Tag Archives: strategies

Getting more for your marketing dollars in 2021

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A new year has arrived and, with it, a fresh 12 months of opportunities to communicate with customers and prospects. Like every year, 2021 brings distinctive marketing trends to the table. The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic challenges continue to drive the conversation in most industries. To get more for your marketing dollars, you’ll need to tailor your message to this environment.

Continue to invest in digital

There’s good reason to remind yourself of digital marketing’s continuing value in our brave new world of daily videoconferencing and booming online shopping. It’s affordable and allows you to communicate with customers directly. In addition, it provides faster results and better tracking capabilities.

Consider or re-evaluate strategies such as regularly updating your search engine optimization so your website ranks highly in online searches and more people can find you. Adjust your use of email, text messages and social media to communicate with customers and prospects.

For instance, craft more dynamic messages to introduce new products or special events. Offer “flash sales” and Internet-only deals to test and tweak offers before making them via more expansive (and expensive) media.

Seek out better deals

During boom times, you may feel at the mercy of high advertising rates. In the current uncertain and gradually recovering economy, look for better deals. The good news is that there are many more marketing/advertising channels than there used to be and, therefore, much more competition among them. Paying less is often a matter of knowing where to look.

Track your marketing efforts carefully and dedicate time to exploring new options. For example, podcasts remain enormously popular. Could a marketing initiative that exploits their reach pay dividends? Another possibility is shifting to smaller, less expensive ads posted in a wider variety of outlets rather than engaging in one massive campaign.

Excel at public relations

When the pandemic hit last year, every business had to address current events in their marketing messaging. This stood in stark contrast to decades previous, when companies generally tended to steer clear of the news. Nowadays, public relations is a key component of marketing success. Your customers and prospects need to know that your business is aware of the current environment and adjusting to it.

Ask your marketing department to craft clear, concise but exciting press releases regarding your newest products or services. Then distribute these press releases via both traditional and online channels to complement your marketing efforts. In this manner, you can disseminate trustworthy information and maintain a strong reputation — all at a relatively low cost.

Strengthen ROI

Your company’s marketing dollars need to provide a return on investment just as robust as its budget for production, employment and other key areas. Our firm can help you evaluate your marketing efforts from a financial perspective and identify ways to make those dollars go further.

© 2021 Covenant CPA

The importance of S corporation basis and distribution elections

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S corporations can provide tax advantages over C corporations in the right circumstances. This is true if you expect that the business will incur losses in its early years because shareholders in a C corporation generally get no tax benefit from such losses. Conversely, as an S corporation shareholder, you can deduct your percentage share of these losses on your personal tax return to the extent of your basis in the stock and any loans you personally make to the entity.

Losses that can’t be deducted because they exceed your basis are carried forward and can be deducted by you when there’s sufficient basis.

Therefore, your ability to use losses that pass through from an S corporation depends on your basis in the corporation’s stock and debt. And, basis is important for other purposes such as determining the amount of gain or loss you recognize if you sell the stock. Your basis in the corporation is adjusted to reflect various events such as distributions from the corporation, contributions you make to the corporation and the corporation’s income or loss.

Adjustments to basis

However, you may not be aware that several elections are available to an S corporation or its shareholders that can affect the basis adjustments caused by distributions and other events. Here is some information about four elections:

  1. An S corporation shareholder may elect to reverse the normal order of basis reductions and have the corporation’s deductible losses reduce basis before basis is reduced by nondeductible, noncapital expenses. Making this election may permit the shareholder to deduct more pass-through losses.
  2. An election that can help eliminate the corporation’s accumulated earnings and profits from C corporation years is the “deemed dividend election.” This election can be useful if the corporation isn’t able to, or doesn’t want to, make an actual dividend distribution.
  3. If a shareholder’s interest in the corporation terminates during the year, the corporation and all affected shareholders can agree to elect to treat the corporation’s tax year as having closed on the date the shareholder’s interest terminated. This election affords flexibility in the allocation of the corporation’s income or loss to the shareholders and it may affect the category of accumulated income out of which a distribution is made.
  4. An election to terminate the S corporation’s tax year may also be available if there has been a disposition by a shareholder of 20% or more of the corporation’s stock within a 30-day period. 

Contact us if you would like to go over how these elections, as well as other S corporation planning strategies, can help maximize the tax benefits of operating as an S corporation.

© 2020 Covenant CPA

A shadow board could shed light on your company’s best future

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In many industries, market conditions move fast. Businesses that don’t have their ears to the ground can quickly get left behind. That’s just one reason why some of today’s savviest companies are establishing so-called “shadow” (or “mirror”) boards composed of younger, nonexecutive employees who are on the front lines of changing tastes and lifestyles.

Generational change

Millennials — people who were born between approximately 1981 and 1996 — have been flooding the workplace for years now. Following close behind them is Generation Z, those born around the Millennium and now coming of age a couple of decades later.

Despite this influx of younger minds and ideas, many businesses are still run solely by older boards of directors that, while packed with experience and wisdom, might not stay closely attuned to the latest demographic-driven developments in hiring, product or service development, technology, and marketing.

A shadow board of young employees that meets regularly with the actual board (or management team) can help you overcome this hurdle. Ideally, the two boards mentor each other. The older generation shares their hard-earned lessons on leadership, governance, professionalism and the like, while the younger employees keep the senior board abreast of the latest trends, concerns and communication tools among their cohort.

