I'm about ready to launch my first seminar for small businesses. It's quite a daunting task. Starting something new is never easy but it is often exciting. I'm finding this new venture to be both.
These seminars are focused directly at small businesses. Not the small businesses of the IRS Tax Code definition that gross $5,000,000 (yes that's FIVE MILLION DOLLARS), or $15,000,000 in some places in the Code, but the small, perhaps microscopic businesses operated in every town and city all over the country.
My seminars are directed at the "mom and pop" operations or just the "mom" or "pop" who is going it alone, with maybe a friend or relative strong-armed in now and then to help out. These seminars are for the business that is so small it doesn't have time to stop and consult with a CPA, or any other professional, and certainly no money to hire one.
These seminars will be short - no one has the time to leave their business to learn about business even if the knowledge is desperately needed.
The seminars will be inexpensive - small businesses are confronted weekly, if not daily, by someone with their hand out. Donate to this, buy that (it will be helpful), use this, advertise here. There's no extra cash in a small business.
The seminars will be informative for small businesses. No speaking in tax code and no belaboring information that's only important when there are 30 employees and $2 or $3 million in the bottom line.
When I began the research for these seminars I found myself digging though volumes of information that didn't matter to the small business because they were so small. But the authors of these research papers were trying to be all things to all businesses and I realized the majority of the information didn't apply to my audience. I realized if I was bogged down with unnecessary information, and I knew what I was looking for and I knew what applied, then a stressed out small business owner would be completely lost in the overload of technical jargon.
So, I decided to fill a need. I grew up in a small business as did both my parents and for the most part so did their parents (farming is a small business, too). So much is second nature to me because I heard about deductions and taxes all my life that I think everyone in business knows what I know.
When a client of twenty years asked me if she could deduct toilet paper and paper towels that she and her employees used in the shop, I was floored. Yes, certainly, that is a completely deductible business expense. But to her it wasn't. These items had nothing to do with her business and she hadn't been deducting them. Not a big deal. But every deduction helps against the bottom line.
BEST for Small Businesses was born.
The first seminar is called Get Started and Keep Going. This will cover a great many general issues facing small business owners such as the different types of operating entities - corporation (both C and S), partnerships, LLCs and sole proprietorships; how to be considered a for profit business and not a hobby and why that's important. I'll discuss the home office and how to deduct it as well as other business expenses. Taxes - local, state, federal, sales, payroll, personal property, the list is long - will be covered as well as records retention, hiring family members and what to expect during an audit. This seems to be a lot of information but the seminar is designed to sift out all the information that pertains to the larger business and focus on only what is meaningful to the smaller.
From this general seminar I will create others based upon the feedback I receive from the participants at this one. I have to start somewhere and this seminar was born out of all the questions I've received from small business owners during the past two decades that I've been a small business owner. For more information on this first BEST for Small Businesses see my face book page - LuAnnCurleeCPA - and Eventbrite, but I recommend paying here since it's the cheapest way to go and everyone needs to save money.
Keep an eye open for my next post on the seminar.
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