The IRS 1099-MISC form is one that you have to fill out for any vendor for which you paid $600 or more.  The misunderstanding of this form is that you only need to submit it for independent contractors that you’ve hired to do work (freelancers, weekend assistants, for example).  But ANY non-corporate business (sole proprietor, partnership, LLC, etc) that you hired to do any work that totaled more than $600 in the year will need to receive a 1099-MISC form.  If they are an incorporated business, you do not need to send this.  (There are a few types of 1099s.  The one that typically refers to miscellaneous contractor income is the 1099-MISC.)

This would include (but not limited to):

• graphic and web designers hired to do your branding
• rental services
• attorneys
• commissions paid to non-employees
• mileage reimbursement paid to non-employees
  and the list goes on…

This is not a new requirement of the IRS.  They call this an “information return”.  BUT… this part is NEW: the IRS will now have a statement on your income tax forms that will ask you if you were required to file any 1099s for 2011 and if you have filed them (or, are planning to do so).  They know that this information has been slipping through the cracks, and they are trying to get a better grasp on it than in prior years.

The 1099 form is one that you can get online.  Unfortunately, it’s not one that you can download and fill out.  You need to have the actual IRS hard copy.  The form is a multi-part form that requires you to mail one copy to the payee, a copy to the IRS (with a summary form of all 1099s) and a copy for you to keep.  You will need to have tax ID information for the payee.  (You can get this information by having the payee fill out the W-9 when they do work for you.  Or, if you are in a pinch, just ask the payee.)

The 1099-MISC was technically supposed to be mailed to the payee (contractor) yesterday… so hurry up and get it out there if you missed out.  The IRS needs to receive the final copies by February 28th.  The gap of time between the payee mailing and IRS mailing allows you to make any corrections if needed.  (My understanding is that the payee mailing date of January 31 has a little flexibility – there are no penalties – but you’ll want to get this out ASAP so that you can do the February 28th filing.)  If you are too late to receive the 2011 forms directly from the IRS ordering system, you can also buy the forms at your office store (Staples, Office Max, etc).

As always, please talk with your tax accountant on these requirements and your specific situation.  (I’d personally like to thank my awesome accountants, Accountability Services, for helping me fill some of the gaps on my understanding of this topic.)

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Last week, I helped you with the basics in getting your accounting ready to file taxes on April 15th this year.  (The rest is up to you to discuss with your accountant.)  By the way, read my tips on finding a good accountant here.

Today, I want to talk about saving to pay your federal taxes.  If you have to pay income taxes at the state level and/or sales tax, the strategies are the same.  But, because each state differs in their requirements (filing dates, etc), this post will solely address IRS taxes.  It’s a little too late to save for your 2011 taxes, so let’s move forward to create positive habits for 2012.

(I want to give the disclaimer again that I am not a tax accountant… please advise your accountant to find out the latest and greatest according to the IRS and to get proper tax advisement on your particular situation.)

If you are a corporation…

If your business is set up as a corporation, you will pay taxes as an employee of the corporation and as a shareholder (owner) in the corporation. This ‘double-taxation’ is the reason that many tax accountants advise small business owners against setting up a corporate structure.  (There are benefits, depending on your situation, so ask him/her what is best for you.)

Your tax saving will, therefore be double-duty.

As a business, you will have to save taxes for the following:

• your corporate tax (generally 15-35% on your year-end net profit or loss)
• your employees’ social security, FUTA, and medicare (and any amounts you’ve withheld on their behalf)

As an employee, you will have taxes withheld by the corporation (your company).  The company ‘holds’ your taxes and pays them quarterly to the IRS.  At the end of the year, when you file the 1040, you determine whether you had enough held, too much (resulting in a refund), or not enough (resulting in a payment).

The biggest challenge is for the business to save the cash to make these payments quarterly.  It’s easy to be paid for a client, think you are flush, and spend it.  In reality, you’ll want to save incrementally.  For corporate taxes, a tax accountant will help you calculate what your tax payments are expected to be quarterly.  Here’s an example:

• Based on prior years, you will be required to pay $3000 quarterly for corporate taxes.
• Break this down into monthly payments and set it aside in a ‘don’t touch this’ saving account.  $1000 monthly is the amount you’d save here.
• If you have ~4 clients each month, you can break this down further so that you save $250 from each client.