Other benefits

You also can tap the shadow board for their input on issues that directly affect them. For example, would they welcome a new employee benefit under consideration or regard it as irrelevant? Similarly, you can use the board to “test drive” strategies targeting their generation before you get too far down the road.

And your shadow board can serve as generator of new initiatives and innovations, both employee- and customer-facing. Some companies with shadow boards have ended up overhauling their processes, procedures and even business models based on ideas that first emerged from the younger employees’ input.

Another benefit? Shadow boards can keep traditionally job-hopping Millennials from jumping ship. Many are eager to get ahead, often before they’re equipped to do so, and they don’t hesitate to look elsewhere. Selecting younger employees for a shadow board sends them the message that you see their potential and are invested in grooming them for bigger and better things. It also facilitates succession planning, a practice too many businesses overlook.

The right approach

Don’t establish a shadow board just for appearances or without true commitment. That can do more harm than good. Younger generations see lip service for what it is, and word will spread fast if you’re ignoring the shadow board or refusing to seriously consider its input. When done right, this innovative effort can pay off in the long run for everyone involved. Our firm can help you further explore the financial and strategic feasibility of the idea.

© 2019 Covenant CPA

When the early bird commits the fraud, you need to catch it

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Early revenue recognition has long accounted for a substantial portion of financial statement fraud. By recording revenue early, a dishonest business seller or an employee under pressure to meet financial benchmarks can significantly distort profits. Fortunately, fraud experts have tools to expose such manipulation.

Multiple methods

Early revenue recognition can be accomplished in several ways. A dishonest owner or employee might:

  • Keep the books open past the end of a period to record more sales,
  • Deliver product early,
  • Record revenue before full performance of a contract,
  • Backdate agreements,
  • Ship merchandise to undisclosed warehouses and record the shipments as sales, and
  • Engage in bill-and-hold arrangements.

In this last scenario, a customer agrees to buy merchandise but the company holds the goods until shipment is requested. It and any of these schemes might be carried out by one employee or several in collusion.

Expert strategies

Probably the most obvious marker for early revenue recognition is when a company records a large percentage of its revenue at the end of a given financial period. Significant transactions with unusual payment terms can also be a danger sign. When these or other red flags are unfurled, it’s time to investigate.

Fraud experts might compare revenue reported by month and by product line or business segment during the current period with that of earlier, comparable periods. They typically employ software designed to identify unusual or unexpected revenue relationships or transactions.

Reading the signs

If, for example, an expert suspects merchandise is billed before shipment, he or she will look for discrepancies between the quantity of goods shipped and quantity of goods billed. The expert will also examine sales orders, shipping documents and sales invoices; compare prices on invoices with published prices; and note any extensions on sales invoices.

What if the expert suspects merchandise was shipped prematurely? He or she compares the period’s shipping costs with those in earlier periods. Significantly higher costs could indicate an early revenue recognition scheme.

The expert also may sample sales invoices for the end of the period and the beginning of the next period to confirm the associated revenues are recorded in the proper period. If phantom sales are suspected, reversed sales in subsequent periods and increased costs for off-site storage may provide evidence of fraud.

Exposure can be fatal

If improper revenue recognition is exposed to the public, the resulting scandal can destroy a company. Contact us immediately if you suspect it or other forms of financial statement fraud.

© 2019 Covenant CPA

6 last-minute tax moves for your business

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Tax planning is a year-round activity, but there are still some year-end strategies you can use to lower your 2018 tax bill. Here are six last-minute tax moves business owners should consider:

  1. Postpone invoices. If your business uses the cash method of accounting, and it would benefit from deferring income to next year, wait until early 2019 to send invoices. Accrual-basis businesses can defer recognition of certain advance payments for products to be delivered or services to be provided next year.
  2. Prepay expenses. A cash-basis business may be able to reduce its 2018 taxes by prepaying certain expenses — such as lease payments, insurance premiums, utility bills, office supplies and taxes — before the end of the year. Many expenses can be deducted up to 12 months in advance.
  3. Buy equipment. Take advantage of 100% bonus depreciation and Section 179 expensing to deduct the full cost of qualifying equipment or other fixed assets. Under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, bonus depreciation, like Sec. 179 expensing, is now available for both new and used assets. Keep in mind that, to deduct the expense on your 2018 return, the assets must be placed in service — not just purchased — by the end of the year.
  4. Use credit cards. What if you’d like to prepay expenses or buy equipment before the end of the year, but you don’t have the cash? Consider using your business credit card. Generally, expenses paid by credit card are deductible when charged, even if you don’t pay the credit card bill until next year.
  5. Contribute to retirement plans. If you’re self-employed or own a pass-through business — such as a partnership, limited liability company or S corporation — one of the best ways to reduce your 2018 tax bill is to increase deductible contributions to retirement plans. Usually, these contributions must be made by year-end. But certain plans — such as SEP IRAs — allow your business to make 2018 contributions up until its tax return due date (including extensions).
  6. Qualify for the pass-through deduction. If your business is a sole proprietorship or pass-through entity, you may qualify for the new pass-through deduction of up to 20% of qualified business income. But if your taxable income exceeds $157,500 ($315,000 for joint filers), certain limitations kick in that can reduce or even eliminate the deduction. One way to avoid these limitations is to reduce your income below the threshold — for example, by having your business increase its retirement plan contributions.

Most of these strategies are subject to various limitations and restrictions beyond what we’ve covered here, so please consult us before you implement them. We can also offer more ideas for reducing your taxes this year and next. Call us at 205-345-9898.

© 2018 Covenant CPA