As much of the country begins to restart their economy, many business owners are faced with the task of what is essentially restarting their business. Restarting is easier than beginning from scratch, but they still have a lot in common. Importantly, restarting probably means they have more overhead than sales for a while. Business owners now must protect their employees while putting customers at ease and many of them simply do not have the same appetite for sacrifice that they did when they started. Simply put, business owners have a lot to worry about right now. However, you can make yourself indispensable by helping in the following ways:
Help them secure funding (either traditional or disaster related) Your clients still need their books in order. Lenders may be more cautious with debt ratios and company valuations, so they might require more collateral than they have in the past, making it might be harder to get the working capital needed to restart. Prepare your business owner clients they may to need to pledge additional assets to secure loans or seek nontraditional financing.
Study the CARES Act There are other credits and extensions included in the CARES Act that can be taken advantage of to help improve cash flow and even get clients a refund for 2019. For example, any loss this year (2020) can now be applied to the past three years (2017-2019), which may allow business owners to get a refund now instead of carrying the loss forward. Another way to find more money in this year’s tax return is to check clients’ depreciation schedules. There are other useful items packed into the CARES Act, so please contact us if you need help finding a way to help your clients.
Engage in a Cost Audit Help clients reduce their overhead by reducing their costs. A cost audit is a line by line review of a company’s expenses. We use a specialty firm, whose staff have varied areas of expertise, to conduct these audits and spot inefficiencies and solutions quickly. The firm works on a percentage-of-savings basis, so your client only incurs a fee if the solution provider can identify and implement savings. We just completed an audit for a client where we increased profitability by 8% without new sales or cutting staff/benefits/resources.
Start a Cost Segregation Study Anyone carrying more than $400,000 in depreciation might be a candidate for a cost segregation study, which can reclassify certain assets onto a shorter schedule and allows clients to recoup their costs more quickly. Typically done for larger projects, we have the means to apply the process to lower cost items, which enables small business to take advantage of a strategy enjoyed by large companies for years!
Business owners are struggling with how to restart their businesses after the stay at home orders get lifted. Now more than ever your business clients need you to be proactive. Reach out with a keen eye toward helping them recover, and you will secure your position as crucial advisor. Remember, their business (and yours) depends on their success.