What does your cash flow look like right now? Are you still worried about the economy? Have you been putting off purchases or hiring a new employee because cash is a little tight? What about that new computer you need because the one you are using is 2-3 years old? A friend of mine recently [...]

When you started your business hopefully you wrote a business plan. If you did not, you can create a short version of a business plan now. While writing a business plan helps you prepare for the initial start-up phase and the first few years of operations at some point it becomes outdated. Many business owners [...]

Owning a small business can come with a lot of decisions, even before you make the first sale. One of the most common decisions is whether to form a Corporation or to operate as a Sole Proprietorship or Limited Liability Company (LLC). A corporation might sound like a good idea to a small business owner [...]

A sole proprietorship is one of the easier and most common forms to start a business. The only requirement of a sole proprietorship is registration as a business if any name other than the owners name is used for the business. The sole proprietorship is an extension of the business owner, not separate from it. Although [...]

It has been a few years since I have reviewed and updated my resume. It is not always easy to translate a project or accomplishment onto paper. But doing so allows us to recognize our own achievements, something most of us do not do enough. I have been teaching undergraduate and graduate classes for six [...]

It’s official. The March edition of the ASCPA Magazine (Arizona Society of CPAs) has announced that I am the recipient of the 2010 ASCPA Public Service Award. The award can only be “won” once and I am honored to have been chosen as their award winner in 2010. To read more visit the ASCPA.

In order to succeed in business, it is important to have a sound business plan. Without proper planning, a business may fail and this is unfortunate. The utilization of tactical planning to compliment strategic goals, is a vital step towards success.  It is particularly important for small business owners to establish tactical planning goals to help achieve [...]

When you own or are starting a business, you need to implement benchmarking (aka Best Practices). This process helps to determine how your business is performing against your internal standards as well as your competition. Doing so will help you assess how effective or ineffective your business is performing in operations, customer services, sales, or [...]

A benchmark is an internal or external measure of how your business is performing. Benchmarking is also described as Best Practices and/or Ratios. Benchmarking is the most effective way to monitor and track the progress of how your business is doing, both good and bad. When you take a look at how you can make [...]

My husband is one of those people who achieves every goal he sets. He rarely encounters an obstacle that gets in the way of his goals. For years I was envious of his easy success. But I have come to accept that it is his mindset. And I’m changing mine. Recently I submitted an application [...]