Does Your Employee Incentive Plan Create an Early Pay-Out and Exit for Key Employees at the Owners’ Expense?
Business owners have at their disposal a variety of employee incentive compensation tools to attract and retain talent. In terms of employee incentive plan design, business owners work to strike a balance between “carrots”–rewards to employees–and “sticks”–measures to protect the company’s downside if the employee fails to deliver value. What should a properly-designed employee incentive plan do? Generally speaking, a well-crafted employee incentive plan will incentivize key employees to drive value and build the company; and in exchange be rewarded . . . Read More
In a Business Owners Agreement, Should All Owners Be Equal?
Good business planning involves owners of the company developing and entering into a shareholders agreement, operating agreement or partnership agreement (owners agreement). A good owners agreement will allow the owners to plan and prepare upfront for disruptive events in the company’s business life cycle, whether good or bad. And, as part of putting together an owners’ agreement, one of the fundamental questions owners need to resolve is whether all owners should have equal rights. The answer is it depends—in some . . . Read More
Cybersecurity Monday: Who Is Shopping for Your Data?
At this time of year, everyone is shopping for a good bargain. And with “Cyber Monday,” the internet has become the place to go for the best deals. The shift to online and cloud-based information systems and data storage has also opened up a new market for online shopping, trafficked by hackers and other cyber criminals who want to take or corrupt your company’s personal, proprietary, and other sensitive information. Many small businesses believe that they are not likely . . . Read More
Don’t Slip Up: The “Boilerplate” Provisions of Your Contracts Deserve Equal Attention
Webster’s dictionary offers the following as an alternative definition of the term boilerplate: “tightly packed, icy snow.” No one would knowingly pay little heed to such a potentially treacherous condition, yet every day in contract negotiation parties devote the vast majority of their efforts to the business terms, while glossing over the “boilerplate” provisions. Oftentimes, the assumption is “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”—that is, those standard (read: boilerplate) terms you used in past contracts will work just as . . . Read More
Business Entity Alphabet Soup – GP, LP, JV, LLC, C, S, QSSS – What do they mean?
By Kimi Murakami As government contractors, the business universe is likely filled with familiar acronyms. However, one may not be as familiar with the meaning behind the alphabet letters that comprise the different business entities in the corporate world. Choosing the form of legal entity for your company was most likely a threshold issue for starting your business. By forming a company, you can shield yourself from liabilities that will arise by the business. Whether just starting out or if . . . Read More
What Every Business Owner Needs to Know About Implementing the New Tangible Property Regulations
By Eric Fletcher, Principal with Thompson Greenspon Over the last several years, the IRS has published a series of regulations and rulings that dramatically change how taxpayers must account for the costs of acquiring, repairing, improving and even disposing of tangible property. These new rules represent some of the most significant changes in tax law since the Tax Reform Act of 1986 and they must be adopted no later than the tax year beginning on or after January 1, 2014. . . . Read More
Building a Saleable Business & The Importance of a Strategic Plan
For a small business government contractor (“GC”), its small business size is arguably its greatest asset. In the context of building a saleable business, however, if the GC owner or owners fail to adopt and implement a strategic plan early on in the business life cycle, the GC’s small business size could end up operating more like a handicap. To put this into greater context, in the world of mergers and acquisitions, particularly lower middle market private company deals . . . Read More
SBA’s Template for Joint Venture Agreements – Is it OK to Use for your 8(a) Joint Venture?
By Kimi Murakami The answer as to whether 8(a) firms can use the U.S. Small Business Administration’s (“SBA”) joint venture (“JV”) agreement template seems to depend on which SBA District Office your small business is governed by. Recently, some of our small business clients that are governed by the SBA’s Washington Metropolitan Area District Office received notice from their Business Opportunity Specialist (“BOS”) that the agency’s template for JV agreements would no longer be accepted. It is unclear whether this is true for all SBA District Offices or perhaps applicable only for this particular District . . . Read More
Attract and Retain Top Talent When You Cannot Compete Straight Up on Cash
One of the biggest challenges that a business owner may face is attracting and retaining top talent to help drive value and build their company. There are a variety of employee incentive compensation tools that can be used to attract and retain talent. Business owners need to consider: Which type of employee incentive tools will work best for that particular business owner’s company? To answer that question, a business owner needs to drill down on what goal is to be . . . Read More
The Importance of a Formal Document Retention Policy
By Brian Wilbourn As all of us are likely painfully aware, the volume of emails, correspondence and other documents that we generate and receive, whether we’re at home or at work, seem to grow at an ever-increasing rate. At home, we can often dispose of unwanted papers and files with little worry. In business, however—and for government contractors in particular—disposing of the wrong documents can have serious consequences. On the other hand, while contractors do not want to delete the . . . Read More