“Every business owner needs to be his or her own CFO!” So says Jay Goltz in the May 2009 issue of Fortune Small Business, page 17. I couldn’t agree more! “Delegating that task to a bookkeeper or an outside accounting firm means putting your life into their hands. They generally don’t know the ins and […]
Warren Buffet in the May 5th, 2009 New York Times Business section said: “Leverage is what causes people real trouble in this world. You don’t want to be in a position where someone can pull the rug out from you or, emotionally, where you pull it out from under yourself.” Hummm …
You might not think the phrase “Ponzi Scheme” applies to your remodeling company – think again! The March 23rd issue of the New Yorker magazine has an interesting article about Ponzi schemes entitled “Madoff and his Models” in which the author discusses 2 historic schemers who turned up client’s up-front money into personal cash. Towards […]
Click on the link below to see a chart illustrating how gross profit margin can change even after WIP calculations. Is this you? monthly-gpm-variability-real-life1 Even the best remodelers can end up in a quandary about the truth of their financial statements when gross profit margin slithers all over the map. Here’s a real life example […]
Over the years of working with remodeling contractors, some simple patterns have become apparent. One remodeler’s strong interest in people leads to success in sales. Another’s love for design produces award-winning projects. Still another with a fondness for systems can produce a company which produces predictable and repeatable customer experiences, time after time. Each company […]
No doubt you’re fully aware of the need to hire only certain types of companies as Independent Contractors for tax reporting purposes rather than employees. You might also be aware that if the IRS reviews the facts regarding the worker’s status, the employer can be held liability for all Federal employee taxes including: federal income […]
Developing a perfect chart of accounts combines art and science. Science because it is expected to follow GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) and Art because there must be a good balance between sufficient detail and elegant simple presentation. So I suggest using the sub-set ability in QBP to produce both. So, for example, in the […]
One of my favorite books “Construction Contractor’s Survival Guide” mentions a change in accounting systems as one of the 10 reasons contractors fail. Many times I’ve seen a company move from one accounting system to another and lose control of the very information they intended to control better through the change. Needless to say, this […]