledger

The general ledger is the core of your company’s financial records. These records constitute the central “books” of your system. Since every transaction flows through the general ledger, a problem with your general ledger throws off all your books.

Having us review your general ledger system each month allows us to hunt down any discrepancies such as double billings or any unrecorded payments. Then we’ll fix the discrepancies so your books are always accurate and kept in tip top shape.

When it comes to paying employees, laws and the IRS have made the payroll function a time consuming nightmare for the small business owner.

Small business owners spend an average of eight hours a month performing payroll functions. That’s 12 full days a year that could be spent generating sales, prospecting new business opportunities, improving products or services, or servicing customers.

We offer payroll solutions that meet your business’s needs and enable you to spend time doing what you do best–running your company.

Comprehensive Payroll Services

Our Comprehensive Payroll Service takes care of all of the payroll processing for you, so that you won’t have to. You get…

• Your payroll checks prepared and printed on-time, every-time.
• All of your payroll checks are laser printed on “blank” check stock to ensure maximum security and meet the micro encoding standards as set forth by the Federal Reserve System.
• Free Direct Deposits
• Worry Free IRS and State tax reporting as well as EFTPS tax deposits.
• User friendly, and easy to understand monthly, quarterly, and annual payroll tax reports, including W-2, W-3 and 1099 forms.
• Detailed reports on your employee’s vacation, sick days, and personal days accruals.
• Creation and filing of the required new hire reports
• Your payroll records maintained in tip top shape.

After-the-Fact-Payroll Services

We will take your manually-prepared payroll records and other payroll information and post this information to our data files, so you get…

• Worry Free IRS and State tax reporting as well as EFTPS tax deposits.
• User friendly, and easy to understand monthly, quarterly, and annual payroll tax reports, including W-2, W-3 and 1099 forms.
• Detailed reports on your employee’s vacation, sick days, and personal days accruals.
• Creation and filing of the required new hire reports
• Your payroll records maintained in tip top shape.

Online Payroll Processing

You can enter your employee’s hours and earnings securely online and get…

• The ability to instantly print payroll checks on your own printer.
• Free Direct Deposits
• Worry Free IRS and State tax reporting as well as EFTPS tax deposits.
• User friendly, and easy to understand monthly, quarterly, and annual payroll tax reports, including W-2, W-3 and 1099 forms.
• Detailed reports on your employee’s vacation, sick days, and personal days accruals.
• Creation and filing of the required new hire reports
• Your payroll records maintained in tip top shape.

Custom Payroll Reports Service

There seems to be an endless amount of special reports Government agencies require. We can prepare the following reports for you.

• Worker’s Compensation Audits
• Unemployment Claims
• Social Security Audits
• Child Support Audits
• W-2 and W-3 processing
• 1099 and 1096 processing
• Preparation/assistance with Federal and State registration forms

Growing businesses often reach a point where they need professional financial advice, but can’t afford a full-time CFO or controller.

If you’re fortunate enough to be in this position then we have the perfect solution for you. Our Part-Time CFO service gives you a professional financial manager who works with you to help guide your business to success.

The cost of hiring a full-time CFO can range from $200,000 to over $500,000 per year plus bonuses and benefits. Our Part-Time CFO services provides you with experienced support at a small fraction of that cost.

Here’s what you get with our Part-Time CFO services…

• More time to focus on new services, new customers and other core business issues.
• Better understanding of the financial side of your business. So you have less surprises and more control over the money.
• Improved decision-making capabilities from clearly seeing the hard and true numbers of your business.
• A readily available sounding board to help you with those tough business decisions and help you clarify your business plans.
• The comfort from knowing that a professional is overseeing, protecting and constantly improving the financial side of your business.
• A professional who establishes strong financial controls in your business to reduce employee theft and increase profits.
• Training and managing your accounting staff.
• Improved quality and timeliness of financial information.
• Budget preparation and monitoring.
• Profitability analysis by service or product line.
• Tax saving strategies.
• Trend analysis.
• Assistance in defining long-range plans and the quantification of goals.
• Cash management.
• Liaison with bankers, attorneys, vendors, insurance agents, etc.
• Assistance in obtaining financing from banks, including assistance with negotiations.
• Review/negotiation of insurance policies.
• Development of company accounting procedure manuals.
• Analysis of equipment purchases, expansions, etc.
• Mergers and acquisitions assistance
• Custom designed collection policies and procedures

Need money to grow your business?

