Do you ever find that as soon as you start thinking about something, you see it everywhere? You know, like how there never seems to be only one shark attack at a time? Well, empirical data says this isn’t true and is just a type of confirmation bias, but it still just happened to me.

It was just last week that I wrote about some cash-flow issues that affect all businesses. In that blog, I said that one reason for that happening was not getting paid on time (or as quickly as would be ideal) by customers. Well, since that time, I also read a recent article on cpapracticeadvisor.com that spoke to that issue.  When this type of coincidence happens, I think it is worth paying attention to, so I wanted to spend this week’s space looking at a few of the things brought up in that article.

The first thing I wanted to point out was how key communicating with customers is when it comes to solving these issues. Sometimes there is going to be a genuine dispute at the heart of why you aren’t getting paid. It is best to handle this as soon as possible if you want to get any of the money owed you. At other times, it may just be being overlooked or forgotten about. Here again, a plan for continued communication will help you get paid.

Something worth pointing out apart from that area, though, is invoicing as soon as work is complete. There is nothing wrong with charging for services or goods that have already been provided, so there is no need to wait on this task. The article also makes a salient point that the sooner you invoice the easier it is for the client to connect it to the job done. From a psychological point of view, it then serves you best to make that request for payment when your project is fresher in the customer’s mind.

It might also be worth thinking about the ways that you allow your customers to pay. Are you only accepting checks that they have to mail to you? Well, that’s going to take longer to get paid by its nature. But if you have some sort of payment portal where they can pay you electronically, be it through ACH, write transfers, electronic check, debit card, credit card … well, the more options provided, the easier it becomes for someone to get you your payment.

Also, if you are in a business that works on larger projects, it could be worth thinking about implementing some sort of installment plan. This may not work for everyone, or be something that ever business wants to do, but it’s possible that getting some amount of money for, let’s say, three months, would be more beneficial to you than waiting the same amount of time for the lump sum. (And of course, it is possible to add a convenience fee onto such an arrangement).

More than these actual nuts-and-bolts pieces when it comes to collecting, though, I would say that there is a more important part to making sure you get paid – the work you do. Providing quality goods and services are the best way to make sure you get your money. Everyone is willing to pay for something we find valuable. 

When it comes to owning a business, how well it is running does not always depend on a year-end profit and loss statement. For even if you finish the year making a profit (and even assuming that you paid yourself what you wanted to be paid), there could have been many difficult times throughout the year, and those are very likely attached to cash flow.

Trust me, I do tax returns, so I fully understand the ebb and flow of how much cash is coming into a business.

I wanted to take this week to go over some issues concerning this subject. Over last tax season, I saw many businesses who were just breaking even, but with some adjustments or a change in mindset, improvements could start to be made.

First, if you are in a business like mine with unavoidable seasonal swings, be aware of this. In that situation, you cannot run your business as if every month is going to be like the best month, and you cannot run your business as if every month is going to be like the worst month. Instead, you must have control enough over your financial numbers to know when and how much you can spend – and in a way that will help your business grow.

A small corollary to this is that cash reserves are necessary. Sure, as a business you probably have access to some sort of credit, but the more you can access your own money that doesn’t require being paid back with interest, the sooner you get back to your starting position.

Although these may feel like smaller moves, being mindful of your receivables and payables can help ease cash flow issues. For the payables, putting off paying a bill can give you a slight cushion. Now I am not saying you should push anything past the due date, for this is likely to lead to other charges and only hurt the totals we are trying to improve. But it is possible that waiting two weeks until the bill’s due date could be beneficial.

On the other side, efforts must be made to see that your customers pay you in a timely manner. You may want to think about instituting some sort of reminder system if you don’t have one, or possibly even attach your own late fees to their bills if payment is not coming in on time. It is also possible to offer incentives for paying early.

Overall, it is likely that no one action is going to be enough to solve serious cash flow issues. And it is impossible to get a firm grasp on it as a whole without looking deeper into the actual numbers of your business. By being proactive, though, I am certain there are things you can be doing to improve the situation. If this is something you would be interested in delving into, please let us know. Putting in the time now to make positive changes will make much of your future time feel more positive.

As I write this on Monday, it appears that President Trump’s and the Senates Republicans’ attempts to repeal (and potentially replace) Obamacare have failed. By the time you read this, though, that may certainly change. For if there is one thing this story has taught us, it is that there is little one can count on during contentious political times.

Heck, it’s not like passing the Affordable Care Act was an easy thing even when the Democrats were in power during (slightly) less contentious times.

Getting into the political debate over the issue is not necessary or proper for this spot. If you want blogs that do that, you can find enough of them to keep you occupied until … well forever most likely as it is not likely this battle is end sanytime soon. From the moment Trump was elected, though, questions abounded as to how one’s tax picture would change if our country’s current health care plan went away.

Those questions were plentiful, and possible answers to those questions were probably more plentiful. Note though that they were only possible answers at the time and seem ever less likely to be possible the longer it takes for this saga to play out. It is impossible to say that prognostication plays no part in the financial world (the stock market is run by it in some way, after all), but it really should only go so far.

