06.02.14

Cutting Costs: Get Real About Your Real Estate Needs

Next to salaries, real estate typically is the largest expense item on a law firm’s income statement, making it a critical target for cost reduction efforts. This article examines how savings come not only from having smaller offices, but also from standardizing offices and adopting telecommuting options.

05.29.14

Fundraising 101: Rule 1 – Not All Funds Are Created Equal
Harry Fox

Types of funding vary greatly in how they can — or cannot — be used. This article discusses the differences between permanently restricted funds, temporarily restricted funds and unrestricted funds, and how to beef up donations of the latter.

05.22.14

What to Know About Uniform Transfer to Minors Act (UTMA) and Uniform Gift to Minors Act (UGMA) Custodial Accounts

Many parents are looking to find the best way to gift and save money for their children. There are various options, including 529 Plans, trusts and custodial accounts. This article addresses the advantages, and sometimes significant disadvantages, of custodial accounts.

05.21.14

Valuation Comparables in a Slow Market
Peggy Vyborny

The unstable real estate market over the past several years has posed many appraisal challenges. In particular, low purchase prices — often resulting from “distressed” sales — and a relatively small number of transactions in some markets can make it difficult for appraisers to locate comparable transactions (or comps), a critical element in many valuations. Qualified appraisers, however, have ways of dealing with such situations; this article discusses some of the adjustments they can make.

05.20.14

Interest Rates Must Be More Than Interesting
James Quaid

Plan loans are governed by many IRS and Department of Labor (DOL) rules and regulations. Even though they are an optional plan feature, if you choose to offer plan loans to your participants, your plan document must comply with the current laws, including the interest rate charged on these loans. Some plan documents stipulate an interest rate, while others do not. This short article discusses the rules pertaining to plan loan interest rates.

05.19.14

Cheers to Tax Breaks for Craft Brewers!
Robert Swenson

In honor of Chicago Craft Beer Week, here are some tax tips for the fledgling craft brewers out there. Between raising capital, navigating a maze of regulations and developing a great product, there is not much time left to think about taxes. However, it is very important to consider some tax implications of your operations sooner rather than on April 15.

05.17.14

Spring-Cleaning Tips for Every Entrepreneur

Since we are the Entrepreneur’s CFO, we know that you are busy and want to keep you informed on what’s going on in the industry. Now that there has been some time for things to settle down from tax season, maybe it’s time to reassess your own accounting. Maybe you can call it an entrepreneur’s […]

05.14.14

Use of Templates to Monitor Financial Performance

To help owners and managers make effective management decisions, they must have access to comparative information about their finances. Report templates can help aggregate key data to monitor financial performance. Templates can condense, organize and present critical data in a format that facilitates practice operations and management decisions.

05.13.14

Sunny Outlook for Distributors
Brandon W. Vahl

The U.S. warehousing and distribution industry is about to get a whole lot faster, bigger and leaner, according to a recent survey by a telecommunications consulting firm. Yet, as this article explains, many distributors might not take full advantage of this trend because they are decidedly low-tech when it comes to inventory management and other day-to-day operations. Even though the survey indicates that many plan to beef up their technology, they are also planning to reduce their employee-training time. But this could be a costly mistake.

05.01.14

Buyer Beware: UBIT Can Take a Bite Out of Alternative Investments
Jeffrey Chiles

The uncertain economy and turbulent financial markets of recent years have led some not-for-profit organizations to turn to alternative investments. While these investments may hold the potential of higher returns, they also come with the risk of unrelated business income tax (UBIT). Even in the absence of tax liability, alternative investments can involve significant filing requirements.