Requesting a business loan without adequate preparation sends a clear message to the lender: High Risk! Therefore, it pays to be prepared and organized in your approach for financing.

Put your best foot forward by allowing us to prepare a winning loan proposal for you. Our proposals have a high likelihood of success because they’re created from the lender’s perspective.

You get the money you need because we know exactly what banks want to see. Even more importantly, we know how to prove to them that you’ll be able to pay them back.

Our winning loan proposals come complete with…

• Executive Summary: Where we concisely state the purpose of the loan, the exact amount of money required, an explanation of what the loan will be used for and why it’s needed.
• Pro-forma Cash Budgets and Financial Statements: We use your data and underlying assumptions to prepare information that your banker can easily read and buy in to.
• Owners Personal Financial Statements: We make copies of the last 3 years of personal tax returns for the bank as well as identify the collateral being pledged as security for the loan.
• Representation: We help substantiate your financial needs/position to your banker in person.

If you’d like to learn more about how you can obtain the money you need to grow your business please contact us.

A Strategic Business Plan is much more than a tool to obtain financing. If you still have all your plans and ideas locked up inside your head… preparing a strategic plan helps you clarify your company’s direction, ensures your key leaders are all “on the same page”, and keeps both management and staff focused on the tasks at hand.

A Strategic Plan is often needed when…

• Starting a new venture, product or service
• Expanding a current organization, product or service
• Buying a new business, product or service
• Turning around a declining business

The Strategic Plan provides a blueprint, describing your company, its products, the competitive environment, management team, financial health, and business risks.

The plan allows you to…

1. Identify and describe the target customer profile, features, advantages and benefits of your new venture, product or service.
2. Justify that your plans are credible by fully researching the need being filled with your new venture.
3. Develop marketing plans including full descriptions of targeted promotional campaigns with implementation timelines. You also get to examine market conditions, the nature of your customers, as well as your competitors, sales potential, and projected results of your promotional campaigns.
4. Develop staffing plans including identifying the key players, skills, attitudes and expertise needed to build the venture.
5. Develop management plans including full descriptions of management systems and timelines for implementation.
6. Develop financial plans including projected startup costs, operating costs, revenue, profits, and break-even analysis for the first 3 to 5 years.

Projected financial plans allow you to effectively predict upcoming problems, or prevent them. In other words, the perspective gained through your Strategic Business Plan can make a significant contribution to your company’s success, and help you get the funding you require. In fact, most lending institutions and private investors will not even talk to you without a solid financial plan.

1. Identify building and equipment needs including vendors and cost estimates.
2. Formulate company milestones including timelines for upcoming products and services in development.

Let us help you develop a powerful Strategic Business Plan that drives your business to the level of success you deserve.

If you own a family business, retirement isn’t simply a matter of deciding not to go into the office anymore. You’ve got some critical questions to answer like…

“What happens to the business when you’re no longer running it?” and

“Will you have enough money to retire?”

The family dynamic complicates the whole transition because of the relationships and emotions involved. Most people are not comfortable discussing topics such as aging, death, and financial affairs.

Comfortable or not, succession planning should be a priority for any family business considering that more than seven out of ten family-owned businesses fail to survive the transition from founder to second generation, typically falling prey either to estate taxes or family discord – or both.

Developing and implementing a well-designed succession plan is essential to the survival of a family business from one generation to the next.

We help you with these key issues –

• Keeping it in the family. Are you going to pass the business on to your family or sell it to a third party? We help you weigh the advantages and disadvantages of each of these options.
• Who’s going to run the business when you’re gone? Management and ownership are not one and the same. You may decide to transfer management of your business to just one of your children but transfer equal shares of business ownership to all your children, whether they’re actively involved in the business or not.
• Minimizing the tax bite. The tax burden when transitioning a family business can be significant. The challenge is that a family business is not generally a liquid asset, but taxes are typically due when ownership is transferred.
• Making it fair. Transferring family ownership often adds a tremendous amount of stress to individual family members. We talk with each of the family members to ensure that they feel they a getting an equitable and fair share of the pie.

What we do for you…

Once we understand how you feel about the key issues above, we begin constructing your succession plan focusing on these 5 issues…

1. Business Valuation
2. Business Restructuring
3. Tax Consequences
4. Retirement Projections
5. Tax Projections

Thinking of owning your own business?

Opening your own business is exciting and thrilling. It’s everything that comes after the excitement and thrill has worn off that dictates whether a small business will make it or not. It’s up to you to maintain and stretch out the “thrill and excitement” period forever.

