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How do you set prices for your products and services? Cost-plus? Market value? Are you a price-taker? Vibes?? If it's cost-plus, have you captured all the relevant costs? Are you setting the markup high enough to cover fixed costs, interest on debt, dividends, and profit? If it's market value, how do you determine that price? How do you decide if your offering should be on the low-end, high-end, or somewhere in between in the value range? If it's set by a commodity market, or

You have a range of pricing options to choose from when searching for accountants to handle your bookkeeping, financial operations, and forward-looking financial analysis. I am not on the cheaper end, and let me tell you why. There are people out there who got a Quickbooks certification over a weekend and can provide a basic level of service. On the other hand, as a Chartered Professional Accountant, I bring more to the table in the form of many years of education and experie

You have to spend money to make money! Most business owners want to grow their revenue. To get there, you better bring cash. Why? More inventory needs to be bought or produced first. More staff likely needs to be hired, which is an ongoing higher expense. After the growth happens, you will have more customer invoices to collect if you sell on credit. You’ll also have more vendor bills to pay, and perhaps more loan payments to make. Growth takes hard work and discipline not ju

I had a client tell me recently that a big reason they like working with me for the past three years is the continuity of service they enjoy. With their previous outsourced accountant, which was a bigger firm, there was a new person on their file every few months. This meant bringing a new person up to speed on a regular basis because they’d be starting from square one. On the other hand, since I’m a one-person operation, I’ve developed a deep knowledge of their business, and

For many small business owners, managing their own accounting can induce anxiety. If they’ve never been taught how to do it properly, trying to do it themselves could end up just sitting hunched over a laptop, not knowing what to do next. But it has to be done! There are three approaches you as a small business owner could take. One is to not do it. I think we both know that’s not a good idea, though. Not only are you going to run into tax problems, but you’ll be completely r

Nobody enjoys getting a CRA audit. It could end up in your business paying back taxes, penalties, and interest; and even if that doesn’t happen, it still costs time and effort in complying with their requests. This is time you could’ve spent working on your business. What leads to getting audited? Claiming strange expenses. Reporting revenue and/or profit that’s significantly different from your industry peers. Mixing personal and business expenses. How can you improve your o