Factoring Blog - For Small Businesses

Is your business ready for tax season? While you may only have to file income taxes once a year, it’s something you should be thinking about year round. Many business decisions you make will have tax implications and knowing those ahead of time can save you a lot of money.

You should be visiting your tax person at least quarterly, as well as any time you’re making a major decision.

1. Change in type of business entity. Tell your tax person if you’ve changed your business formation–sole proprietorship, Limited Liability Company, corporation, etc.–in any way.

2. Fixed asset changes. Did you buy, trade or sell any of your fixed assets such as property, plants, equipment or vehicles? If so, provide your tax accountant with the dates and dollar amounts of all related transactions. This could affect your tax liability because of depreciation.

3. Use of subcontracted services. If you paid an outside subcontractor more than $600 in a calendar year and the subcontractor is unincorporated, you will need to supply a 1099 form. It should be postmarked no later than January 31 of the following calendar year.

Read the remaining Ten Tax Time Considerations

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Barcodes have evolved into a useful tool for millions of businesses in a wide variety of industries. Barcode technology is faster and more accurate than entering information by hand on a keyboard — about 15 times faster and 10,000 times more accurate.

Barcodes are a sort of Morse code that uses bars and spaces to represent critical data about a product or document. Unfortunately, not all barcodes are the same, and there’s no universal business application.

If barcoding is something your business is considering you might want to check out this guide to Using Barcodes in Your Business

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There are essentially nine basic sources of growth for your business. All are potential opportunities for creating new growth trajectories.

1) Natural growth, where the market for what you make is strong and expanding

2) Gaining market share through low cost — high productivity growth, rapid cycle times, high asset turnover.

3) Proprietary or patented technology.

4) Highly-developed distribution channels that you have built over time.

5) Opening new markets for your existing products — for example, globalization.

6) Gaining power in the marketplace via acquisitions, alliances, vertical integration.

7) Expanding your pond.

Resegmenting your markets.

9) Moving into adjacent segments.

The first six are very familiar: If you haven’t tried them, you can read about them in many books and countless articles.

The last three are not part of the standard repertory. In fact they are more ways of thinking than anything else. They represent outside-in thinking and you should give them some thought.

A good resource for 9 Ways to a Growth Business

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Motorola Inc. is getting into the e-commerce business: The 79-year old, $35 billion company has launched an online store, Store.Motorola.com.

It offers Motorola products as well as wireless service plans for various telecommunications companies to go with its numerous mobile phones.

The site also includes a section for digital content–ringtones, wallpapers and games designed for use on mobile devices. Additionally the web store is promoting offers exclusive to the online sales channel.

The website is part of a strategic plan Motorola hopes will change the way consumers purchase mobile phones and wireless services.

I wonder how their other sales and channel partners feel about this new strategy?

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Guess what company this is speaking?

There are three pillars to my plan:

1. Focus the vision.

a) We need to boldly and definitively declare what we are and what we are not.

b) We need to exit (sell?) non core businesses and eliminate duplicative projects and businesses.

2. Restore accountability and clarity of ownership.

a) Existing business owners must be held accountable for where we find ourselves today — heads must roll,

b) We must thoughtfully create senior roles that have holistic accountability for a particular line of business (a variant of a GM structure that will work with Yahoo!’s new focus)

c) We must redesign our performance and incentive systems.

3. Execute a radical reorganization.

a) The current business unit structure must go away.

b) We must dramatically decentralize and eliminate as much of the matrix as possible.

c) We must reduce our headcount by 15-20%.

See who the company is: Fresh New Direction - Sound Familiar, Guess Who?

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