I get a great deal of value from my annual membership with the National Society of Accountants for Cooperatives, and one of the most valuable benefits is free access to their Cooperative Learning Network — “webinars that provide easy access to presentations, panel discussions and conversations by leading experts and fellow members on a variety of topics and issues important to those in the cooperative world”. (I would argue that any small business consultant will get great value from these — not just those who work with co-ops.) However, you can take these classes as a non-member as well, for a small fee (usually $56), which includes CPE credit. They are usually well worth it, as there are some topics that they cover, such as small business fraud and preparing for a third-party audit, that no other accounting/bookkeeping membership organization seems to do quite as well.
I mention this because they have a great line-up of CLNs in the next few months and I wanted to highlight some of them:
For those out there considering expanding your scope to include cooperatives, I strongly encourage it, as there are simply not enough co-op bookkeepers and accountants out there to fill the need; cooperatives are one of the fastest-growing segments of the small business population and we need your help to keep them on solid financial footing. NSAC offers Basic and Advanced Cooperative Accounting Seminars — training in the core concepts unique to working for or with cooperatives such as equity management, tax planning and risk management.
I’ll be attending all three of the above webinars and hope to “see” you there!
If this or any other posts on the website were useful to you, and your financial situation permits it, please consider contributing to my tip jar. Ths allows me to continue to provide free accounting resources to small businesses who do not have the funds available to hire a CPA.
My trusted colleagues over at Wegner CPAs are putting on a two-week series of FREE webinars geared toward small business owners. They will go through each of the following current Federal relief programs designed to help small businesses make it through to a brighter day:
Employee Retention Credit 2021
Employee Retention Credit 2020
Shuttered Venue Operator Grants
Paycheck Protection Program
Restaurant Revitalization Fund
Economic Injury Disaster Loans
All of these programs have been changed over the past month to make them more useful to small business owners — often with the effect that multiple programs are available simultaneously. The resulting complexity is a real challenge, but the amount of financial relief available makes it worth learning what you can (and potentially working with a professional to make it happen).
We have been reaching out directly to clients who we believe qualify for each of these programs — but if you work with us and think you are eligible, yet haven’t been contacted, please let me know.
Employee Retention Credit 2021 Tuesday, March 30, 2021 10:00 am – 10:30 am CDT (8:00 am PT / 11:00 pm ET) ERC in 2021 can result in big dollars for your organization. We will discuss how to determine if you’re eligible and how to be sure you file for the credit timely. Register
Employee Retention Credit 2020 Wednesday, March 31, 2021 10:00 am – 10:30 am CDT (8:00 am PT / 11:00 pm ET) Were you eligible for ERC in 2020? Find out as we take a deeper dive into the credit eligibility requirements and rules for last year. We’ll also review what you need to do to claim the credit for 2020. Register
Shuttered Venue Operator Grants Thursday, April 1, 2021 10:00 am – 10:30 am CDT (8:00 am PT / 11:00 pm ET) The SVOG portal opens on April 8th. Are you eligible and ready to apply? Join us to learn more about the program and what you need to be doing now to prepare. Register
Paycheck Protection Program Tuesday, April 6, 2021 10:00 am – 10:30 am CDT (8:00 am PT / 11:00 pm ET) Updates continue to roll out for PPP. We’ll discuss what the soon to be signed extension means for applicants and tips on getting through the application process. We’ll also review the updated loan calculation for Schedule C filers. Don’t forget about PPP loan forgiveness! Register
Restaurant Revitalization Fund Wednesday, April 7, 2021 10:00 am – 10:30 am CDT (8:00 am PT / 11:00 pm ET) The SBA announced that they hope to have RRF up and running by early April. We will review timely released guidance and how to prepare for applying to the program. Register
Economic Injury Disaster Loans Thursday, April 8, 2021 10:00 am – 10:30 am CDT (8:00 am PT / 11:00 pm ET) The EIDL program has continued to evolve over this last year. There are EIDL loans and EIDL grant advances. Are you eligible for either? Learn more about this program and the changes that have come from the last two stimulus bills. Register
If this or any other posts on the website were useful to you, and your financial situation permits it, please consider contributing to my tip jar. Ths allows me to continue to provide free accounting resources to small businesses who do not have the funds available to hire a CPA.
As with all interviews, one shares more information than can be printed, so I always enjoy posting the full interview here on my blog.
What are your goals for 2021 in the following areas for yourself and/or your business?