After all, if anyone made any significant changes because they were certain changes were coming in their company’s obligations concerning health insurance, they are hurting now as they roll back some numbers to what they were before any of this predicting began.

In here are many lessons …

First, work only from the numbers that are definite in your reporting. I have warned against fudging such things in an optimistic way before, for no matter how glass half-full you want to be, dealing with real numbers is what will allow you to get to the point where you can feel great because things are actually great.

Second, just as you have to work with real numbers, you have to work with real situations. If things happen in the political realm that suddenly improve your situation, celebrate that bonus when it happens. Counting on serendipity, however, is not sound financial advice.

Third, understand the timing of the political world. Things felt like they were going to completely change when Trump was elected, as it symbolized a great new world for some and a feared new world for others. Both sides, however, would now have to admit that whatever hopes or horrors they saw coming did not come to pass as quickly as felt possible at the moment. One must look to the future to be successful, but dealing with the present takes precedence.

Finally, try to keep your political views separate from your financial ones. You may wish that things were different than they are, but those wishes will not change your legal obligations. Be active in the political world if there is change you want to help enact, but concede that you must operate in the world as it now is.

There are so many twists and turns along the way in life that we can never really know how things are going to turn out, so let’s start by owning today.

I feel like I have written a lot about tax-related matters recently in these blogs, and I suppose that means the tax-season hangover must have abated and I can once again stomach looking forward to the beginning of the next one. I am not the only one who should be doing this, though, as everyone can benefit by spending some time considering what their tax picture will look like when it comes time to file again.

Granted, for many this is an exercise that can be done in under 15 seconds. If your life and financial situations are much the same as they were last year, and you are happy with the final numbers on your tax return, then there is no reason to make any significant changes before it comes time to complete the forms again.

For those who are in different situations, however, spending a little more time on this mental exercise can help prevent a surprise bill in seven to nine months. And remember that this does not only have to be a change in your job situation. If you get married, divorced, have a kid, start going to school, or have a kid beginning college, these could all come with tax considerations that may lead to a significant change in your taxes.

However, this is also something worth paying attention to if you expect your income to change significantly from prior years. Entering new tax brackets is certainly not a bad thing (it is a rare situation where one should feel bad about making more money), but something that warrants being aware of its implications. This can be especially true for those who are self-employed or otherwise acquire much of their income without taxes already being withheld.

Thankfully, the IRS has a pretty strong tool to help one estimate your tax bill with its withholding calculator that you can check out at https://apps.irs.gov/app/withholdingcalculator/. This will bring you through questions around both life events and income that will largely determine your tax picture. Knowing how much you have to pay now can help you prepare for the bill and prevent scrambling to come up with the money come April. And that preparation needs be no more intense than changing your withholding on your paycheck. To find out just how to do that, talk to whoever handles your payroll, but I promise that it is easier than you fear.

Beyond those concerns, it is not only those who can expect a larger tax bill that may want to pay attention to this area. If you are used to getting a large tax refund – and expect another – but are still paying out the same amount of tax money from your paycheck, maybe you want to adjust your withholding and keep more of that money. This may not end up being a huge amount, but it could serve you better in your bank account than the government’s.

No matter where you live on this spectrum, at least now you can’t say that I did not put out a warning about these issues before it is too late. And it may be the only one you get, for I swear that I do have other interests beyond taxes, even if it doesn’t always seem that way.  

It seems that there is an impulse to believe young people possess a measure of savvy lacking in those who are older. We also seem to believe that level of savvy decrease the older one gets. After all, senior citizens are the ones we worry most about falling victim to financial and tax scams, right?

Well, this article from Forbes.com says that it is actually millennials who are most likely to fall victim to such scams.

Just the headline of this article grabbed my surprised attention, but the numbers in the article blew me away even more. Almost 17 percent of millennials said that if a caller could verify the last four digits of a social security number, they would give away more personal information, as compared to 3.2 percent of Gen X-ers and two percent of Baby Boomers. It then shouldn’t be so surprising that millennials as a group feel they are less likely to be victims of identity theft.

In a way, this is a heartening statistic. People should grow up feeling safe and not afraid of the world, right? At the same time, though, we need to ensure that they also gain a sense of how to keep themselves safe.

That generation is growing up in a world where more is being shared as a general rule. Technology has made it easier to keep in contact with more people than ever before, and social media is leading to more being shared between those people than ever before.

There is much debate to be had in this area over what information is right to share, and with whom, but there are certain pieces that one must learn to keep private no matter what, Certain pieces of personal information can be used by scammers to negatively affect one financially, and the younger generations must be taught what information needs to be held close.

Ironically it seems that savvy that we credit the younger generation with can is often attached to technology, but it may be that same technology that is making them more susceptible to such scams.

Maybe the older generations need to keep in mind that there are things they do not know as well as younger generations, but there is also a wealth of knowledge they can pass on, and much of that comes from experience. After all, how much do children have to worry about handling finances? This is why just last week I wrote about making sure those holding summer jobs knew about the tax obligations of that work.

