A couple of years ago, I was hired to help a business owner plan the sale of his business and build a life long income plan. His company was profitable, and he had worked hard to grow its intrinsic value. Yet, we could not sell his company at the price he desired. Why? Because he hadn’t paid all of his taxes. Now, my client hadn’t purposefully eluded tax payments. He just missed one, year after year. He had no idea it was due, and it ended up costing us the sale of his business. I don’t want that to happen to you. Therefore, I’m giving you a taxes checklist with 11 common taxes small business owners need to check for delinquency.

I don’t know about you, but I like to look at my company’s financial reports. To me, financial statements are vital for the S.W.O.T. Analysis you and your team members perform during your strategic planning sessions. If read and understood, they can reveal many of your company’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. However, I often run across business owners who do not know what types of financial statements to pull or how to read them once printed. Therefore, I’ve put together a list of nine financial statements business owners should examine during their strategic planning sessions.

The word “budget” often strikes fear in the hearts of business owners. Yet, a budget is simply a tool that allows business owners to make prudent and wise decisions. That’s all it is. Nothing more and nothing less. So today, I want to talk about two different budget strategies you can use to anticipate your yearly income and expenses: the zero-based or the incremental budget strategy.

I realize that as a small business owner you may not have the funds or the capacity to hire a CFO. Most likely, you’re the CFO. If that’s the case, then you must make a concerted effort to oversee all things financial, especially cash flow in and out of your company. However, unless you have bookkeeping experience or a degree in business, finance, or accounting, directing your financial department can be daunting. Therefore, if at all possible, I recommend hiring a CFO or placing someone within your financial division in charge of Accounts Payable (AP) – the money you owe vendors for products and services. You need someone who knows which Accounts Payable processes are necessary and someone who can implement those processes.