Business Owner Perspective: New Year’s Resolutions

December 19, 2009

Erin Perry who has been a client of The Inner Office, Inc. for a decade, charter member of the Business Builder Book Club, and owner of Chocolate Rose Bake Shop observed something very interesting. She blogged about a while back. I think it’s most appropriate for this time of year. She pondered the phenomena of [...]

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2009 QuickBooks Required Upgrade

December 11, 2009

The 2009 version of QuickBooks has issued a mid-year upgrade which, unlike most updates, requires a complete upgrade of all databases and all installations. This patch is called “R9″ and is now available for QuickBooks 2009 and Enterprise v.9. It’s been my experience that on many peer-to-peer networks at least one installation requires manual intervention. QuickBooks [...]

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2010 IRS Standard Mileage Rates

December 4, 2009

SUMMARY OF STANDARD MILEAGE RATES: (1) Business 50 cents per mile (2) Charitable contribution 14 cents per mile (3) Medical and moving 16.5 cents per mile The Standard Mileage rate can not be used for any vehicle for which depreciation has already been taken. Whether a taxpayer chooses to use Standard Mileage or the alternative [...]

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Audits are on the rise for small business owners

November 20, 2009

I don’t want to beat a dead horse but every time I turn around, there’s a new wrinkle or a new bit of fine print that an insurance company or tax agency is using to their advantage. The battle rages on! As strapped governments and insurance companies look for more revenue, audits of all kinds are [...]

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Technology Advances in Marketing

October 30, 2009

We’re living through very exciting times. Our grandparents or great grandparents watched humanity move from horses to cars. Today’s changes are just as big and keeping up with them is an enormous challenge. Today, more than ever, people want to know, like, and trust, those with whom they do business. We’ve been burned by people [...]

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What is a Deductible Meal?

October 2, 2009

We’ve been getting a lot of calls about which meals are deductible and at what percentage.  Here’s a quick overview on that topic: Meals must have a bona fide business purpose and there are a lot of devils in these details. Frequency even counts. Business meals must generally be “occasional” or they may well become “benefits,” [...]

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How to Start a Business on $100

September 25, 2009

The answer to survival lies in teaching someone how to think about their situation creatively. I’ve had many people come into my office through the years with similar questions. Here’s the kind of conversation I have with people in this situation: So, you’re thinking of starting a business, but you don’t know what, and you [...]

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It Pays to Look Good

September 7, 2009

I was startled by the headline on the 9/4/09 Norwich Bulletin’s Style & Fashion page: “Plus-size sales shrinking.” Spending for plus-size clothing (larger than a 12) has decreased to the point where many stores have moved their plus-size sections to the web. Since the average size in America today is a 14, the majority of [...]

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Times Are Changing

August 28, 2009

Two years ago the Yellow Pages kindly offered to supply us with a control number so we could see exactly what the value of their service was to us. Unfortunately they proved it all too well. In our heaviest call month of July, typically our slowest business month of the year, we received the most calls. [...]

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