Business Services

1. Succession Planning

If you own a family business and are planning for retirement, you’ve got some critical questions to answer like…

“What happens to the business when I’m no longer running it?” and

“Will I have enough money to retire?”

The family dynamic complicates the whole transition because of the relationships and emotions involved. Most people are not comfortable discussing topics such as aging, death, and financial affairs.

Comfortable or not, succession planning should be a priority for any family business considering that more than seven out of ten family-owned businesses fail to survive the transition from founder to second generation, typically falling prey either to estate taxes or family discord – or both.

Developing and implementing a well-designed succession plan is essential to the survival of a family business from one generation to the next.

We help you with these key issues –

• Keeping it in the family. Are you going to pass the business on to your family or sell it to a third party? We help you weigh the advantages and disadvantages of each of these options.
• Who’s going to run the business when you’re gone? Management and ownership are not the same. You may decide to transfer management of your business to just one of your children but transfer equal shares of business ownership to all your children, whether they’re actively involved in the business or not.
• Minimizing the tax bite. The tax burden when transitioning a family business can be significant. The challenge is that a family business is not generally a liquid asset, but taxes are typically due when ownership is transferred.
• Making it fair. Transferring family ownership often adds a tremendous amount of stress to individual family members. We talk with each of the family members to ensure that they feel they a getting an equitable and fair share of the pie.

What we do for you…

Once we understand how you feel about the key issues above, we begin constructing your succession plan focusing on these 5 issues…

I. Business Valuation

II. Business Restructuring

III. Tax Consequences

IV. Retirement Projections

V. Tax Projections

2. Part Time CFO

Growing businesses often reach a point where they need professional financial advice but can’t afford a full-time CFO or controller. If you’re fortunate enough to be in this position, then we have the perfect solution for you. We will assist in outsourcing this integral service to give you a professional financial manager who works with you to help guide your business to success. We will be help to evaluate, place, and support the hired contractor.

The cost of hiring a full-time CFO can range from $60,000 to over $100,000 per year plus bonuses and benefits. Part-Time CFO services provides you with experienced support at a small fraction of that cost.

Here’s what you get with a Part-Time CFO services…

• A professional who establishes strong financial controls in your business to increase profits.
• A readily available sounding board to help you with those tough business decisions and help you clarify your business plans.
• Analysis of equipment purchases, expansions, etc.
• Assistance in defining long-range plans and the quantification of goals.
• Assistance in obtaining financing from banks, including assistance with negotiations.
• Better understanding of the financial side of your business. So you have less surprises and more control over the money.
• Budget preparation and monitoring.
• Cash management.
• Custom designed collection policies and procedures.
• Development of company accounting procedure manuals.
• Improved decision-making capabilities from clearly seeing the hard and true numbers of your business.
• Improved quality and timeliness of financial information.
• Liaison with bankers, attorneys, vendors, insurance agents, etc.
• Mergers and acquisitions assistance.
• More time to focus on new services, new customers, and other core business issues.
• Tax saving strategies.
• The comfort from knowing that a professional is overseeing, protecting and constantly improving the financial side of your business.
• Training and managing your accounting staff.
• Trend analysis.

3. Internal Controls

At times you may need a trained outside professional to evaluate your company’s operations to determine if the appropriate controls are in place to ensure proper handling of resources and to protect yourself from employee theft.

We assess your internal control systems to determine the efficiency and effectiveness of your operating procedures. Then we make recommendations that help your company become stronger and more profitable by correcting any inefficient or ineffective operating procedures we find.

What we do for you…

• Implement segregation of duties so that duties are divided, or segregated, among different people to reduce risk of error or inappropriate actions. No one person has control over all aspects of any financial transaction.
• Make sure transactions are authorized by a person delegated approval authority when the transactions are consistent with policy and funds are available.
• Ensure records are routinely reviewed and reconciled, by someone other than the preparer or transactor, to determine that transactions have been properly processed.
• Make certain that equipment, inventories, cash and other property are secured physically, counted periodically, and compared with item descriptions shown on control records.
• Provide employees with appropriate training and guidance to ensure they have the knowledge necessary to carry out their job duties, are provided with an appropriate level of direction and supervision and are aware of the proper channels for reporting suspected improprieties.
• Document policies and procedures and making them accessible to employees. The documented policies and procedures provide day-to-day guidance to your staff and continuation of duties in the event of prolonged employee absences or turnover.
• Review operations to ascertain whether results are consistent with established objectives and goals and whether the operations are being carried out as planned.

A Strategic Business Plan is much more than a tool to obtain financing. Preparing a strategic plan helps you clarify your company’s direction, ensures your key leaders are all “on the same page”, and keeps both management and staff focused on the tasks at hand.

A Strategic Plan is often needed when…

• Starting a new venture, product, or service
• Expanding a current organization, product, or service
• Buying a new business, product, or service
• Turning around a declining business

The Strategic Plan provides a blueprint, describing your company, its products, the competitive environment, management team, financial health, and business risks.

The plan allows you to…

1. Identify and describe the target customer profile, features, advantages and benefits of your new venture, product or service.
2. Justify that your plans are credible by fully researching the need being filled with your new venture.
3. Develop marketing plans including full descriptions of targeted promotional campaigns with implementation timelines. You also get to examine market conditions, the nature of your customers, as well as your competitors, sales potential, and projected results of your promotional campaigns.
4. Develop staffing plans including identifying the key players, skills, attitudes and expertise needed to build the venture.
5. Develop management plans including full descriptions of management systems and timelines for implementation.
6. Develop financial plans including projected startup costs, operating costs, revenue, profits, and break-even analysis for the first 3 to 5 years. a) Projected financial plans allow you to effectively predict upcoming problems, or prevent them. In other words, the perspective gained through your Strategic Business Plan can make a significant contribution to your company’s success, and help you get the funding you require. In fact, most lending institutions and private investors will not even talk to you without a solid financial plan.
7. Identify building and equipment needs including vendors and cost estimates.
8. Formulate company milestones including timelines for upcoming products and services in development.

Remember: Failing to plan is planning to fail.

• Let us help you develop a powerful Strategic Business Plan that drives your business to the level of success you deserve.