All posts by TL Wall

I'm the owner of TL Wall Accounting, located in North Syracuse, NY
Business

Figuring Out When To Pay Someone Else For Work You Can Do

A common event with many business owners is when something either goes wrong or needs fixing and, instead of hiring out, they decide to take care of it themselves. Even if they can take care of the issue, one has to ask themselves if it’s always the wisest choice at the time.

~Cookiecat at Computer~
~Sage~ via Compfight

If income is a problem then there’s no question that if something needs to be taken care of and you can do the work that you should do it. However, even here, sometimes it might pay off to have someone else do at least a portion of it.

For instance, let’s say that part of your marketing campaign is to send out 50 letters a week for a month. You have a standard letter already set up and all you have to do is fill out the envelopes. The thing is, even if you’ve already printed out the letters, folding, sealing and putting stamps on those letters could take you 3 hours to do. If your hourly billable rate is $100 an hour, you just lost the opportunity to make $300.

In this case someone like a virtual assistant might have been the way to go. Many VA’s cost less than $20 an hour, and whether you supply them with the paper, envelopes and stamps beforehand, those are things you’d have had to purchase yourself. This means that not only would your costs have only been $60, which you could have written off, but you might have been earning money during that same time which means you’d have made $240 off the deal.

Let’s look at something much bigger. One of my clients recently realized that a few of his websites were losing traffic because he hadn’t upgraded them to the new Google standards of mobile speed capability. The cost for hiring this work out would have cost at least $2,000, which is a hefty sum.

Since he had the technical capability to do it himself, he decided to take that task on. The thing is, even though he knew a lot, things had changed over the years so he had to do a lot of research and testing. In the end, he put in at least 120 hours on those websites, and though he got things taken care of, since his billable hourly rate is $125, if he’d had a client or been working towards a client he could have possibly made $15,000. At the very least he could have been marketing his business and attained a new client.

It’s hard to decide when to let things go that you can do, but sometimes it’s worth taking another look at your projects and trying to figure out whether it’s cost effective to have someone else do it instead of doing it yourself. Always remember that you can write off all paid services that relate to your business and that might help you make a different decision if you need to.
 

Budgeting, Business

How Do You Analyze Advertising Costs?

If you’re in business, no matter the business, you probably do some sort of advertising to try to get the word out on your business. Overall there’s two different types of advertising; online or offline. Within both of those there are multiple ways of reaching out to your potential customers, and each comes with its specific types of costs and benefits.

How would you advertise this?

Let’s look at offline first. Some ways you might be able to reach others are:

* networking events
* mailers and brochures
* letters
* phone calls
* signs and billboards
* newspapers and magazines

The first consideration, the one most people don’t think about, is how much your time is going to cost if you’re trying to do it all by yourself. What you consider as your hourly rate needs to be taken into consideration before you undertake any of these endeavors to figure out if it’s worth the effort. Even if you hire someone else to do it you have to take into account how many hours they’re going to put into it based on your needs.

The second consideration is how much each item actually costs and your realistic return on investment is hoped to be. For instance, networking events aren’t usually all that expensive to go to so all you lose is time. For most people though it might take upwards of 20 events before you even get a “potential” client; no guarantees. Making phone calls are even less expensive but they can tax your mental toughness because it’s estimated that maybe one in a hundred will allow you to talk to them.

The third consideration is how fluid your business might be. For instance, if you’re changing things all the time then creating mailers or brochures might be a costly investment to undertake. As it regards magazines, you might have changed your entire business model by the time an issue has even left the shop.

The fourth consideration is the potential for longevity. Networking is the only one where you can possibly have consistent visibility with little effort and a low cost.

None of this means you shouldn’t do it; it’s just something you should consider when you’re ready to do any of it.

Now let’s look at online advertising. Here are some ways you might do it:

* website
* blog
* Pay-per-click ads
* content marketing
* video or podcasting
* social media

Here, the first consideration is branding. The reason for this is because, since you’re not directly in front of anyone, your intention is to drive them to your space, whatever that happens to be. Wherever you’re sending them, you’re going to want your brand to be explicit in telling and showing people what you do and how you can benefit them. The best thing about branding online is that if it doesn’t work well for you it can be changed relatively easy; you might not get those early visitors back but there are plenty more people to reach.

