People First

What are my thoughts on stipends? I think they’re great. Small businesses really can’t afford to provide health insurance. It’s too expensive. So, I have a lot of clients that are small businesses that offer a health insurance stipend. They pay $500 a month, they pay the employee through payroll, so it’s not on the...

Is it important to know from an employment perspective what the employee’s goals are? If you are an employer who wants to promote the right culture, I would say you want to be familiar with what direction your employees want to take, what their goals are so that you can help them accomplish it. Because...

Are small businesses overusing independent contractor status? Absolutely. Small businesses owners or individuals, not necessarily owners, even folks that are working think that they can be an independent contractor just because they want to be an independent contractor. There are rules that are established by the IRS that determine whether someone’s an independent contractor. It’s...

Knowing what your particular state’s regulations are is important because you could be in violation and it’s not something that’s readily communicated. So having somebody that you can rely on to give you that information to make sure you’re compliant is not a bad idea. Whether it be an attorney, whether it be an HR...

How does People First help people deal with compliance and complexity? Getting to know the individual, getting to know the organization, asking a lot of questions, and then listening. It’s amazing what, someone will call me with a question, think that’s the only question they have. And in hearing them talk about that question, realize...

I would say the number one thing is to either have an in house person or outsource it. Get that shoebox to that individual to get things organized so that you can see where you stand at least if not earlier, on a monthly basis, where are we? What are our bank balances? Without having...

When you are evaluating not just your clients, but you’re going to look at your team, you want to make sure you’ve got the right people in the right seat and that needs to be looked at. There may be the, organization could be changing and who was in the right seat at one point...

The power of goal setting. This probably is the number one thing I would stress in any organization is to have goals. Any individual should have goals. And we all know, look at the first of the year, people make those resolutions. They need to be realistic, but a business needs to set goals. Otherwise...

In making a decision on your accounting software, do you want to host it locally or in the cloud? And that depends upon how many people are going to use the software, where they’re located. If you’re a virtual company, you want it in the cloud. I have clients right now that set me up...

The first thing I would say is what other software are you using? For example, you might have a certain point of service system or a system that tracks inventory and purchasing and then what accounting software is compatible with your existing software in your other practices in your inventory or your sales. And you...