More often than not, entrepreneurs require significant financing to launch their business. Ideally, you’d have the means to tap into savings to obtain the capital required to buy a building, furnish the space, purchase equipment, and launch a product or service line. Unfortunately, we all know that this is rarely the case. When looking for ways to finance your business, you’re faced with a choice between two types of funding: debt or equity. While it’s possible to combine the two to create a capital structure with more balance, it’s first important to explore the sources of funding that fall into each category…
Is Developing a Business Plan Worth Your Time?
When you’re working day and night to get a startup off the ground, it can be tempting to cut corners by skipping the creation of a business plan. If you’re connected with your vision, goals, ethics, and sources of funding, it can be even more tempting. While some successful startups have opted to skip a business plan, there are many benefits of sitting down and spending the time to create one. Not only does a formal plan lay out your goals in a physical, real way, but it also allows you to take the time to look for potential pitfalls in your plans…
Why You Should File ALL Returns Electronically and How QuickBooks Can Help
As a business owner, filing your tax returns can be a burdensome process. While the last thing you probably want to do is learn a new system to file your returns, it just might be the key to streamlining the filing process and accurately maintaining your data entry. Filing your returns electronically has many benefits, and there are a variety of software options out there to help get the job done. We’re partial to QuickBooks due to the platform’s ability to pull relevant information straight from your financial reports and file your returns from one location….
Why You Should be Considering Next Year's Filing Status Now
Filing your tax return often involves recording and entering a lot of information about your life and your earnings. If you’re someone who dreads sitting down and getting it all done, you might benefit from shifting your mindset. Instead of thinking of tax time as a few months out of the year, consider viewing your taxes as a part of your finances that can evolve and change at any time. One such area that’s often subject to change, is your filing status…
Creating Local Partnerships for Event Venue Exposure
Event venue managers and owners have to take on many different roles in order to shape their businesses into successful hubs of activity for guests. In a single day, your work might take you from bookkeeper, to inventory manager, to crisis counselor if an event goes wrong. One often overlooked role for managers of event venues is that of community outreach…
Selling Alcohol as an Event Venue in Illinois
Providing alcohol at your events can be a lucrative addition to the services you already offer as a venue. Renters and guests see it as a bonus on your list of amenities and will be relieved that they don’t have to provide their guests with alcohol themselves. If you do decide that selling alcohol is right for your event venue, make sure you research the requirements associated with buying from distributors and selling to guests…
Managing Assets When Your Business is Mobile
Every business has assets. Whether a food truck, mobile boutique, or a traditional brick and mortar store, the assets that you possess add value to your business and contribute to your day-to-day operations. That said, the types of assets you’ll need to manage as the owner of a mobile business will differ from those held by a traditional business. While the basic process is the same, it’s important to recognize the specifics in asset tracking for mobile businesses…
How to Track Inventory for Retail Business Owners
Developing a structured inventory management procedure is one of the most important aspects of any retail business. It’s a bold claim, but one that we think we can prove. The retail industry is powered by products, and even the best of stores is only as good as the stock that they have on-hand to sell. This is especially true for brick-and-mortar retail stores like boutiques. Creating a method to count inventory, track the funds you’ve invested in products, and know when to reorder is all an integral part of your business’s success…
How to Invest in Crytpocurrencies
How Do You Spend Cryptocurrency?
If cryptocurrency is, at its core, just like any other currency, how do we actually use it? Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies aren’t actually coins and they don’t come in a paper format. For the most part, this limits their use to online and debit purchases. But how does that work and who accepts them anyway…