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Release Date: 01.09.10 | Location: All Metro Atlanta | Organization: SCORE Atlanta

SCORE's legal and accounting workshop is unglamorous. Yet, your business cannot survive without addressing the basics

By: Jerry Chautin, SCORE volunteer, business columnist

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Business failure can result from not starting it correctly Successful business owners need basic financial and legal tools

Workshop: How to Start a Successful New Business - Legal and Accounting Issues
When: January 11, 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Where: SCORE Atlanta, 233 Peachtree Street, NE, Ste. 1900
Details: Online at tinyurl.com/cydufq or call, 404-331-0121

Affording a more comfortable lifestyle, spending more time with friends and family and basking in entrepreneurial glory are some of the benefits I sought by starting my own business.

By contrast, getting the company's financial statements in order, keeping the Internal Revenue Service from our door and legally protecting my family's personal assets from creditors were not part of the joy. Yet, I knew that it was necessary to get my arms around the legal and accounting issues that face every new business owner. That is what SCORE's workshop, "How to Start a Successful New Business - Legal and Accounting Issues" is designed to help you do.

"We will be providing tax savings tips," says Floyd Green. He is a certified public accountant and former bank regulator who will present insider tips to workshop attendees. Green told me that he will help you "comply with federal and state business regulations," and "get up to date on the most recent tax issues."

Green will be joined by co-presenter Evelyn Ashley, a nationally recognized lawyer. Her background and skills are specifically targeted to starting and owning a successful small business. Additionally, she is an expert on intellectual property law.

Accounting, legal and insurance requirements are the most neglected start-up requirements that you cannot ignore. Your success and survival depends upon getting it right the first time. And while there are costs involved, there are ways to minimize the expense by working with your professionals wisely.

For example, my accountant helped me set up my books when I launched my financial services company. He selected the chart of accounts that was unique to my business. He showed us how and when to make tax deposits and which financial statements to look at frequently in order to control our cash flow and make budgeting decisions. Even our business planning and marketing was tweaked by our financials.

Except for occasional questions, we did not see our accountant again until it was time to prepare our income tax returns at yearend. That helped control our cost.

Your accountant and lawyer play an important role in keeping you on track to meet your goals. To that end, CPA Green is also a chartered financial analyst and can point you to long-range needs such as investing your profit and using a variety of retirement vehicles to minimize taxes. For example, our legal and tax professionals advised us to create a "maximum benefit" pension plan. It ultimately provided for my retirement.

Meanwhile, attorney Ashley is a strategic lawyer who takes into account how your needs will change as you journey through growth phases of your business. According to the Atlanta Business Chronicle, she spends half of her time consulting with her business clients to bring an additional dimension to her legal services. She enjoys nurturing her start-up clients that go on to form second businesses.

Although Green and Ashley will cover the critical accounting and legal points you must know to successfully start-up, be sure to ask them what role insurance plays in filling the holes. That is because even the most careful entrepreneurs are vulnerable to lawsuits that put their home and personal assets at risk.

Furthermore, you need to consider health, disability and life insurance for yourself and your future employees. Hence, include an independent, business insurance agent in your mix of professionals.

Meeting the legal, accounting and insurance necessities of forming a new business are not glamorous. But the consequences of ignoring them can be grotesque. SCORE's workshop will coach you through the essentials needed to grow your business and protect yourself and your family.
Other Information:
About SCORE:
Since 1964, SCORE "Counselors to America's Small Business" has helped 8.5 million aspiring entrepreneurs and small business owners through counseling and business workshops. It is a nonprofit resource partner with the U.S. Small Business Administration. 12,400 volunteer business counselors in 364 chapters serve their communities through entrepreneur education dedicated to the formation, growth and success of small businesses. The Atlanta chapter has 100 volunteers in conveniently located branch offices.

Note to media: Photos of the SCORE counselors quoted and interviews are available upon request. For interviews with SCORE business counselors or SCORE small-business clients, contact SCORE's chairman, Jeff Mesquita: e-mail, scoremarketing@joimail.com, cell: (770) 713-1702. You may use this article in part or in its entirety and distribute copies with credit to SCORE Atlanta www.scoreatlanta.org. The columnist's CV is online at: tenonline.org/sref/jc1bio.html. You can follow him on Twitter, www.twitter.com/JerryChautin

Contact Info

Contact Name: Jeff Mesquita

Company: SCORE Atlanta

Phone: 404-331-0121

E-mail: scoremarketing@joimail.com