Accounting, Tax

As more and more consumers purchase prepared food rather than cook at home, the currently attractive margins for such offerings face mounting challenges.  Not the least are labor costs, which are under pressure from economic and regulatory trends. Integrating higher labor costs into the pricing algorithm represents the next major challenge for food sector leaders.

Whether a neighborhood deli, central food kitchen, or gourmet restaurant, the need to find ways of doing more with the same or fewer employees is expected to become more important in 2017.

As recently as a decade ago, if you were a small business owner with a bad personal or business credit score, you could forget about getting a loan from a traditional bank or credit union.

March, April and May have long been associated with “spring cleaning,” and most small businesses take advantage of this time period to tidy up around the office and organize their work space. Unfortunately, too many small businesses forget to include a vital aspect of their everyday business in their spring cleaning routine– their virtual office.

Although many people do not value anything received free, there are many available resources that do not cost small businesses monies.

Kala Gibson, Senior V.P and Head of Business Banking, Fifth Third Bankreports seizing growth opportunities for your business is no easy task.

Personal and business data floods the mail and Internet during tax season.

And according to Tim Zeilman of the The Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company identity thieves are on the lookout.

Zeilman thinks small business leaders need to keep some things in mind.

The typical organization in loses 5% of its revenues to fraud each year. 

Although 5% may not sound like much, when you consider that the average profit margin in the U.S. is only 6.5%, a typical fraud occurrence could easily mean the difference between solvency and bankruptcy.  Globally that translates to $3.5 trillion. 

Buying a business is often a life-changing investment. Any new owner knows they are putting their money and reputation on the line. Naturally, they want to find the perfect investment – but the perfect business does not exist.

According to Andrew Cagnetta, the CEO of Transworld Business Advisors, grading a business comes down to five key criteria:

Many companies get to a stage where they are looking for an injection of significant funding to drive meaningful growth.

The desired funding is frequently used to scale up marketing, or to build the next generation of a product or service.

Everyone knows the importance of keeping their personal credit record in good shape.

Yet, according to Levi King, CEO of Creditera.com thousands of business owners don’t realize that their company has its own separate credit profile. This knowledge gap is hurting too many small business owners.

Scanning and depositing checks via mobile phone is a rapidly growing app used by 33 million consumers.

Another application of this app is used by many corporations with large fleets of service providers to scan invoices and accompanying checks in the field.

In fact, the use of this tool in larger corporations is expected to grow by about 40% in 2015.

However, smaller companies have not be able to utilize such offerings, according to Mitek.