The second consideration is what your space is going to be or contain. Having a website of some type makes a lot of sense because even if you meet someone offline and you hand them a business card, if you have your website’s link on the card it might encourage them to stop by for a visit. Here you get to put whatever you want on your website to represent yourself and your business. You don’t even have to build any of these things on your own, but if you do there are templates that can help you get a start that don’t cost that much if that’s the direction you decide to go.

The third consideration is time. Just like above, if you’re trying to do it all on your own it’s going to take a lot of time to do it all. The lucky thing is that online there are automation tools that can help you along the way, but you still have to put some time into it to get it right; or…

You can go with the fourth consideration, which is cost. For instance, to get started with a website, it might cost you $10 a year for a domain name (weblink), as low as $3.99 a month for hosting that link, as low as a one time fee of $100 for a website template and you can be up and running in no time. You can add a blog to your website for free and get template themes free as well (although that can be a bit dodgy).

To create videos or podcasts you might to invest a little bit of money into buying a video camera or recording equipment but it’s relatively inexpensive. Most social media is cost free. Content marketing can be cost free if you want to do all the writing. Pay per click can cost as low as $50 a month for some sites based on your competition.

Sounds good doesn’t it? It can be… if you have some online skills and the time to put into it. If not, then you’re going to have to pay people do handle some of it for you, and in some cases, if you’re looking to do it right, it’s going to be a costly investment, though some of it is a one time fee and the bulk of it is still less than offline costs.

This is an area where looking at your hourly rate comes into play. It might cost you $1,000 to advertise in a newspaper or magazine for 3 months, but you can be earning money while it’s going on.

If you’re handling your own social media the hours you put into it can end up costing you more long term. It might cost you $1,500 to $5,000 for a good website but usually those deals come with at least a one year maintenance plan, which means you can change things up as much as you want without an additional cost. That ends up comparing well with creating mailers and brochures, which you might need to change within a few months.

Overall, your biggest concern is the group you’re marketing to based on what your business is all about. Blogs work for everyone because they show people your expertise and help you build a web presence on search engines. If you plow snow having a website still works, but you’re not going to want to spend a lot of money doing it and, except on stormy days, you’re going to have little use for social media.

If you provide services such as accounting or legal work, it’s best to push the flesh when you can because most of the people you work with are going to be local, and consumers like working with people they get to know. This is where signs and billboards can bring your business great benefits because your local clientele is more important for you to reach visually than people online.

This article is in no way as detailed as it could have been but it should give you an idea of the types of things you should consider no matter which direction you decide to go; you can even do all of it, which could work wonders for your business. The best thing about all of it is you get to write it off on your taxes; that’s why we accountants are here to help you on the back end. 🙂
 

Business

Should Your Small Business Be A Corporation?

We’re not going to lie – having an “INC” or “LLC” after your business name can sound pretty impressive to some of your potential clients. With that said, deciding whether or not to take your business and incorporate it, especially if your business is pretty small, isn’t a decision you should take lightly.

smallbusiness01

by Benjamin Child via Unsplash

There are 3 different types of corporations, each of which is designed to protect the individual in some way. The costs are different depending on which one you choose as well as which state you’re in. At the same time there are both benefits and things to watch out for. Here are some thoughts we have on this.
Continue reading Should Your Small Business Be A Corporation? →

Finances

Can You Protect Your Credit Cards?

Just last week Wendy’s announced that there had been a breach in their system and millions of their customers credit and debit card information was stolen. This seems to be a consistent pattern these days, and it makes the act of using a credit card seem like you’re playing a dangerous financial game.

Credit Cards and Cash
Creative Commons License Sean MacEntee via Compfight

The luckiest consumers were those who had their credit card information stolen because the heads up gives you an opportunity to get new cards pretty quickly, and if your information was used for purchases you know aren’t yours it’s not all that difficult to prove and absolve yourself of the responsibility of having to pay it back.