In fact, I recently read another article that says the millennial generation is financially timid. Now of course, this is a time in our country when many are feeling unsure and timid for a variety of reasons. But if we are going to carry through the ideas already uncovered here, doesn’t it stand to reason that one would be timid in areas where they don’t have a lot of a knowledge or confidence?

In conclusion, I think that financial issues are not something families always discuss, and this is understandable. First, they can often be a source of stress, and thus a less-than-enjoyable topic. Second, there rarely is much younger members of a family do that affects the situation. But let these stories be a slight warning that there is a measure of information that will only serve them well to have.

Last week I wrote about the wonder of a summer holiday and how taking a break and thinking outside of normal work parameters can increase one’s overall happiness and translate to more productivity at work. That only referred to short mental breaks, though, for we cannot leave work completely behind in the summer.

In fact, there are some people who may do most of their work over the summer, as many students take on summer jobs to either earn extra money or save enough to get through the rest of the year. If you are in this position, or know someone who is, make that the tax implications of this work is understood.

For those who make the bulk of their income over these few warm months, they probably don’t have much to worry about when it comes to their tax burden, especially if they are working a regular job with a regular paycheck that  comes with a W-2 at the end of the year. Whatever they owe is likely covered through the withholding in their paycheck, and many can even expect a refund.

Of course, for those who have income of other sorts, this may not be the case, and answers about their taxes can be more difficult.  These answers get even trickier if one does not receive a regular paycheck and instead qualifies as self-employed. This is a growing situation across all age groups, as technology increasingly lets people work in different ways, but it seems to be even more prevalent amongst the youth who tend to be the most skilled in navigating that new world.

Now again, if one only works a few months and makes a nominal amount of money, your tax burden will be minimal.  But if you do make enough to owe some taxes at the end of the year, these people need to be extra cautious for none of that bill was already paid through paycheck withholding.

I would never claim that these youngsters present some of the tougher tax problems that come through my door. They do, however, present a different set of challenges, and some that are unfamiliar to many. What one pays for tuition, in student loan interest, or gets from ROTC pay are numbers that will end up affecting your tax picture.

And what about those who work in a job where they receive tips? Are they working on recording those correctly to make sure they can file a full tax return that will not come back to bite them in the future?

Again, the chances of these being large bills and giant problems are not huge. With a little knowledge and forethought, though, they can even be nonexistent. Also, there is probably no better time to start learning about the tax system than when it starts to affect you. So if there is anyone if your life in this position, don’t be afraid to have a little talk about this. And if you feel like you don’t know all the answers they need, don’t be afraid to reach out to someone who does.

It is one thing to say that no one ever wants to really have personal dealings with the IRS. Most of us send in our tax returns every year with the hope to never hear about them again. After all, if you do hear from the IRS after that point, it is not because they were so impressed with your organizational skills that they want to refund some more money.

If you do hear from the IRS, however, and are sure that your taxes were correctly handled, at least you won’t have to worry THAT much and can have confidence that things will be decided in your favor. There is still the aggravation of jumping through the hoops until it has been handled, though. Not only that, but with recent and seemingly ever-increasing funding cuts for the IRS, it is more difficult than ever to actually talk to an actual person at the IRS to get the situation handled.

One would then think that going to irs.gov would make sense as a way to personally find your way through their maze. After all, getting information from the same organization would actually cut down on the work they have to do if it is up to date and accurate, right? The IRS must love if someone does this to get information and makes its job easier, no?

Well, no.

I clearly have had many dealings with the IRS, and I can say that it is an EXTREMELY rare case when it happens smoothly. It is difficult to actually talk to someone, and even then it is no guarantee that the person you talk to will have the knowledge necessary to help move the process along. Even with that experience, though, I had to shake my head through this recent article by Forbes.com’s Robert W. Wood.

In that article, Wood states that there was a recent memo sent to the IRS Field Examination Area Directors telling them the FAQs and other items posted on IRS.gov are not legal authority unless they also appear in the Internal Revenue Bulletin. Now I can’t disagree with the idea that the IRS should have a collection of official rules and regulations, but why would it publicly print something, under its own name, that does not hold the weight of authority?

If you have any answer to this that makes sense, I would love to hear it for crafting one is completely evading me.

And even if you can come up with a real reason, this is unfair. It is not a policy that I am saying is being misused, but it is clearly one that could be misused. Any authority that says it has the real rules and its public statements do not necessarily follow them comes off as potentially tyrannical. Thankfully we have enough checks in this country that the IRS is not doing that, but just what can a taxpayer do to navigate their waters then?

First, and thankfully most of you reading this are already doing this, use a tax professional to handle your taxes. If you want to be sure that you are not going to have serious IRS problems, have someone serious on your side before submitting any information to the IRS. Second, continue using that professional help during any communication with the IRS. You may not know all the answers needed when it comes to handling IRS issues, but some people do.

I can’t claim that this is really fair, but I still pride myself on being more fair and open with my clients than apparently some other organizations.