Tax Strategies & Preparation Articles

Tax season is over, but you may still be waiting to recover from the stress and anxiety associated with that hectic time.  In order to be your best professional self, sometimes you have to hit the reset bottom.   Here are three things you can do to strengthen your focus and rejuvenate your efforts:

Move

From January first to April 15^th, tax preparers spend hours upon hours sitting at a desk.   Often these hours stretch long into the evening with no opportunity to move around and exercise.  Getting back into or starting a regular exercise regime is a great way to boost your energy level.  It’s no secret that exercise increases your metabolism as well as your self-image.  When you exercise regularly you feel better about yourself, are more confident, and work with vigor and vitality.  And even if you don’t follow a specific exercise plan, try to inject a little more activity into your life.  This means taking time everyday to do something that makes you feel good, like cycling, gardening, walking or playing the Wii.  This gives you the opportunity to unwind and release tension, which helps you work at an optimum level and give your business the best you have.

Sleep

Tax season can knock any sleep routine out of whack.  And if you practice sleep deprivation for long enough, you may come to struggle with insomnia as well.  You owe it to yourself and your business to get enough sleep.  Experts suggest you get approximately eight hours of sleep per night.  Unfortunately many people are currently running on a sleep deficit, in need of catching up on sleep in order to function properly.  In order to get your body back on track, try refraining from caffeine and alcohol for a week and consistently getting seven to eight hours of uninterrupted sleep per night.  On the seventh day let yourself sleep in.  If you sleep longer than eight hours, you’re functioning on a sleep deficit and your body has some catching up to do.  If not, you should continue to get those eight hours of valuable sleep.  In the end, this one act can improve your performance at work, thus improving your business.

Vacation

What good is it to have your own business and work hard to bring in more income if you don’t occasionally enjoy it?  In order to truly refresh yourself and spend quality time with your family, you need to take a regular vacation and enjoy one another’s company.  Whether you cruise the Caribbean or go camping, it’s important that you spend dedicated time away from work.  In fact, a good time to plan for that vacation is right now.  Get out your calendar and schedule a celebratory summer getaway!

It’s important that you take the time to relax and recover from yet another stressful tax season.  By engaging in more activity, ensuring your body gets enough sleep and planning a relaxing vacation, you can give yourself the opportunity to revitalize your efforts and avoid burnout.

A Good Read

If you’re looking for a good book to enjoy as you try to schedule more R&R into your work week, consider one that will enable you to increase your business’s profitability. In the Black by Allen Bostrom, President and CEO of Universal Accounting Center, is filled with 9 straight-forward and proven principles that will make your tax practice more lucrative.  It’s been on Amazon Japan’s bestseller list and is a quick read that will give you valuable principles that you can begin applying immediately!  For less than $20 you can change the course of your business while enjoying a little downtime.  Order your copy today!

It can be difficult to plan during a recession when uncertainty is often the only predictable factor.  So what do you do?  Bnet, a professional website offering business advice, suggests a framework for Discovery-Driven Planning, developed by Wharton professor Ian MacMillan and Columbia Business School professor Rita Gunther McGrath.  Their six-step process is intended to gather the information necessary to best navigate through uncertain situations.

1. Framing

This first step requires you to ask a lot of questions regarding your business and its purpose.  For example, in order to be profitable, what type of bottom-line must you achieve?  How many clients do you need in order to realize that bottom-line?  And is your current (or anticipated) business model able to facilitate profitability.  The purpose of framing is to articulate your goals and then work backwards to see what steps are required to achieve them.

2. Competitive market reality specification

In order to make the best business decisions you must attain a realistic view of your competition.  Benchmarking compares your business with competitors of equal size in order to identify areas of improvement for short and long-term action.  Without this data you’re flying blind through an economic storm.

3. Specifying deliverables

This is where you articulate what you want your business to achieve.  Your deliverables should not only be realistic but specific.  How many clients will you add?  How much income will that generate?  Once you have a list of specific deliverables you can determine what’s necessary to achieve your desired results.

4. Assumption testing

Whether or not you acknowledge it, your deliverables come with certain assumptions or expectations that must be managed.  As you move forward on your action plan, you must take note of these assumptions, and then prepare to test them.

5. Managing milestones

Once you determine what your assumptions or expectations are, you can plan to test them in the form of milestones.  In the description of their Discover-Driving Planning process, MacMillan and McGrath explain, “A milestone is a critical, identifiable point in time at which key assumptions are tested. In discovery-driven planning, you plan in detail as far as the limits of current knowledge make sensible, then stop, revisit your assumptions, and replan at each milestone.”