You’ll also want to ensure that you are not touching the money withheld for employment taxes (social security, FUTA, medicare, and taxes withheld on behalf of the employee.)  Again, hold it in a separate account so that you can pay this quarterly.  Or elect to e-file so that you can send payments more frequently.

If you are a sole proprietorship, partnership, LLC, LLP, or S-Corp…

You will pay taxes as the owner of your business only.  In other words, you will make a draw against equity in order to pay yourself (a salary, per say.)  This is something we cover in our workshops, and it’s a little tricky, so I won’t get into too much detail here.  Suffice to say, the net income or loss that your business makes is your own personal income or loss.  This is what you pay taxes on.

This income or loss is stated on your annual 1040 (and supplementary schedules).  And, because you are paying these taxes at the PERSONAL level and not the BUSINESS level, this is something you need to budget for in your own personal budget.  (WHAT?  You don’t have one?  Read Dave Ramsey’s book, Totally Money Makeover.)  If you have employees, you’ll hold their taxes the same as above.

So… here’s where you can get into a fine mess…

• Your business performs phenomenally in 2012!  Your net profit (after you pay all expenses, etc) is $100,000 for the year. YAHOOO!!!!  As an owner of your business, this is yours. (Chances are that you’ve drawn this incrementally.)
• BUT – you didn’t really save for taxes, or pay quarterly.
• You take this to your accountant and your accountant tells you that on April 15th you owe $25,000 in taxes.  YES – it’s time to cry.  You just bought yourself a car.  ONLY – it’s not a car – it’s a big fat tax payment.

How do you get around this?  You save and you pay quarterly. With the help of your tax accountant, you will calculate your estimated quarterly taxes.  In the example above, you would save $6,250 quarterly (and you will send this check to the IRS along with a little form called the 1040-ES).  AGAIN – this is something that you need to budget for on your personal budget – it’s a personal payment – not a business payment.  BUT, you can think ahead and you know that each time you make a draw on your business, you need to set aside 20-35% for taxes.

Does this help?  Do you feel better prepared to save for your taxes?

These are some of the write-offs that you might be missing out on:

The Home Office

“Write-offs”

A “write-off” is an expense that you can use as a deduction from the taxes that you pay the US Treasury.  There are two types of write-offs:

• a business expense that hits your profit & loss statement
• an adjustment to your tax base (typically done directly on your tax forms)

It’s true that business expenses do lessen the amount of taxes you pay each year.  But, an expense is an expense is an expense.  It’s money out of your pocket.  And, I don’t know about you, I’d rather have money in my pocket.  The money saved on the tax is never enough to equal the expense.  Depending on your tax bracket, a business expense of $100 may mean that you are paying $30 less in taxes.  $100 is better than $30, don’t you think?

Something I often hear new business owners say is:

“Oh – it’s a business expense.  It’s a great write-off.”

This makes me cringe. Don’t spend money just because of the write-off.  The IRS is not sending you a check for this money.  You won’t see it again.  Spend the money because it’s a good move for your business, not because it’s a write-off.

This being said, there are some write-offs that you might be missing out on:

Image: Creative Commons

1 – Car Mileage for Business Purposes

This is an amount that your tax accountant will put as a deduction on your Schedule C (the tax form used for businesses) and is not typically something that you input into your tax accounting (or affects your profit & loss, unless you are reimbursing employees). This amount gets deduced from your business income, lessening your tax base. Depending on your tax bracket, you could be paying ~$300 less in taxes because of this. Cha-ching!

How to track your miles…

Remember, if you are audited, the IRS will want to see an actual log showing the travel you made in the tax year. Here are some easy ways to keep track of your mileage:

Come back tomorrow!  I’ll have some more deduction tips for your 2011.

As much as I love the numbers of business and their ability to help me make solid decisions, I detest getting all my accounting ready for taxes.  AND – I hate paying taxes.  But, such is life.  There is nothing more certain than death and taxes.

I’m going to help you get you ‘tax-ready’.  Keep in mind, I am not a tax expert.  (You need to hire one of those.)  But, these tips should give you a good basis for preparation.  Make sure to jump ahead to the section that applies to you…

Image: Creative Commons

1 – Get Organized

 Have you been separating your receipts each month?  Are they organized?  If so, skip to #2.  If you have an ugly box of denial, read here…

As I’ve said before, accounting is 80% organization and 20% perspiration.  If you haven’t been good about being organized, you’ll need to do some catch up.  I have been in the ugly position of having a year’s worth of receipts in a big bin that I had to sort thru for good ol’ Uncle Sam.  UGLY!  (New motherhood took its toll on me in 2007.)

