The "ADD" Accountant

TN Unemployment Changes

You may have already received information related to 2 retroactive changes that have been passed into law in the past few weeks that relate to Tennessee Insurance (“SUTA”).  I wanted to explain the changes to you and let you know about the process for retro-paying the additional insurance(“tax”) that is being imposed.

First the TN Department of Labor and Workforce Development has imposed a retroactive rate increase across the board of .6%.  You will receive a notice of determination from the state that will look like your 1^st qtr return was done incorrectly...that was not the case, they have retroactively applied this tax and it is now a different rate than was originally imposed at the time of filing.  There will be verbage on the notice explaining the resulting amount you now owe.

Secondly and this one is a little trickier, in that it also directly affects every employer retroactively but will be imposed on your 2^nd qtr TN Unemployment return.  The overall wage base will increase from $7000 to $9000 for every employee.  What this means is that usually only the first $7000 of wages paid to each employee is subject to TN unemployment insurance.  For a company at the default rate of 2.7% this works out to $189.00 per year per employee.  If the employee was paid more than $7000 in the first quarter only the 1^st $7000 was “taxed” and the overage was exempt from the 2.7% insurance/tax rate.

Now, every employee’s wage base will increase to $9000.  Any previously exempt amounts will now become a part of your new rate (or in other words your normal rate + .6%).  So if your default rate was 2.7% it is now 2.7%+.6% on the whole $9000 which equates to $297 per employee.  This effectively is a  57% insurance rate increase.  If you have 10 employees the additional cost is $1080 per year, ouch!

With all of this being said, if we handle your payroll feel rest assured that it will be calculated going forward correctly.  You will still receive a bill from the TN Dept of Labor for the first qtr rate increase.  When you receive the notice, you should fax us a copy and then unfortunately cut a check to the addressed envelope included.

If we handle the payment and filing of your payroll taxes and payroll filings you will be receiving a notice from us of the uncollected state unemployment to date.   We will let you know when we will be collecting the additional previously uncollected liability in order to timely remit it to the TN Department of Labor. 

 

If all of this makes your head swim....feel rest assured it does ours too....but we have it all figured out.....

In the mean time please feel free to contact us if you are still confused or are now more confused than ever.

 

Also here is a link to the notice as provided by the TN Dept of Labor http://www.tennessee.gov/labor-wfd/Employers/2009_UI_LegislationLetter.pdf

New ARC Loan program from SBA

Article from FBMA Member Update.

Here is some information on a great new SBA program designed to help small business with the current credit crunch.

In addition to the above article, one of my friends Chad Bourdeaux in Wylie, SC wrote a great summary about the new program on his blog.

www.yourcpapartners.com/blog

I am now going to do some research and see what lenders are going to be doing the ARC loans in the Memphis area....

Define.Communicate.Deliver!

I have been fortunate enough to spend the past two weeks working on my practice instead of in my practice.  Twice a year I go to the national conference of PASBA, or Professional Association of Small Business Accountants.  This group and likewise the conference have shaped our firm like nothing else.  I am able to bounce ideas off of great firm leaders and listen and share ideas that lead to great profitability, efficiency, and effectiveness of how we deliver the services we provide.

This year we learned a lot about the idea of creating a business that truly embodies the "E-Myth" and to create a system that works to deliver the services in an efficient documented manner.

I learned a ton and am excited about implementing as much as possible as quickly as possible.

The following week I attended a new leadership community called, Rootworks.  This was led by Darren Root.  An innovator and leader in the small accounting firm community.  I have to say how much I thoroughly enjoyed being a part of such thought provoking leadership and the ability to be exposed to the latest technologies.

My homework is extensive, but it starts with the core premise that our firm must firm must first define what we do, what we don't do, who we work with, and to whom we will not work with.

It then requires that once we know what we do, we should define what we do good and what we do great.  We would then need to define the implementation steps that would be required to take our services from good to great in each of those areas. Lastly, it would require us to determine how would we imrove the things we do great to "Next Generation Firm Status" by utilizing technology.

It was extremely powerful and I have a ton to get done!  First step, defining what we do...

I will keep you updated...

Rootworks-Next Generation CPA Firm

I am really excited about joining this group.  I am hoping it continues the direction that our practice has been heading in since we joined PASBA in April 2008.  RootWorks Leadership Community.  It will touch both of my interests Technology and Firm Management.  Man am I a geek......

Small Business is the Golden Goose: Don't Kill It - Jim Blasingame

I love reading Jim Blasingame.  Here is a great article on small business and the tax consequences on raising the rates for people making more than a theoretical $250K

Small Business is the Golden Goose: Don't Kill It - Jim Blasingame.

New Year...New Goals???

With the start of a New Year if you are like me it is a time of reflection, goal setting, re-commitment, and optimism. 

This year with the economy being what it is, the pessimism passed on by every major new organization, and the new President coming in on the 20th I feel it is a time to really look at where we want to go in 2009.

At my firm we always have a year end planning meeting for ourselves where we reflect on where we have been, where we are going, and how we can measure how we are going to get there and how we are doing....