6. Parsimony

As much as possible, you should keep costs down until your assumptions are tested.  MacMillan and McGrath suggest that you “think of this step as spending your imagination before your money.”

In today’s uncertain economic environment, it’s important that you use as much information as is available to make strategic business decisions.  In order to help you achieve that, Universal Accounting Center offers customized business assessments designed to help you compare your business with the competition, fulfilling step two of the Discovery-Driven Planning process.

UAC Provides Customized Business Assessments for Businesses

Universal Accounting Center (UAC) is in the business of seeing small businesses like yours succeed.  And we know one of the ways to accomplish that is to provide you with all the valuable information of a customized business assessment.  How does it work? From several of your company’s key business metrics, we will run a full analysis of your organization’s financial health. This includes a follow-up counseling session with one of our profitability coaches to help get your business on the fast track to increased profitability.

Universal’s reports will interpret and explain your industry benchmarks and provide the following customized features:

• Executive Summary highlights strengths
• Industry percentile rankings for 20 major financial ratios
• Interpretation of variances from industry norms
• Bold graphs that show comparisons
• Profit improvement “what if” financial capabilities
• “Discussion Ideas” section that provides a springboard for action

Click here to view a sample business assessment performed by Universal Accounting Center.

You owe it to your business to get a complete financial picture of how it compares to others in the industry. It’s a tool that will enable you to better navigate through the recession.  Add to the detailed analysis provided in your business analysis an hour of business consulting, and you have an amazingly great value.  Call UAC at 1-(800) 343-4827 for more information about getting your own customized business assessment!

Resources

Girard, Kim.  “Three Tools to Manage Uncertainty.” BNET
MacMillan, Ian and Rita Gunther McGrath.  “Using Discovery-Driving Planning in Business Building.” October 2002   Wharton@Work

Move Forward Fearlessly

There are many who have dreamed of starting or expanding their own businesses.  Some are waiting for the perfect time.  Others may expect a guarantee of success or a low-risk opportunity.  And others still may simply be waiting to build up the nerve to move forward.  The majority of these tentative people are now cowering in the wake of the recession, certain that their entrepreneurial dreams must wait.

Many great business owners have built their empires amidst economic adversity.  In fact, nothing better demonstrates the entrepreneurial spirit than a business owner moving forward regardless of the obstacles ahead.

“We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road.  They get run over.”  — Aneurin Bevan

You will have to decide whether to build your business or return to status quo.  Indecision will do nothing for your dreams but promote apathy and insecurity.  Once you make that decision to move forward, however, you must do so with confidence and determination.  This will continue to build your confidence, motivation and belief in your own potential for success.  And like attracts like-the more positive and assured you are, the greater your likelihood to become victorious and profitable.

“You can’t do today’s job with yesterday’s methods and be in business tomorrow.” – Anonymous

Accounting is the perfect service to complement tax preparation.  And there are countless local businesses in need of small-business specialists.  The majority of accountants today are trained in corporate accounting which makes up less than 10% of accounting opportunities.  Small businesses, on the other hand, comprise more than 80% of those accounting opportunities, and their needs are different from those of big businesses.  These prospective clients are looking for small-business accountants who can help their businesses achieve greater profitability.

At Universal Accounting Center, we understand the needs of the small business like nobody else. We’ve helped people like you advance their careers in small business accounting for over 25 years. Our Professional Bookkeeper (PB) Program has a curriculum designed specifically to address the needs of small business; it offers the most complete small-business accounting training anywhere.  And depending on your schedule and situation, it will only take you 60 hours to complete.

The PB Program offers numerous benefits, and here are just a few:

• The Professional Bookkeeper designation to add to your credentials
• Special training in small business accounting (which makes up the majority of accounting opportunities)
• The ability to work at your own pace
• Low enrollment costs
• Follow-up support and,
• An iron-clad guarantee

“For every sale you miss because you’re too enthusiastic, you miss a hundred because you’re  not enthusiastic enough.” – Zig Ziglar

No business can succeed unless people know about it.  So unless you market your new business, it will dwindle and, eventually, collapse.  In order to succeed, you need to employ effective marketing techniques designed to target your prospective client base.

