Small Business

Small businesses employ about 47% of non-government workers in the U.S., pay more than 40 percent of the private payroll, and create more than 60 percent of the new jobs added over the past 20 years, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration. However, not all states and cities are the same when it comes to how small businesses pay their employees, along with other benefits.

When I look back on my time in practice, some of the biggest lies I ever told myself related to shoebox clients ever getting more organized on their own. I always wanted to believe that the client wanted to have a more structured organization system for their finances.

The Small Business Administration is launching a $2.5 million competition for accelerators and other entrepreneurial ecosystem models to compete for monetary prizes of $50,000 each. To award the prizes, an expert panel of judges will consider each applicant’s stated mission, founding team members and business goals among other core components. The deadline for applying is August 2, 2014.

Eighty-six percent of California small business operators believe their businesses are moving in the right direction, and 87 percent expect growth in 2014, according to the third annual small business survey by San Diego-based California Bank & Trust.

The state of privately held companies appears to be relatively stable and strong, looking at their performance as shown in balance sheets and income statements. Statements ended in the past year show that businesses are growing sales at an annual rate of 8 percent, a rate that, despite being slightly lower than a year ago, indicates strong revenue growth.

The IRS will be holding two free webinars for small businesses and encouraging them to check out several key tax benefits and a special relief program for employers who reclassify their workers as employees.

The most populous states in the country topped the list in job growth during April, according to the latest Regional Employment Report from payroll and human resources technology provider ADP.

A few weeks ago, I flew out to San Francisco for a one-day conference targeting small businesses that work with distributed teams. Since I happen to have just such a team, I headed out there. What I learned was that I was doing some things right (yay!) and some things wrong (also yay! It means an opportunity to learn).