So here’s what you do:

• Go thru the box o’ denial piece by piece and sort each expense receipt, each client invoice, each bank statement etc.
• Sort each receipt by month and separate them into 12 files (one file for each month).
• Make sure you have a bank statement for your business bank account for each month.  If you are missing a few months of statements, download them from your online banking information.   (If you don’t have a separate bank account for your business, go back and read Accounting 101, get a separate bank account NOW, and start highlighting your business expenses from 2011 on your 12 months of personal bank statements.)

If you ended up 2011 with a huge box of denial, you certainly don’t want to be in that position next year.  There’s nothing like the present to get yourself ready for 2012 taxes next year, so go back and read Accounting 101 for total organization and start moving in a positive direction for this year.

2 – Create your accounting records

Have you been updating your accounting records monthly?  If so, skip to #3.  If you have a ton of data entry catch up to do, read here…

If you have not been inputting your accounting records on a monthly basis, you’re going to  have to do all of your inputting now.  This can take a few days depending on the number of transactions. So grab a few bottles of wine and sit back. (But not tooooo many bottles of wine.  We want accuracy here.)

The easiest way to create your accounting and catch up is to go through your 12 months of bank statements, line by line:

• Use your bank statements (starting in January) and start to identify all of the transactions: cash going in, cash going out.
• If you use Quickbooks (or other accounting software) start inputting them.  (The Accounting 101 tutorial gives great basics on this.)  If you do not use any accounting software, I don’t know if I’d recommend starting at this juncture.  Because of the learning curve, software is better for when you can move forward – not for when you are playing catch-up.
• If you don’t use software, start inputting the transactions into an excel spreadsheet:
• Date
• Payee
• Amount
• Description
• Category aka Account (what type of transaction was this? marketing expense? phone expense? advertising expense?)
• You’ll want to make sure to have a separate Excel sheet for each type of transaction. (One for expense receipts – cash going out.  One for client invoices/contracts – cash coming in.)
• As you go thru each month, look thru your receipt files (that you compiled in section 1).  Check to see that you have a receipt to back up the transaction on the bank statement.  (This is uber-necessary in the chances that you are audited.)  If you do not have a receipt, see if you can go back and get one.  (If it was an online charge, you should be. If it was a retail purchase, you won’t be.)  Just make a note of any receipts you do not have and make a sign of the cross (or sacrifice a chicken – whatever your religion prescribes.)
• Make sure to do the same for any business credit cards you have.

3 – Create Accounting Reports

This is where having accounting software can save you some minutes in the proverbial nuthouse.  The reason I am obnoxiously adamant that people use accounting software for their businesses is the ability to generate accounting reports.  People spend years in college (I did!) learning how to put these reports together.  But, with Quickbooks you can do it with a touch of button.  Unless you have some accounting in your bones, you will not be able to make these reports.  (I’m sorry.)

These are the reports your accountant may ask you for, depending on the structure of your business (corporation, partnership, LLC, LLP, sole proprietorship):

• Balance Sheet for 12/31/2011
• Profit & Loss for 1/1/2011 to 12/31/2011

Nowwwwww… I don’t want to scare you too much.  If you don’t have the Quickbooks, your accountant MAY be able to work around this if you give him or her a listing of all your expenses (cash out) and all of your client invoices (cash in).  Accountants can be cool like that.  But, spare yourselves some misery in 2012 and get yourself some accounting software ASAP.

And… there’s more!

Come back tomorrow.  I’m going to share with you some tax-saving tips and how to find an accountant that rocks.

Today, let’s create a financial plan!  Yipppeeee!  How are you going to be profitable in 2012?  You’ll want to revisit your financial review that we did for your business in 2011.  It will help to think about your pluses and minuses for the last year when planning for next year.

Also, if you need a refresher, make sure to download our Accounting 101 series.

Image: Creative Commons

Financial Planning

Financial planning can seem ominous if numbers aren’t your friends.  But, after you’ve got yourself organized, the planning part is actually pretty straightforward.  What money do you foresee coming in?  What money do you foresee coming out?  This is guesstimating with best assumptions.  It’s as simple as that.

