FREE Small Business Workshops in Chicago

The City of Chicago is going nuts with the workshops this month.

Their biggest event, Small Business Center on the Road, takes over the 12th floor of the Merchandise Mart on September 19th from 10 am-2 pm.  Among the 40+ exhibitors will be various local Chambers of Commerce, the Department of Revenue and Secretary of State, as well as consultants from the Small Business Center.  They’re offering a tax clinic, legal clinic, workshops on marketing, financing, and social media, and City of Chicago Business Consultants ready to help with licensing needs and answer questions.  Register at chismallbizexpo.com — it’s FREE!

 

Also, The City of Chicago’s Outreach & Education group is offering a bunch of workshops this month.  Please share with friends, family, or colleagues who could use the assistance!

 

How to Obtain a Mobile Food Dispenser/Prepare License

Presented by the City of Chicago Department of Business Affairs & Consumer Protection (BACP). 

This workshop will give you all the information you need to become either a Mobile Food Dispenser (MFD) or Mobile Food Preparer (MFP) licensed food truck operator. We will walk you through the MFD/MFP licensing process including inspections, the application, mobile food vehicle, and operational requirements, as well as the optional pre-application Mobile Food Vehicle Assessment.

Wednesday, September 16th

3:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. 

121 N. LaSalle

8th Floor – Room 805

 

Small Business Success

Presented by YWCA Metropolitan Chicago 

Learn the ins and outs of starting a small business and gain insight that will help you reach your goals. This workshop will cover starting your entity, marketing it for success and the intangibles of navigating the start-up arena.

Friday, September 18th

9:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. 

121 N. LaSalle

8th Floor – Room 805

 

How to Efficiently Manage Business Operations

Presented by Illinois SBDC at the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce and Blackwell Energies 

This workshop will focus on operations management and how to find savings at the operational level. It will cover operations management, energy and utilities, and other areas where savings can be obtained in the operation of a business. You will learn techniques that can quickly result in savings on operational costs and fatten your bottom line in the process!

Wednesday, September 23rd

3:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

121 N. LaSalle

8th Floor – Room 805
LinkedIn: Converting Connections to New Business

Presented by Digital Professional Institute and Dean DeLisle, Founder and CEO of Forward Progress

Dean DeLisle, Founder and CEO of Forward Progress, will take proven steps from our Social Selling Boot Camp and show you the most effective methods of connecting with your targets, gaining quality appointments, and finding the potential new clients in your network. You will also see what it takes to get THEM to find YOU by using LinkedIn for less than 20 minutes a day! Topics include optimize your profile, attract new prospects, leverage your connections to close business, increase targeted referrals, gain more powerful introductions, expand your pipeline and find new business channels.

Friday, September 25th

9:30am to 11:00am

121 N. LaSalle

8th Floor – Room 805

 

Protecting your Tech Start Up: Legal Considerations

Presented by Lema Khorshid, Fuksa Khorshid, LLC

Before opening the doors to your new technology concept, it’s important to be aware of legal risks that exist so you can properly protect your business. This workshop will explore different sources to fund your business venture and teach you some basic principles of how to protect yourself in litigation. We will also discuss intellectual property laws and provide practical approaches on how to implement a solid intellectual property plan. Also, we will talk about important employment laws as well as review lease agreements to help demystify confusing legalese.

Wednesday, September 30th

3:00pm to 4:30pm

121 N. LaSalle

8th Floor – Room 805

IRS — Making Quarterly Tax Payments Easier

My clients and colleagues are always amazed by my attitude about the IRS — fact is, I really think they do an incredible job, given the nature of their work and the constant budget constraints dealt them by Congress.

I’m sharing a couple examples today that relate to upcoming quarterly estimated tax payments.

The IRS manages to stay fairly up-to-date with technology, compared to most federal and state government agencies, at least.  It used to be such a pain to sign up for EFTPS and make payments, but now they offer “Direct Pay,” where you can both make and look up payments.

They also offer a mobile app, known as the “IRS2Go Mobile App,” which you can use to look up refund status, as well as to access the Direct Pay feature I just mentioned.

Considering the challenges the IRS is always up against, I think they do a great job, on the whole; and I, for one, am pretty jazzed about these new technological features.  Way to go, IRS!

Business Taxes for the Self-Employed – Aug 26

The IRS is offering a webinar on business taxes for self-employed folks — that means those of you who file Schedule C as part of your personal tax return.  You may be an independent contractor, a sole proprietor, or a single-member LLC — Schedule C applies to all of those situations.

The webinar is offered on August 26, 2015, at these times:
2 p.m. Eastern Time
1 p.m. Central Time
12 p.m. Mountain Time
11 a.m. Pacific Time

The IRS presenters will cover the following topics:

-Reporting profit or loss from a business or profession
-Self-employment tax and estimated tax payments
-Schedule C and C-EZ
-Deducting business expenses
-Husband and wife businesses
-Recordkeeping

For more information and to sign up, click here: Internal Revenue Service Webinar Registration Page

Please spread the word to your self-employed friends and colleagues!

IRS Webinar on Affordable Care Act Provisions for Employers

Small business employers — I can’t encourage you strongly enough to attend one of the upcoming IRS webinars on provisions in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that apply to YOU.  It’s not enough to presume your accountant or HR consultant will reach out and hold your hand through this process… you need to take charge and get educated about what expectations your employees and the IRS will have of you, and how to meet those requirements.  It only takes an-hour-and-a-half, and you’ll be a better employer and business owner for it.  Aug 20, 1–2:30 pm and Sep 16, 1:30–3 pm.

Source: Webinar Series offered on Affordable Care Act Provisions for Employers and Coverage Providers

Speaking 8/4 at the NSAC Annual Conference in Denver, CO

I’m only half-a-day into the annual NSAC Conference and am yet again inspired to spread the word about how cooperatives are so well-suited to allow for positive change in our world.  By eliminating the traditional shareholder/investor structure and replacing it with the role of servicing members/owners — giving them an active voice in governance and focusing on their needs — we encourage workers and stakeholders to participate in a democratic process that creates a sense pride to all involved.

I’ll be speaking tomorrow at 1:15 pm, along with Pat Sterner from NCBA and Phil Miller from NSAC, on the topic of cooperative types that are less familiar to NSAC members: grocery co-ops, housing co-ops, daycare co-ops, and worker co-ops, as well as healthcare co-ops and buying/sharing clubs.  If you’re in the Denver area or are already attending the conference, I’d love for you to join us.

I met two great speakers today, Adam Schwartz, founder of The Cooperative Way (favorite quote of the day: “If you’ve seen one co-op… you’ve seen one co-op.”), and also a part of the CDS Consulting Co-op; as well as Vern Dosch, of the National Information Solutions Cooperative, and author of “Wired Differently” — an inspiring book about leadership through service, and how to attract and retain talented employees with a positive company culture.

If you’re not familiar with cooperatives, or even if you are, but need reminding about why they’re so special, let me share with you the seven principles all cooperatives hold dear.  They were summarized in so many different ways this morning, including Helen Keller’s great quote: “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”

1) Voluntary, Open Ownership: Cooperatives are voluntary organizations, open to all people able to use its services and willing to accept the responsibilities of membership, without gender, social, racial, political or religious discrimination.
2) Democratic Owner Control: Cooperatives are democratic organizations controlled by their members—those who buy the goods or use the services of the cooperative—who actively participate in setting policies and making decisions.
3) Owner Economic Participation: Members contribute equally to, and democratically control, the capital of the cooperative. This benefits members in proportion to the business they conduct with the cooperative rather than on the capital invested.
4) Autonomy And Independence: Cooperatives are autonomous, self-help organizations controlled by their members. If the co-op enters into agreements with other organizations or raises capital from external sources, it is done so based on terms that ensure democratic control by the members and maintains the cooperative’s autonomy.
5) Education, Training And Information: Cooperatives provide education and training for members, elected representatives, managers and employees so they can contribute effectively to the development of their cooperative. Members also inform the general public about the nature and benefits of cooperatives.
6) Cooperation Among Cooperatives: Cooperatives serve their members most effectively and strengthen the cooperative movement by working together through local, national, regional and international structures.
7) Concern For The Community: While focusing on member needs, cooperatives work for the sustainable development of communities through policies and programs accepted by the members.

Hope to see you in Denver.  Give me a shout-out on the 2015 TFACC app if you’re here!  If not, let’s plan ahead for the upcoming NCBA Co-operative Professionals Conference this November 9-11 in Minneapolis, MN.  I’m co-chairing the Co-ops 101 Pre-Conference and would love to see lots of attendance by accountants who wish to expand their services to include co-ops.