This past week we spent New Year's Eve doing just this.  We have now established our goals for the practice, re-evaluated our best practices, and "tweaked" our leading indicators.

If you have not done so yet, it is not too late. 

The keys to setting goals is to make them S.M.A.R.T goals.   You should also look at your metrics on how you plan on getting there.  I am a big believer in Leading indicators.  Metrics should be something you can measure and control today that affects the future.  They should not be a reflection of where you have been.  It is good to keep a dashboard of past results, but they do not help change where you are going they only tell you where you have been.

If you are interested in learning more about leading indicators, I would HIGHLY recommend reading any of Ron Baker's books.  Particularly

It is an awesome book and a true guide of my practice.

Oh ya, One of my goals....writing in my blog more than once every 3 months......Happy New Year!

Go Sox Go

Man that JD Drew!!! (I refer to him as JYD or junk yard dog)

I was sitting on the couch in a near coma and full blown Youkilis body sweat every time Teixeria and Vlad came up... Now back to boston for beckett for game 3 . I probably need to tale a sedative for the game just in case.

Glad to be back after a few weeks off...I will try to update next time on my thoughts on the crappy bail out bill the gov't rammed down our throats!!!

Olympics and Red Sox

These Olympics are messing up my sleeping patterns more than my usual late night haunts of SportsCenter, that 70s show, and diners, drive-ins, and dives on the Food Network.  However, the thing that sucks about the NBC broadcast is that you get like 3 minutes of action for every 57 minutes of sob stories, family history, or interviews with the winners of events we did not even to get watch.  They do not let you know what is coming up and when, so you end up watching sync diving or water polo.  I mean water polo is fun and all but why would I watch men's water polo.  I have enjoyed the beach volleyball IMMENSELY (particularly the womens).  However, no baseball and way to much diving for my taste.

That being said it does allow me to be distracted from watching the Red Sox get their brains beat in 2 out of the last 4 games.  I mean they warmed us Joey Cora's little brother tonight.  Buchholz started tonight and was staked to a 4 run lead which he ended up giving up after a VERY SOLID 2 2/3 innings pitched.  He needs to be sent back to Pawtucket and told to start breathing through his eyelids and maybe start wearing a garter belt with a flower in the front.  Everyone was talking about his lack of mental capabilities at the beginning of the year, but I believed the hype that he was the next coming of Christ.  Lester on the other hand I had my doubts on as he always seemed to have trouble commanding the strike zone.  Tells you what an out of shape accountant knows about big league pitching and doubting the insight of people that get paid MILLIONS to measure and evaluate pitching.

Anyway, I will keep staying up late watching Fez and Red Foreman, watching the same SportsCenter at least twice, and will try to see who wins gold in the 10M women's synchronized platform diving coming up next at 2:26 a.m. central time or watching the latest infomercial.

Ice Cream

Ice cream sure makes things better, huh? Do you remember being a kid and going after the game or school for ice cream? I sure do! Nothing was better than carvel and those little crunchies they had? What brings that kind of joy now? Watching my kids enjoy ice cream or pizza, or that stupid crane game where you feed quarters into it with no chance of winning, or just getting a quarter for gum...they always want a pink one....

Kindergarten

This week my oldest, Mallory, started kindergarten.  It was traumatic, but probably not as bad as it would have been if this was 1968 instead of 2008.  The fact that Mallory has been in day care since she was 6 months old and was transitioning to kindergarten with a number of her friends from Ms. Pam's 4 year old class made things easier for her.  Ya she was nervous, ya she had a new teacher, and ya she had uniforms, but other than that she was excited.  This had me thinking of her future and the start of her "real" school and how quickly this past five years has flown by.  It also had me thinking of where she was when I started the firm.

Mallory was about 9 months old when I decided to start my practice.  Yeah, that's right NINE MONTHS!!! (By the way, what was I thinking!!!)

Anyway, I often meet with other business owners and one of the things I enjoy more than anything is listening to their stories of why they decided to take that leap.  Some are continuing a family legacy, some were technically trained to be something and a business appeared around it (like a chiropractor or electrician), and some just had that "itch" to do something different than the normal 9 to 5.

The development of my firm and the path Mallory has taken are an eerie parallel.  We each have seen our fair share of ups and downs.  Crashes, bike wrecks, hirings, firings, software glitches, forgotten lunches, new clients, lost clients, new friends, new sister, new brother, old friends, teamwork, wins, and losses.  Yet, all of these have made us ready for "our" kindergarten.

The decisions, successes, and failures of one's life or one firm's life have made each of us what we are today.  My firm has seen exceptional growth just like Mallory has.  We have made poor choices (the politically correct way of saying of misbehaving), and have earned our fair share of "ice cream".

So even though we have seen success in our five years, we still have our new backpacks and lunch boxes and are ready to learn.  So as we go into Kindergarten we still have that excited feeling, still yearn to learn more about ourselves, and still look forward to more successes.

Oh, and by the way....when is P.E.?