There are 2 items that will help you in your planning: a sales plan and an expense budget.  I like to make this even simpler and combine the 2.  If you do nothing else to plan for your business finances in 2012, make a Cash Flow Spreadsheet.  The Cash Flow Spreadsheet looks at cash coming IN and going OUT.  What sales do you have forecasted?  What expenses do you have budgeted?  It combines everything so that you know exactly where you are at every step of the way.

We wrote about this a few months back so I won’t beat a dead horse.  Review everything about cash flow planning here. You can download our Cash Flow Spreadsheet here:

Sage Wedding Pros – Cash Flow Plan: $5

The key to this sheet is making sure to review it each month.  Just like with goal-setting, the more you revisit your plan, the better you’ll be able to realize it.

IN SUMMARY

We’ve been REALLY busy over the last 3 weeks!  Thanks for joining us!  I realize you may not have had the chance to get through all the exercises.  We want to make this easy on you, so come back on Tuesday and we’ll have the 3 week series available for you to download.

Happy Holidays!

A holiday deal for you…

Throughout these 3 weeks, we’ll be offering $100 off The Simple Plan Exclusive which is our one-to-one partnership with small business owners to help build a business plan.  Simply visit The Simple Plan website to learn more about The Exclusive and enter the discount code “2012” when you enroll.  This offer is only good through December 30^th and space is limited to first-come-first-served.

Over the next 3 weeks we will be helping you put together a plan for 2012.  This week, we’ll be examining our past.  In week 2, we’ll be focused on the present.  And, in week 3, we’ll be building for the future.  We’ll be examining our marketing, operations, and finances.

Make sure to revisit our post from Tuesday where we reviewed your marketing strategy in this past year and yesterday when we reviewed your operational structure.

Let’s continue!

Image: Creative Commons

Do an inventory of your financial results…

Financial results are the most important to me.  I could have amazing vision and an innovative service or product.  I could have done an outstanding job marketing my business.  I could have run my business operationally superior to most.  But, if I’m not profitable, those things don’t mean anything.

Finances are also a good benchmark for performance. It’s difficult to measure your marketing results.  But if your sales $ improved from 2011 to 2010 then you’re doing something right.  So, let’s examine how your business is running financially.

Take a look at your Profit & Loss Report (otherwise called the P&L.)  If you use accounting software you can print this from the report options.  If you don’t, go back and read my Accounting 101 series.

Here are some good questions to ask yourself:

• How is your profit margin?  Are you priced high enough for your business model?  Are your costs of goods sold (services rendered) reasonable?  OR – do you spend too much money on raw materials, labor, etc?
• Was your business profitable overall this year?  Did you earn the income you wanted from your business?
• Did you make your sales targets/goals?
• Did you stay within your expense budget?  Were there any unplanned expenses?  Do you feel that your expense decisions were good ones?
• Did your business take on debt?  Did it pay off business debt?
• Did you purchase new equipment?  Was it a worthy investment?

Now, make 3 columns on a sheet of paper and label them each: “Financial Factors, Strengths, and Weaknesses”.  Spend a few minutes listing strengths and weaknesses for the following financial factors:

• Profit Margins (This is your price vs. your cost to service your customer or produce goods)
• Setting sales goals
• Achieving sales goals
• Sales results for 2011
• Making expense budgets
• Keeping to an expense budget
• Expense results for 2011
• Debt acquisition (how you take on business debt)
• Asset acquisition (how you purchase big ticket items: equipment, computers, etc.)

Come back next week!  We’ll be taking a look at the present before planning for the future… what’s going on these days?

A holiday deal for you…

Throughout these 3 weeks, we’ll be offering $100 off The Simple Plan Exclusive which is our one-to-one partnership with small business owners to help build a business plan.  Simply visit The Simple Plan website to learn more about The Exclusive and enter the discount code “2012” when you enroll.  This offer is only good through December 30^th and space is limited to first-come-first-served.

Here are steps on collecting payment from non-paying customers:

1 – Make sure all payments are collected PRIOR to the wedding.

If you offer a day-of-the-wedding service, your contract and invoicing needs to indicate final payment BEFORE the event.  The day of the event can be a little chaotic for a bride to be whipping out her checkbook.  And, after the event… well… you’re certainly not a priority anymore as the couple heads off for their  honeymoon in Fiji.  It will become increasingly challenging to collect on invoices after the event has occurred.