Career goals: What would you like to accomplish professionally in 2021, and why?
It has been a long-standing goal to start putting my company’s internal systems on the same level of importance as client work… to prioritize them in the spirit of “Profit First” (which I’m also terrible at doing, despite being an accountant). Everyone else’s needs always seem more pressing than our own company’s: cybersecurity, engagement letters, contracts, operating agreements, workflows/ procedures/ standardization, and billing. I would love to “catch up” and focus on my own company’s health with as much passion and investment as I show my clients’ companies. To that end, I am hoping to slow down client acquisition growth (we always have a waiting list, so this is challenging), develop staff internally, and hire an administrator to help keep me on-track and focused on these projects.
Technology skills: What technology skills will be most important for your job in 2021? Is there anything new you’d like to learn?
I have prided myself on being at the forefront of accounting technology for a long time, compared to many CPAs — most colleagues that I know either focus on the tax side or the bookkeeping side, whereas we make it our goal to straddle both worlds and provide value-added accounting services in doing so. I think we pull that off quite well where our clients are concerned — we have a rich tech stack and solid implementation resources for automating accounting, bookkeeping, point of sale, payroll, retirement and similar systems. However, internally, our own systems are very disjointed. Because of the challenges of staff growth and migrating away from legacy software, we do not follow the same advice we give clients — to make sure all the apps in our tech stack “talk to each other”. Therefore, technology-wise, my goals align with the career goals I mentioned earlier: focus on internal needs and improving workflows to make us more efficient. This includes migrating time-tracking & billing software, using Zapier to automate client onboarding and database population, and switching file upload software to automatically connect with our cloud file servers.
Professional development: What professional development goals do you have for 2021, and what learning opportunities are most helpful to you?
Continuing education is never-ending in our firm! It seems my staff and I are always attending one webinar or another — on such diverse topics as PPP (my favorites being the AICPA Town Halls and Alan Gassman‘s periodic free sessions); ERC and tax law changes (Tom Gorczynski and Tony Nitti are favorites); Intuit’s QuickBooks Online In The Know updates; and app demos (I recommend Hector Garcia, Heather Satterley, and Cathy Iconis‘s regular offerings)… as well as the usual suspects, such as tax updates (I never miss the NATP Annual Conference, and usually attend Tax Speaker‘s year-end class), and co-operative topics (a niche market for my firm, I like the NSAC webinars as well as the annual CPG Conference). CPA Academy also offers highly-specific free or low-cost webinars that I find quite valuable. I provide a good budget for both time and course costs to my staff because I want them all to be as excited about learning new things as I am. We each have different interests and areas of expertise.
Business opportunities: What are your business goals for 2021, and why?
The pandemic made me realize how much of a dedicated following my award-winning blog has… it truly hadn’t hit home until I realized I was one of the only reliable sources nationally for the constantly-changing Paycheck Protection Program. I started offering free zoom Q&A sessions to my clients and colleagues every week, and some of these I shared on the blog. The feedback has been incredible. It reminded me how much I love teaching, and gave me renewed interest in offering low-cost educational materials and sessions specific to small business owners (and the bookkeepers and accountants who assist them). I’ll be exploring this direction more in the coming year.
Anything else: Is there anything else you’d like to add?
My staff and I have operated a remote company for years, but I still met with clients in-person most of the time. This limited the personal goal I had of becoming a “digital nomad” and traveling while working (my husband’s software development work is 100% remote). The pandemic changed all that — we were in Yucatán, Mexico on a tax-season work retreat when Covid-19 hit, and we simply never went back home to Chicago. (We intend to do so once a vaccine is widely-available.) My clients had the opportunity to discover that I am every-bit as involved in my hyper-local community from afar as I was at home, and the silver lining is that I am now considering what my new office will look like… will it be half-a-year in Chicago and the other half elsewhere? Will we sell our home and live on a boat? What about every tax season being somewhere sunny? The options are endless and give me some extra energy and anticipation while I trudge through the challenging task of keeping my small business clients afloat to see a brighter future.
If this or any other posts on the website were useful to you, and your financial situation permits it, please consider contributing to my tip jar. This allows me to continue to provide free accounting resources to small businesses who do not have the funds available to hire a CPA.
A slide from this morning’s CPA Loan Portal-AICPA update.
Big changes yet again in the world of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), where it sometimes seems the only constant is change.
The White House released a Fact Sheet early yesterday indicating immediate changes to the program intended to shift focus to small businesses with few or no employees, and increase program access to those who may otherwise have been shut out.
The five main changes, as summarized in the CPA Loan Portal-AICPA slide above (from this morning’s webinar), are in two different areas — “Focusing On Small Businesses” and “Increasing Program Access”, and are as follows:
Starting Wednesday, a temporary pause in applications for 20+ employee businesses.
New eligibility calculation rules for Schedule C self-employed (see below).
Borrowers with non-fraud convictions will no longer be prevented from applying.
Student loan delinquency will no longer prevent borrowers from applying.
Clarify that ITIN applications for non-citizens will be accepted.
The biggest take-away for our client base is #2 above — this particular section of the White House statement:
Help sole proprietors, independent contractors, and self-employed individuals receive more financial support. These types of businesses, which include home repair contractors, beauticians, and small independent retailers, make up a significant majority of all businesses. Of these businesses, those without employees are 70 percent owned by women and people of color. Yet many are structurally excluded from the PPP or were approved for as little as $1 because of how PPP loans are calculated. To address this problem, the Biden-Harris administration will revise the loan calculation formula for these applicants so that it offers more relief, and establish a $1 billion set aside for businesses in this category without employees located in low- and moderate-income (LMI) areas.
The SBA followed up with their own release shortly afterwards, stating, “The 14-day exclusivity period will start on Wednesday, February 24, 2021 at 9 am, while the other four changes will be implemented by the first week of March. The SBA is working on the program changes and will communicate details throughout this week.”
What does this mean for applicants and their advisors?
PPP loans are based on wages to employees, which are subject to “payroll tax” (or “Social Security & Medicare taxes”). Whereas for certain types of one-person companies that don’t have payroll, the amount is calculated based on the net profit from IRS 1040 Schedule C — the amount on which “self-employment tax” is paid (also known as “Social Security & Medicare taxes”).
As CNBC reports, because of this method of defining “payroll” for the self-employed, some applicants saw very low loan amounts in previous rounds of the program, because they make very little in profit.
To “fix” the issue, the SBA is revising the formula to match what it uses for farmers. This basically means that they will calculate loan amounts from gross income instead of net profit.
This means that millions of small business owners who posted a loss in 2019 or 2020 will still be able to apply for PPP funds, based on their revenues before deductions are taken.
This sounds wonderful — and to some extent is — but it’s inherently unfair to partnership owners, who also have their PPP loans based on self-employment income. It’s also unfair to the millions of Schedule C filers who already applied for both rounds of the PPP without the benefit of this changed rule.
In a Forbes article from yesterday afternoon, Brian Thompson pointed out, “even more important is the question of whether this formula will be retroactive for those sole proprietors who have already applied. We don’t know yet whether these businesses will be allowed to gross up based on the new formula.”
As for small business advisors, it puts us back in a sprint again, during an already-grueling tax season. This morning, we developed our plan internally for next steps, which is to identify:
1) Clients who file Schedule C; 2) Who have not filed for PPP; 3) Because they have a loss or very low income on Line 31 of their 2019 Schedule C.
Then we’ll reach out to each one of them to explain that they may in fact be eligible for PPP after all, and to offer to prepare their application through our CPA Loan Portal, as we’ve been doing since early January for all our clients who qualify.
Although I am extremely grateful for this opportunity for small business owners, the inequity of the situation is extremely upsetting; we will see if additional changes are made that allow partnerships and prior applicants to use the same rules. But even if those concessions are made, there is an inherent issue with using gross revenues rather than net — which is that other types of single-member companies (S-corps, C-corps, Non-profits and Co-operatives) did not have the same option, and I know quite a few that suffered from lack of PPP funding as a result; even harder-hit were newer companies that did not show a 25% decrease from 2019 to 2020. (It’s hard not to go up from zero.)
I could go on, but I won’t, because it’s tax season and I have to take care of client deliverables in the midst of it all. Who knew that client financial relief would be such a moving target?
If this or any other posts on the website were useful to you, and your financial situation permits it, please consider contributing to my tip jar. This allows me to continue to provide free accounting resources to small businesses who do not have the funds available to hire a CPA.
My colleague Eric Krienert will be teaching a one-hour webinar on October 22 on the topic of the Paycheck Protection Program. This session will provide an overview from a cooperative perspective of loans and forgiveness under the PPP. Beginning with the economic necessity certification, to qualifying expenses, to the spending timeframe and FTE limitation — an explanation will be provided on restoring FTEs and wage limitation before looking at the loan forgiveness application process. The session will conclude with a review of tax and other considerations.