QuickBooks Online Updates

Not sure how many of you QuickBooks Online users out there follow the QBO Blog, but I recommend it.  It’s not very sales-y, the posts are generally short and to-the-point, and the information is often pretty solid.  Case in point, the most recent QBO Update review of changes, here: QuickBooks update: June 26 2015 • QuickBooks Online

One thing to be aware of on their blog is that they often like to tout “pretty” updates, like changes to formatting and styles that they feel make things easier to read or navigate.  (I generally find these types of changes to be annoying wastes of time, especially when there are serious bugs that need desperately to be addressed.  Furthermore, in their effort to look more sleekly Apple i-design-y, they often increase the number of clicks it takes to accomplish a given task — a no-no in my book.  Case in point, the new version of bank registers.  Avoid it for now, is my suggestion.

However, something truly useful they recently included is the long-awaited ability to copy journal entries!  As they put it, especially convenient when you need to duplicate long journal entries.  Of course, saving a JE as a “Recurring” transaction (“Memorized” in the Desktop version) is still your best bet, but sometimes that’s not an option or not the most efficient option.  Here’s all you do:

Create (+) > Journal Entry > Recent Transactions > choose an entry > More > Copy.

Try it out.  You’ll love it.

Also, this update allows you to import invoice styles from Word, which I don’t think is a big deal, but clients LOVE.  So, go make a client happy and tell them they can now do this.  Another feature folks have been waiting for a long time that will win some smiles.

Main point is: follow the QBO Updates.  They’re often quite useful — and a handy archive is located here: http://quickbooks.intuit.com/blog/quickbooks-update-archive/

Chicago sales tax going back up to 10.25% in 2016

The Cook County Board has approved a 1-percentage-point sales tax increase to bail out the county worker pension system.  This increase is effective January 1, 2016.

More here: Cook County Board votes to raise sales tax – Chicago Tribune

This means that small businesses in Cook County — which includes the City of Chicago — need to make plans to update their POS and sales tax systems so that they don’t get caught charging the old, lower rate to customers, but paying the new, higher rate to IDOR.  It’s surprising how often I see this happen, so: businesses, mark your calendars!  Accountants, reach out to your clients!  A 1% spread over the course of a month or a quarter could mean a lot of cash out-of-pocket for companies, especially retail stores, that do not plan ahead.

As for why this is happening:

“The immediate problems is pensions. The city of Chicago alone has a $20 billion unfunded liability and when Moody’s Investors Service dropped the city’s debt rating to junk, it forced $2.2 billion in accelerated debt payments. So Cook County has to borrow more money now at higher interest rates to pay those newly due bills AND it has to increase sales taxes to that whopping 10.25% rate effective in January to help pay the interest on it all.”

Source: http://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/16/sticker-shock-sales-taxes-in-chicago.html

As for what it means for the poor, and for our communities… well, this is entirely my own opinion, so feel free to stop reading here if what you wanted to know about were the ramifications for accounting.

But, in my opinion, it’s important to remember that sales tax hikes, unlike income taxes, affect even the poorest among us. If you don’t make a lot of money, then you have to spend 100% of it just to keep going. That means 100% of it is subject to sales tax. It’s not the same for someone with disposable income, who can choose not to buy something because sales tax makes it too expensive.

Furthermore, an over-ten-percent tax rate hurts the local economy, causing businesses to avoid locating here and customers to avoid shopping here, choosing the suburbs instead.  (This is not just my opinion — studies have shown this is exactly what happens:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-cook-county-tax-0719-biz-20150717-story.html#page=1 )

Lastly, this hike is entirely to shore up a pension fund that they’ve known for years was underfunded. An emergency measure now, when this is obviously something that bad planning caused in the first place, smacks of crappy governance.

But that’s just my opinion.  The important take-away as a small business owner or accountant?  UPDATE YOUR POINT OF SALE AND SALES TAX SYSTEMS BEFORE JANUARY 1.

Fixing QuickBooks Online Accountant Chrome Login Problems

I’d say that a solid 65% of the time — possibly more — that I have issues with QuickBooks and research the web for solutions, I end up at the Sleeter Group blog.  You’ve heard me rave about Greg Lam, Bonnie Nagayama, and Charlie Russell, and of course, about the annual Sleeter Technology Conference.  I’m raving once again.  Here’s Charlie’s simple list of “what to do” when once again, QuickBooks Online won’t let you sign in using Chrome, for whatever reason.

Fixing QuickBooks Online Accountant Chrome Login Problems – Sleeter Report — QuickBooks and Beyond

Accounting Services for Small Businesses