#small-business
Financial management strategies and tools for small business owners
A dry cleaning shop spending $15,000 a month to process 5,000 garments has a $3-per-piece baseline cost before profit — and hidden expenses like re-cleans, unclaimed garments, and idle machine capacity routinely push real costs above the price on the counter.
An Employee Ownership Trust (EOT) lets a business owner sell to a permanent employee-benefit trust instead of a competitor or private equity firm, costing roughly $30,000-$100,000 to set up versus $150,000+ for an ESOP, though the U.S. still offers no federal tax incentive for EOT sales while Canada made its C$10 million capital gains exemption permanent in June 2026.
The 43-day 2025 federal shutdown froze $5.3 billion in SBA-guaranteed loans for roughly 10,000 small businesses; pre-arranged bridge financing and a 30/45/60-day cash forecast are the practical ways to keep operating while an SBA closing sits in the queue.
Since September 2025, new H-1B petitions requiring consular processing carry a $100,000 supplemental fee on top of standard filing costs, pushing all-in sponsorship for small employers from roughly $5,500–$10,500 to $105,000–$110,000 per hire in 2026.
US importers of record can file IEEPA tariff refunds in CBP's CAPE portal for entries from Feb 2025 — steps and documents.
Independent music teachers who collect payment directly from students run a Schedule C business subject to 15.3% self-employment tax, must book prepaid lesson packages as deferred revenue rather than income, and face a new $2,000 1099-NEC threshold starting in 2026.
Credit card processing is three stacked fees — interchange, network assessments, and processor markup — but only the markup is negotiable, and on $30,000 in monthly volume the gap between flat-rate and a well-negotiated interchange-plus deal can run $200-$400 a month.
The IRS retires the FIRE e-filing system on December 31, 2026, requiring all 1099 and W-2 filers to switch to IRIS for tax year 2026 returns, and a new Transmitter Control Code alone can take 45 or more days to approve.
Key person insurance is a policy a business owns on a critical employee, paying the company 5 to 10 times that person's annual compensation if they die or become disabled, and premiums are not tax-deductible under IRC Section 264(a)(1) unless Section 101(j) notice-and-consent is completed before the policy is issued.
With 100% bonus depreciation permanently restored for equipment placed in service after January 19, 2025 and a $2,560,000 Section 179 cap for 2026, the lease-vs-buy decision now hinges on total cost of ownership, cash flow timing, and how long you'll actually keep the equipment — not just which option gets the bigger write-off.
Menu engineering classifies dishes by margin and popularity into four quadrants: Stars, Plowhorses, Puzzles, and Dogs.
GAAP requires inventory to be reported at the lower of cost or net realizable value under ASC 330; here's how to identify obsolete and slow-moving stock, calculate the write-down, and record it while satisfying the IRS's stricter subnormal-goods test under Treasury Regulation §1.471-2(c).