If this or any other posts on the website were useful to you, and your financial situation permits it, please consider contributing to my tip jar. This allows me to continue to provide free accounting resources to small businesses who do not have the funds available to hire a CPA.
I’m particularly excited about this upcoming webinar offered by the National Society of Accountants for Cooperatives (NSAC) — Tuesday, September 29, 2020 at 2 pm ET / 1 pm CT / 12 pm MT / 11 am PT — entitled “Distinguishing between patronage, nonpatronage and nonmember income“.
Why? Well, not only is it an important and complex topic about which there is little written — and even less often presented at conferences and in continuing education settings — but it’s being taught by some of my very favorite colleagues in the co-op world. In particular, Teree Castanias and George Benson are regular educators in the space of cooperative tax issues, and among the very finest in their fields. (And one of the moderators is none other than a friend of mine, the extremely knowledgeable and dedicated Rebecca Smith.)
“This session will discuss the consequences of patronage distributions and/or patronage retentions in the current environment. Panelists will discuss prior case law and the proposed regulations as well as the consequences of both in the current environment.”
If you work in co-op accounting, you owe it to yourself and your clients to take an hour out of your day to get up-to-speed on this complicated and essential topic. It’s a fast, convenient, easy, and affordable way to learn from some of the leaders in the field. Nope, they don’t pay me to say this… I’m just excited about it. Register here. See you there!
If this or any other posts on the website were useful to you, and your financial situation permits it, please consider contributing to my tip jar. This allows me to continue to provide free accounting resources to small businesses who do not have the funds available to hire a CPA.
Saturday, August 8th is the last day to apply for Paycheck Protection Program funding.
As a reminder, the program is open to independent contractors, gig workers, sole proprietorships, partnerships, LLCs, S-Corps, C-Corps, cooperatives, and non-profits, among others.
This recent Forbes article summarizes the current state of the program. If you need assistance calculating the maximum loan based on your type of entity, see this blog post, which links to the SBA guidelines.
If this or any other posts on the website were useful to you, and your financial situation permits it, please consider contributing to my tip jar. This allows me to continue to provide free accounting resources to small businesses who do not have the funds available to hire a CPA.
I took a webinar a couple of months ago through NSAC by this same presenter, Steve Dawson of Dawson Forensics. I found his style to be approachable and friendly, and the information useful and applicable to all small businesses, not just cooperatives. He even kindly took the time to speak with me afterwards when I emailed to ask for some follow-up information, and offered his time gratis to a client with a time-sensitive question. Clearly he is passionate about helping others in the field.
This upcoming 1-hour webinar (which I will also be attending) seems like something that would be useful for any small business that has grown enough that it has a need for internal controls, but does not know which ones or how to implement them — as well as for accounting and bookkeeping professionals who would like to assist their small business clients in this area. I am eager to hear actual case examples as illustrations of what went wrong and what could have been done to prevent the issues in the first place.
This session focuses on the most common types of internal fraud occurring in Cooperatives. Actual case occurrences serve as the backdrop for presenting what went wrong, the lack of or failure of internal controls, and what can be implemented now to alleviate these types of occurrences in the future.
I’ve avoided client board meetings for years because I enjoy neither the drama nor the bureaucracy, and the feeling of being beholden to so many people who disagree with each other — and sometimes with me — gives an unenviable feeling of being stuck in the middle.
However, I’ve recently come to realize that not attending board meetings does the client a disservice. As stated appropriately in this recent Accounting Web article:
There is a role for the CPA to play concerning the plans for certain agenda items the board may be considering and to properly document various decisions that have tax implications so they are part of the corporation’s tax records. Live attendance is encouraged, as your availability can only encourage questions and provide documented confirmation concerning tax planning.
Not only does attendance encourage questions, but the CPA can help boards determine which questions to ask, and to help teach them about financial literacy. It can also foster communication between management and the board when everyone is on the same page.
Your client is the entity, not the individual owners in this setting. If dissension should surface, “adviser” is the watchword, not “advocate.” The minority position could regard you as being allied with the majority, suggesting favoritism is at play more than professional regard for a given position or action. Make your positions clear, and by all means make a note to your file concerning any such discussion. Overall, participation in an annual meeting gives the practitioner an opportunity to shine. You will remind the client of your value to the entity.