In all our years working with accountants, bookkeepers and tax preparers we’ve come to understand that most don’t know how to promote their services to this niche market of small business.  We do!  And not only do we know how to market those services, but we know which strategies and approaches will grow your business to the point where you will become so busy you may just have to start turning clients away – that or consider increasing your staff in order to increase your capacity (and your bottom line!).

To share this priceless information we developed the Universal Practice Builder Program, otherwise known as Marketing on Steroids.  Here’s just a sampling of what you will gain from enrolling in this phenomenal program:

• A guarantee of $30,000 in new annualized billings in only 12 months
• The skills to become a Profit Expert for each of your clients
• 12 marketing strategies that you can implement immediately
• A process which can produce 15 to 25 qualified leads per month
• 3 months of coaching via telephone and Internet
• Training on a computerized database tracking program
• A presentation DVD to show potential clients
• Training to use QuickBooks to attract more clients
• Access to a plan proven to help retain clients

“Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens.”-Carl Jung

So what will you do?  Will you sit by and let the recession cloud your vision for success?  Or will you take advantage of the economic downturn to push your practice forward, enabling it to become the premier accounting and tax firm in your area by the time the recession is over and done?  Look inside yourself and take the initiative to move forward.  Enroll in the Professional Bookkeeper and Universal Practice Builder programs and ensure your likelihood for success.

Everyone makes mistakes, but there are some mistakes we can avoid by taking a few cautionary measures.  Starting a new business is hard enough; it’s best to do all you can to avoid any more obstacles than necessary.  Last week we shared 4 of 9 common startup mistakes to help you better prepare to launch your new practice:

1.    Not researching the market before entry

2.    Focusing on a narrow niche

3.    Launching too slowly

4.    Forgetting about branding, marketing, and sales

This week we’ll share the final 5:

5. Being short on passion

Before starting any business, you must ensure that it’s something you’re passionate about.  You’re going to be working many long hours to build and grow your fledgling practice; if you’re not passionate about what you’ll be doing, it’ll make your new venture more drudgery than dream-come-true.

6. Spending too much money

A financial practice is one of the more economical business ventures you can start.  You shouldn’t have to spend too much money to begin; a good computer, printer, scanner, fax machine and software package are about all you’ll need to sustain your business.  And as long as you have a good home office, you don’t even need to pay rent on a professional location.  However, regardless, some entrepreneurs still feel the need to spend more money than is absolutely necessary.  Don’t fall into that trap.  The more money you can save in building and growing your business, the more likely your business will survive long-term.

7. Bringing in unnecessary partners

Topping the list of big startup mistakes is arguing with business partners.  But before that comes bringing in unnecessary partners.  We thought we’d cover them both in number seven by encouraging you to thoughtfully consider the necessity of adding any partners to your practice.  Unless you don’t trust your own skill and expertise, you don’t need anyone else to help you launch your new business.

8. Lacking clarity in long-term business goals

It’s an old adage that has become cliché: when you fail to plan, you plan to fail.  But it’s cliché because it rings true.  Unless you take the time to articulate your vision and long-term goals, your business will lack focus and direction.  Business goals are more than mere projections of success.  As you plan how and what your business will become, your goals are the markers by which you measure success.  And the more specific your business goals, the better.

9. Refusing to receive further training

No matter how experienced you may be, refusing to enhance your skills will make you less competitive.  Also, when you add new services, like accounting, you can increase your income and your practice’s profitability.  While it may require some time, energy, and financing, without continued training your business may become obsolete.  Take the time to invest in yourself and your practice’s future.

While you can’t (and shouldn’t-how would you learn anything?) avoid all mistakes, there are a handful that can be avoided with some thoughtful planning.  And if you take the time to receive valuable training on building and growing your new business, you’ll be more likely to experience the type of success you dream of.

Universal Accounting’s Power Package

By adding small-business accounting services to your menu, your practice becomes a full-service provider that can operate year-round and not just during tax season.  Universal’s Professional Bookkeeper Program is designed to help you master small-business accounting on your own time and at your own pace.  You can earn a professional designation, demonstrating to prospective clients that you have the necessary expertise to manage their financial data.

And to learn how to promote your services to the right clientele, you need a reliable toolbox full of proven marketing strategies.  The Universal Practice Builder Program will help you master 12 of these strategies, enabling you to secure 15 to 25 qualified leads per month!  This program alone can help you avoid a slew of startup mistakes, helping you grow your business so that it’s not only sustainable, but profitable too.

Learn more about this Power Package by visiting Universal Accounting Center today!