The unluckiest consumers are those who have their debit card information stolen. I’m not sure how the thieves know, but somehow they’re able to figure out which is which and not only make big purchases on those cards but are somehow able to figure out pin numbers. For many people, it takes longer to get their money back from the bank, and in some cases it’s more difficult to not only show proof but to get the bank to remove fines and fees from these transactions.

It begs the question: can we protect our credit cards?

The short answer is not really; no one wants to hear that. The long answer is that there are some credit cards that have already set up a way to protect information, and there are some other options consumers can employ that might help to protect themselves if they’re willing to pay the cost.

Let’s talk about protected credit cards. There are some institutions that are giving their consumers credit cards that have a computer chip in them, and outlets such as Walmart are already set up to accept those cards. Instead of swiping via that strip on the card, you push your card into the reader and it generates a piece of code that can only be used for that particular transaction. No numbers; that’s pretty neat. Although American Express has had this ready for a while, it’s just starting to become the vogue thing to do but there’s a long way to go.

This leaves the other option of purchasing debit or gift cards that allow you to deposit money into a card that doesn’t access your bank accounts. This means that if someone steals your numbers, there’s only so much they can spend and then the card is dead. The downside is that there are fees everywhere; there’s a fee to put money on it, a fee every time you use it, and a fee if you reach a certain time period without using it for some cards. You’re definitely protected, but at what cost?

What’s the best thing to do? Frankly, it’s probably best if you take a certain amount of cash out of your bank account and use that for your purchases. True, no one wants to walk around with a big cache of money, but most of us are probably spending less than $100 a week, and the reality is that we tend to control our spending better when we’re using money than credit or debit cards.

We can hope that technology becomes standardized so that all our cards have the computer chips. However, criminals are crafty also, so the question is just how long this will be effective before they figure out how to get around the chips?

Just be careful when you choose your options, and where you spend your money. And make sure to check your credit report every so often to see if someone’s commandeered your information.
 

Budgeting

Should You Refinance Your Home Loan?

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Some of our clients get a letter weekly from the banks that hold their mortgage with pretty great offers to refinance those mortgages to a lower rate. The question isn’t whether you’re getting a good deal but should you do it. Let’s take a better look at all of this.

If you’re relatively early into owning your home, within the first five years,and you started out with a percentage rate higher than 8%, it could work well for you to take a look at it. In some cases you could lower your monthly payments by as much as $900 a month depending on how high your starting rate was while getting a little bit of extra money to spend on a few other things. Of course, the smart thing would be to take that money and put it back towards the principle of your home to help you pay it off sooner but you’d have a lot of options to think about.

If you’re in the last 5 years or so towards paying off your mortgage, the deal might not be as smart a move depending on your long term goals for the house. If you’re looking to stay in the house for the rest of your life, don’t want to have any payments and want to will it to family members, then it’s best not to refinance and have to start all over.

If you’re looking to stay in the house and can continue making payments well into your old age and don’t have anyone you want to will your home to, refinancing this late not only reduces your monthly payments but could give you a nice windfall to use towards renovations. Also, if something happened to you and you had to go into a nursing home, your house might sell quicker, helping you spend down your out of pocket expenses so you can get on Medicaid quicker. That sounds a bit morbid but it’s a consideration to think of.

The decision is tougher when you’re in the intermediate range of 10 to 20 years into your payments. If you’re relatively young it’s not a bad way to go if you can save a lot on monthly payments, possibly making some double payments along the way if you have some extra money here and there. If you have some high outstanding bills and are ready to budget your payments but need a cash boost, then refinancing could help you get out of a jam and give you a shot to start over without having to think about bankruptcy.

Your accountant is a good place to start to ask questions regarding the possibility of refinancing. They could help you with the budgeting process to see if refinancing is a viable way for you to lower payments, pay off bills or make home improvements. It’s better to start with them because they don’t have a vested interest in what you do like the bank’s mortgage professionals will.