Small Business

Andrew Barkis and Daniela Anderson have owned Hometown Property Management for 10 years. In that time, the former Lacey-based business found a new home in Olympia, increased the number of single-family homes it manages and continues to add services to its business.

We’re in the middle of a fundamental shift – from client-centric accounting, where clients do their own bookkeeping and then send the records (often full of errors) to the tax preparer once a year – to an accountant-centric model, where accountants use cloud-based tools to provide accounting services as well as higher level consulting services. This shift is forcing the profession to reexamine the whole model of the practice.

How often do you talk on the phone, look at email messages, check the news or weather, read or composts text messages while you're driving? We take pride in our ability to multi-task, but at what cost? Centuries of accountants managed to drive from point A to point B without phones in their hands. Today, it seems everyone is connected.

The sponsors of a bill to legalize marijuana possession in Rhode Island said Wednesday that the decades-old war on drugs has failed and that regulation is the answer.

With the potential of a national sales tax coming, the prospect of trying to comply with many states and local sales tax regulations could be a nightmare for small companies who sell things over the internet. Fortunately, small online businesses and ecommerce sellers now have access to a free sales tax reporting system from Avalara.

Five years since the bottom of the Great Recession, stock prices are at record highs, business sentiment has improved and hiring appears to be accelerating. The annual survey of CEOs by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) indicates that two-thirds of the chief executives polled plan to add employees this year. Meanwhile, the Minnesota economy is growing faster than the national economy and the unemployment rate is lower.

When it comes to dining, the top priority of business travelers is "affordable convenience," which equates to fast food. But when they have the time for something a little more substantial, they still trend toward casual restaurants.

Truth is the metro-sexual bunch in charge of the Windows operating system at Microsoft have not listened one whit to the users who have been screaming at them for the past two years. So here is my simple message to them: