Home » Cover Your Assets
Important: The information on this page is based solely
on personal experience and is not to be taken as gospel. It is intended to be a
simple tool to get you started. Ultimately, you need to do your own research and
make your own decisions about what is best for you and your business.
Cover Your Assets
An important part of running any business is protecting your business. Everything’s
all good until someone gets hurt, physically or financially; then you have a problem.
We talked about obtaining insurance for your business on the Starting Your Business
page. You’ve taken care of that, right?
There are a few other things you need to address, including but not limited to:
- Good bookkeeping. If you’re not an accountant or you don’t know
anything about bookkeeping, fine; find someone who can help you. At the very minimum,
you need to save your receipts, packing slips, bills you’ve paid, money you’ve received…anything
that comes in and out of your business.
Now, you need to get a bookkeeping system. If you know a little something about
accounting, you might want to look into buying accounting software, such as QuickBooks.
It’s not that difficult to use if you utilize the help button when needed. Just
a word of advice…don’t spend business hours learning how to use your accounting
software. Do this after hours. It’s busy work and needs to be done when you’re not
growing your business. Ignore your business and it will go away.
If accounting is not even remotely close to your strong point, you might want to
call that temporary staffing agency we talked about on the Growing Your Business
page. If your business is not yet big enough to put a bookkeeper on your payroll,
consider having a temp come in once a week, every two weeks or once a month to get
your paperwork in order. Come tax time, you’ll be glad you did.
Hiring a CPA to do your quarterly or yearly tax returns is probably a must. Don’t
make it a big deal; just call a few of them up and tell them about your business
and let them know you’re looking in to finding someone to do monthly, quarterly
and/or annual tax returns. Ask them if it’s something they can help you with and,
if so, what kind of rates can you expect. Don’t make it harder than it is. Be sure
and shop around but this probably isn’t an area to sacrifice quality.
- Employee Supervision. One word: Documentation.
If you have put people on your payroll, document everything from jump street.
Stop, take the time and write it down! Employment relationships are just
like a partnership; everything is peachy-keen until someone gets ticked off. The
moment your former employee files an unemployment insurance claim, the powers that
be are going to ask you for dates, times, situations, resolutions and more. If you
don’t have the information, your ex-employee gets to stay home for the next six
months on your dime. No, it’s not fair but that’s just the way it is. Make sure
you write everything down…everything… and keep your Human Resources
files locked away, safe from employee access.
Things to document: Hire date; wage; attendance; violations; warnings. Do not ignore
unemployment claims! There are companies that specialize in handling unemployment
claims for you. Most of them are worthless. You depend on them to file the appropriate
paperwork in a timely fashion but they don’t. If someone has been awarded unemployment,
it’s a good idea to contact an attorney who specializes in unemployment claims to
handle the appeal for you. You can probably find one quickly by going to google
and entering your state plus the words “unemployment” and “attorney”. It’s important
to note that an employee handbook should always be given to each employee. It’s
also important to go over the handbook with the employee, ensuring they understand
everything. The employee then needs to sign a form stating he received it and understands
it. A question that will most likely be posed to you in an unemployment hearing
is “did the employee know that his job was in jeopardy if he did this or didn’t
do this”. Having said that, be sure that they were aware before the situation ever
came up that they could lose their job over whatever it was they did.
When an employee makes a mistake, let them know they made a mistake, preferably
in writing. Yes, it may be uncomfortable but it needs to be done. It can be as simple
as writing down the infraction, complete with dates and times and having them sign
it. Let them know it’s nothing personal; it’s just something you have to do as a
business owner. If you don’t have it in writing, it’s going to come down to a he-said
she-said match at the unemployment hearing and a crap shoot as far as who wins.
- Computers. Do this: Back up your files! You may never need your
backup files but what if you do? Then where will you be? Don’t make it hard; just
go to the office supply store and buy a portable hard drive and copy your files
to it. Easy! Files are backed up now. At the very minimum, backup your accounting
files every day.
Do this: Buy anti-virus protection. Anti-virus software is not
optional. It’s not something you put at the bottom of your list or say you’ll “get
that next week”. Get it now. When it expires, renew it. Seriously, $59 is not going
to close your doors (and if it does, you have bigger problems than anti-virus software)
but a really good virus will definitely ruin your world. If you’re heading to that
free anti-virus website right now…stop. It’s free for a reason.
These are three very important, key elements in covering your assets as a business
owner. Yes, there are more. You’ll learn as you go. Every business is different.
Be sure and ask that attorney you talked to when you started your business what
else you need to cover.
Starting Your Business
It doesn’t have to
be difficult. Stop
spending time on
busy work and open
your doors.
Growing Your Business
Get tips and tricks
on building your
business. Don’t
wait for it to come
to you.
Working From Home
Save the earth and a
ton of cash! Work
from home. It’s
amazingly easy and
inexpensive
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