Author Archives: Whittaker

Get Ahead of the Pack by Improving Your Business Systems

  All businesses have systems – both formal and informal. They make the wheels of your business turn. However, informal systems can keep your business wheels from turning smoothly when it comes to day-to-day operations such as closing sales and ultimately from easily selling or passing down your business to the next generation (succession planning).

A Simple Approach to Analyzing the Source of a Business’s Cash Crunch

The economic shock of the coronavirus pandemic is starving many businesses of cash. The crisis has radically disrupted the flow of payments that usually lubricates the interconnected world of business. Especially impacted are smaller firms that rely on revenue from a few customers to balance the books at the end of each month. A surprising

With Proper Planning, Taxes Can Be a Controllable Business Expense in 2017

Thanks to the tax laws enacted late 2015, your company’s tax liabilities can actually be viewed as a controllable expense, rather than something over which you have no control whatsoever. For the past several years, the uncertainty with regards to tax laws cast a long shadow and hindered our ability to undertake proper, effective tax

Key COVID-19 Stimulus Resources for Businesses

Whittaker & Company is here to help businesses affected by the COVID-19 crisis. The Association of International Certified Professional Accountants (AICPA) has released several useful resources related to programs the Small Business Administration (SBA) is administering to assist businesses during this challenging time. In the links below you will find the AICPA’s tools as well

3 Steps to Performing Your Breakeven Analysis

Finding out what sales volume you need to achieve to at least breakeven is critical to managing your business. Once you know what your variable costs and fixed costs are, finding your breakeven point is easy. Variable costs are directly related to your sales levels in dollars or units sold. For example, materials and supplies,

18 Value Drivers That Increase Your Business’ Value

According to the annual Business Reference Guide written by Tom West, 70-80 percent of businesses do not sell.  One of the reasons this happens is because many business owners focus on current income generation as opposed to building the value of the enterprise.  Profit or income does not automatically translate to enterprise value. Enterprise value

Why Forming a Mission Statement is Critical to Your Marketing Strategy

If you don’t know the answer to this question, your customers surely won’t either. More importantly, if you don’t know, you won’t be able to tell your customers why they should choose you over your competitors. Answering this simple question is critical to forming a mission statement and creating your marketing strategy. Undoubtedly when you

The Accounting and Tax Implications of PPP Loans

Many of our clients have taken advantage of the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). PPP loans are providing essential relief to businesses that might otherwise be forced to cut staff, or worse. With the cash in hand, now is the time to understand how the loan should be treated for accounting and tax