If you sell a product, you need to consider how much of your work is at risk in producing that product.  For example, if you sell custom stationery you will most likely be unable to re-sell any client’s canceled orders.  (In my stationery business, I require 50% deposit at contract signing and 50% when production begins.  Once production has begun, the client owns all of that inventory and work we’ve put into it.  I don’t start any work on a job until I’ve received 100% payment.)

Make sure to time payments received with how much work you have put into servicing the wedding.  For example if you are wedding planner, you want to time the invoices with the work you are doing.  If you have only invoiced them for 25% of the fee and have done 75% of the work and they cancel their event, you may have a hard time collecting that 50%.  (See  #4 and #5.)

2 – Remind, remind, remind.

As I mentioned yesterday, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.  If the client has $1000 in their bank account, they’re going to make the check out to the wedding pro that is most insistent on collecting it.  Out of sight, out of mind.  Trust me, the more on top you are of getting paid, the less often you’ll face any problems.

If I’m expecting payment from a client, I have a ’3 strikes, you’re out’ policy.  After sending the initial invoice, I’ll send 3 reminders.  Each reminder has a due date.  If the client misses the due date, we need to have a deeper discussion.

3 – Learn what the problem is and work with the client.

If the client has missed all my reminders, I get that client on the phone.  I’m very sympathetic to people’s problems and I want to learn what is preventing them from paying me.  This sympathy goes a long way.  Ultimately, I want the client to pay me.  So I need to work with them.

If the client is having financial problems, some times it is simple enough to resolve by setting up a payment plan.  Maybe the $1000 bill was too hard for them to swallow in one lump sum.  But, a $200/month payment over 5 months may be a little more manageable.  If I can learn what the problem is with non-payment, then I can work to offer the client some solutions.

4 – If there is no response and the client owes you money…

If the client owes you money, you need to make some tough choices:

• If you are servicing them on the day of the wedding, will you not show?  If they haven’t paid you to render day-of services, this is a very real consideration.  Naturally, you need to let them know that if they haven’t paid you by the wedding, you won’t be showing up.
• If you do show and they have not yet paid you, you need to be at peace with the fact that you may never see that payment.  I’ve heard of too many situations where a wedding pro felt bad not showing up to service the non-paying client’s wedding.  This is business.  You HAVE to get paid for it.  And, if you still service the non-payment client, know that you may be kissing your income on this wedding goodbye.
• If they owe you money for services you already rendered or for a product they purchased, how will you pursue payment?

5 – If this leads to arbitration…

If the client owes you money, you can seek payment by taking them to court. Before going this long painful route, you’ll want to send the client a demand letter.  (Check out Nolo’s guide for writing a demand letter.)  The demand letter essentially tells the client, in the nicest way possible, to “pay up or we’re going to court”.  Most people will want to avoid this, so it’s a fair way to warn someone about the steps you’re willing to take if they don’t pay you.

And, if this doesn’t work, you can seek legal action.  Depending on the county where your business is established, you’ll have a threshold for seeking judgement in small claims court.  For example, in Miami-Dade county, claims of $5000 or less must be pursued in small claims court.  You’ll want to investigate this for your own county.  You’ll also need to decide if this is something you want to put your energy and time into pursuing.  Smaller amounts are generally not worth the time and the expense.

Has this ever happened to you?  What did you do? Share with us by posting a comment below.

Invoicing Tools

You want to keep invoicing as simple as possible.  There are some great invoicing tools which enable you to request payment from a customer in a few simple clicks.  Clients are able to submit payment quickly.  Here are my favorites:

Curdbee

I like curdbee (www.curdbee.com) because it’s not only simple, it’s inexpensive. Essentially curdbee is just a prettier way to send a paypal or google checkout invoice.  (I’m not a fan of those platform’s interfaces.)  You create an invoice with you customer’s name, email address, add a line item services and amount, and send.  Voila!  The client gets an http link that they then open up to view your invoice.  They are given payment options on paypal or google checkout.  (If the client wants to pay by check, you can also give them your mailing address to snail-mail a check.)  The trial is free and then the first plan starts at $5/month.

Curdbee is ONLY an invoicing system.  This is not accounting software and doesn’t integrate with any accounting software.  You’ll still need to input your invoices and payments received into your accounting software.  Revisit our Accounting 101 for bookkeeping tips.