A methodical plan of action is needed to fulfill your dream or goal of being your own boss and running a successful business. Success lies in the approach you choose to take. We help you avoid the common pitfalls that many new small business owners make when starting their new venture.

We help you…

1. Prepare an initial business plan to clarify your marketing, management, and financial plans.
2. Determine your start-up capital needs.
3. Identify sources of start-up capital and backup sources if needed.
4. Evaluate and quantify your borrowing power so you know how much money you can get your hands on if needed.
5. Select a business structure that best fits your needs by evaluating tax advantages, legal exposure, ease of operation and portability should you need to relocate.
6. Select the right accounting software by evaluating your budget, needs and hardware.
7. Prepare a Cash Flow Budget so you know exactly how much money you need to keep the business alive each month for the first few years. Unplanned cash requirements are always emotionally painful.
8. Establish billing and collection procedures to maximize your cash flow.
9. Establish procedures to monitor and control costs.
10. Setup a home office so you can maximize your tax deductions.
11. Prepare and file all required state and local licenses and permits.
12. Prepare and file your application for your Federal Employer Identification Number.
13. Provide payroll and payroll tax filing when you bring on your first employee.
14. Comply with employment laws so you don’t get hit with fines and unhappy employees.
15. Identify your business insurance needs.
16. Develop a solid Partnership Agreement. This is an extremely important document for all new partnerships and will help prevent a tremendous amount of financial and emotional problems down the road.

Let us help you succeed by getting your new business off to a good strong start.

Do you worry that you or your business might be the victim of fraud?

Do you need to analyze your financial data to uncover potential misconduct?

Are you investigating an entity for possible acquisition and need to ensure the absence of financial irregularities? Maybe you’re involved in litigation and require an expert witness to testify on your behalf?

If any of these situations apply, you need our Forensic Accounting services.

Who Needs Forensic Accounting?

Forensic accounting – also called financial forensics or forensic auditing – is an area of accounting that investigates actual or anticipated disputes.

Disputes can range from business-related litigation to marital dissolution. We handle both litigation support and investigative accounting.

Litigation Support

This area covers accounting assistance for current or pending litigation.

For a litigation assignment, we…

• assist in obtaining the necessary documentation to support or refute a claim;
• examine the relevant documentation to form an assessment of the case;
• review the damages report by the opposing expert;
• assist with settlement discussions and negotiations; and
• attend trial to hear the testimony of the opposing expert and provide assistance with cross-examination. 

Investigative Accounting

Occasionally, you may need to explore whether fraud or misconduct has occurred, such as employee theft of property or inventory, misappropriation of funds by employees, kickbacks to employees from outside businesses, securities fraud, and insurance fraud.

With our investigative accounting services, we bring to bear our accounting knowledge and experience in the field to give you a clear understanding of the situation. When you retain our expertise, we skillfully…

• review the situation and offer suggestions for possible courses of action;
• assist with the protection and recovery of assets;
• coordinate with other experts, including private investigators, forensic document examiners, and consulting engineers; and
• assist with any necessary civil action or criminal prosecution.

Forensic Investigations Take a Variety of Forms

The services of a forensic accountant are required for a range of investigations across many different industries.

Here are the most common assignments in forensic accounting:

Disputes Among Shareholders or Partners. The compensation and benefits given to each of the shareholders or partners is one of the more common issues in these cases.

Personal Injury Claims / Motor Vehicle Accidents. When economic losses from a personal injury or vehicular accident are in question, a forensic accountant is brought in.  

Insurance Claims. Because insurance policies vary greatly in their terms and conditions,  such engagements require a thorough policy review to determine the appropriate method of figuring the loss. A forensic accountant can assist from either the insured or the insurer’s standpoint.

Business/Employee Fraud Investigations. The investigation of employee fraud often requires a determination of the extent of the fraud. It may or may not include the identification of a perpetrator.  Many times, such assignments necessitate interviews of staff who had access to the funds.

Matrimonial Disputes. Usually, when a dispute of this nature arises, forensic accountants must locate and evaluate the disputed assets, be they  businesses, property, or fiduciary. 

Business Economic Losses. These kinds of engagements include contract disputes, construction claims, expropriations, product liability claims, trademark and patent infringements, and losses stemming from an alleged breach of a non-compete agreement. 

If you think you have reason to be concerned about financial misconduct, please call us today.