OUR LANGUAGE IS CURRENCY

THE INDIVIDUAL

The language of our business is most often expressed in terms of currency. For individuals we talk in terms of amount of wages, amount of interest and divdends, amount of mortgage interest, amount of taxes. We talk to our clients about how much they have saved this year, how much is their charge card debt, how much have they saved for college for their kids. We talk about financial choices which need to be made. How much can you afford to put into a 401(k) versus how much do you need to put into a 401(k) to secure your retirement?What will be the tax savings if you take on a mortgage and can you afford the payments?

Recently with the real estate crisis, we are talking to people about whether they should short sale their homes. We look at questions such as, "will the real estate ever come back or will I be trapped in the property for a long time? And if I do short sale the property what will happen to my credit?"

THE ENTREPRENEUR

Business people have an equally difficult time with the day to day management of their companies. Again the language is that of currency. We talk in terms of sales over the last month, the last year, and compared to a prior period of time. We focus the business person on the gross profit percentage, the single most important piece of financial information one can manage, in my opinion. We talk in terms of cash flow dollars and net income dollars, which is quite often two different amounts. We talk about how to grow a business and how to control "expense creep".

It comes tax time for the business person and we need a "balanced set of books" so we can prepare an accurate return and we can defend the return if audited. We start to ask, "Is the bank in balance? Are your charge cards and other liabilties recorded correctly? Are all your fixed assets recorded? Does the sales as reported on the profit and loss statement tie out to your sales tax reports? Does the amount of wages reported on the profit and loss tie out to wage reports?"

Sometimes the answer is yes and tax return preparation goes easily. Quite often the answer is no or I don't know and the process becomes expensive and somewhat grueling for both of us. Lack of planning before the close of your year end is a recipe for increased taxes, increased effort, and increased accounting fees.

It is the rare small business person who thinks about what their business is worth. Typically they are very busy with the day to day operations and never take the time to think about how they wlll exit their business at some point in the future with a nice sum of after tax cash. We ask the questions, "Are you working in your business or are you working on your business? Do you own a job or do you own a business?"

OUR LANGUAGE IS CURRENCY,
OUR OBJECTIVE IS DREAM BUILDING

Our objective in our interaction with our clients is to provide ideas, tools, education, and competencies so you can not only manage the day to day operations of your individual and business details, but so that you can reach beyond and obtain real value in your life.

With that objective in mind, the following pages are designed to help you take your financial life to a whole new level.

Dream Big!

Karen