Freshbooks

I like Freshbooks (www.freshbooks.com) because it integrates with 37signals’ Basecamp and Mailchimp.  It offers similar functionality to Curdbee, but has some great add-ons such as time-tracking and expense tracking.  Payments are also collected via paypal or Google checkout.  Paid Freshbook accounts begins at $19.95/month with a free 30-day trial.

Freshbooks has expanded its service to include bookkeeping (accounting software).  I haven’t dug into the bookkeeping features, but I think the bookkeeping features are quite limited and you are probably better off using a more tried-and-true software like Quickbooks.  (I don’t know about you but I’m hesitant to begin systemizing all of my bookkeeping using a system that doesn’t have much history.  Recreating accounting records is a nightmare.)

Quickbooks

Quickbooks (www.quickbooks.intuit.com) allows you to do all of your accounting (bookkeeping) and invoicing in ONE place.  There is no need to invoice a client using one tool and then having to input your invoices using something else.  The latest versions of Quickbooks allow you to create estimates, break up payments, send recurring invoices, and receive payment through Paypal.  Quickbooks also has it’s own credit card processing service.

Other Credit Card Processors

I have intentionally left out the traditional credit card merchant processing.  I think the fees tend to be astronomical for a small business.  I also don’t think it’s the most user-friendly payment form for many of wedding clients, unless they are physically in your office.  (So often I am emailing a client their invoices.)  If you do find that your clients want to pay by credit card in person, then talk to your business bank about their credit card processing options.  You can also check out Square (www.squareup.com).  I love how Square allows you to accept payment from anyone anywhere using your iPhone or iPad.  Again, make sure to read the fine print on the fees here.

Systemizing Your Collections

Streamline your payment process.  If you break up your fees into 3 payments for clients, look into an invoicing tool that let’s you set up recurring invoices.  If you want to have more control over sending invoices manually, create an invoicing and payment schedule whereby you are reminded to invoice clients.  (I put these reminders on my Google calendar.)  Always give your clients a due date and follow up if you haven’t received payment.

I learned something a long time ago in a previous sales job…  My friend was the collections clerk for the company.  She called clients with outstanding payments every other day.  When money is tight for someone, the person that gets paid first is the one that sends out the reminders and the due dates.  Squeaky wheel gets the grease.  YOU need to be ON TOP of GETTING PAID because it’s not always going to be the client’s priority to pay you.

What do you think?  What do you use to make it easy to invoice and collect payment from clients?  Share your tips in a comment below.

Safeguarding Yourself Upfront

The first step in getting paid is getting the terms of payment into the contract you have with your client.  You want to make sure your contract does everything to HELP YOU get paid. Katy Carrier of Carrier and Associates shared her contract knowledge with us a few months ago.  I’m going to brush up on some of the points she made in relations to getting paid.

Deposits vs. Retainers

Do you ask for a ‘deposit’ from your clients?  Time to rethink this.  Katy shares, “In the eyes of the law, the term “deposit” is generally used to describe a first payment toward the performance of services.  So, if you fail to perform the service (like because the wedding is called off a few months before the big day), the deposit would need to be refunded.  It doesn’t matter whether you call it “non-refundable” – if a court finds that you didn’t actually earn the deposit payment, that money must be refunded to the clients.  The better alternative is to use the phrase “non-refundable retainer.”  Unlike deposits, retainer fees are used both to book services for a specific date, as well as toward expenses incurred after being retained by the clients.  Those expenses can include any work done before the actual wedding day, like consultations, meetings, planning and paperwork.”

Terms of Payment

Your contract needs to be clear about the terms of payment.  If you require a 30% retainer, a 40% second payment, and a 30% balance payment, you need to listen these percentages and the corresponding amounts in the contract.  It also helps to have the actual due dates on the contract.  You’ll want to describe what forms of payment you accept (check, credit card, Paypal, etc.)  You’ll also want to describe any penalties for non-payment or for ‘non-sufficient funds’ on a check.

Recourse

The contract should specify what will happen if the client fails to pay.  Will you seek arbitration or mediation with the client?  Katy shares, “Arbitration is a type of dispute resolution that is different from a lawsuit filed in a court.  Arbitration is much less formal and more private, and can be handled either with or without an attorney, and is generally much less expensive and time-consuming than courtroom litigation in front of a judge.  A single arbitrator or a panel of arbitrators is assigned to your dispute to listen to both sides and make a binding decision.”

Tomorrow, we’ll talk about invoicing, payment reminders, and other ways to GET PAID.