I-9 Form Guidelines

Every employee in the United States should have on file with their employer an I-9 form.

This immigration or proof of documentation to work in the United States has been required since 1986. Over the years more and more employers have started to have this form on hand for new hires to file out before they start working. The information on the I-9 form has employees verify with documents they are "legal" to work in the United States. (This form is in addition to the w-4 form for income tax withholding)

Areas of Information on the I-9 form are as follows.

General information about the employee including:

Name, address, date of birth, Social Security number and a declaration by the employee (which they sign) their United States citizen ship, resident alien or having a special alien permit to work in the United States (a2 or other programs.)

Employers cannot specify which documents they will accept.

List A: Documents that establish both identity and employment eligibility.


List B: Documents that establish identity


List C: Documents that establish employment eligibility


Our next blog posting will describe documents that can be used in list A, List B, and List C.


If you have questions on the I-9 or any related immigration / legal status of employees please consult specialist or your attorney. Many state and federal agencies can be of help as well. Here is a link to get the I-9 form along with insturctions. http://www.uscis.gov/files/form/I-9.pdf

Summer Hiring Rules

With the coming of summer, many small to mid sized businesses are faced with what to do for summer hires. Here are some suggestions from The American Institute of Professional Bookkeeper's May 2008 newsletter.

Withhold FICA on all summer workers, even high school students, unless under 18 working for parent/sole owners. Have all summer employees submit a W-4—even students working part-time—and withhold FIT unless someone claims exempt or has more than 10 exemptions.

Health care, other benefits and pensions. Giving benefits to temporary and part-time employees is optional, but if you do not give them, this policy should be written in a plan document.

Vacation and holidays. Federal and state laws do not require paying summer or part-time help for vacation or holiday pay any time of year. But if you give vacation pay, some state laws may apply.

Overtime pay: federal law. Pay overtime for all hours physically worked over 40 hours in a workweek. You are not required to include paid time off—e.g., vacation days. Do not substitute paid non-work hours for work hours to make all hours straight time to avoid paying some hours at straight time and some at overtime.

Family-owned firms employing the owners’ children. If the parent(s) own 100% of the business as sole proprietor(s), partner(s) or stockholder(s), their children can work for them regardless of age, hours or time of day. But if the owners regularly employ other than immediate family, they must pay their children the federal minimum wage. Their children under 16 generally may do clerical but not “hazardous” work, such as operating lawn mowers, sewing machines, etc., or working where food is cooked or near flammable or hazardous material.

If you have questions about your situation. Please consult your accountant, attorney, local, state or federal agencies that specialize in labor / employment.

Budgets: Part 4 - Cash Flow

Since our recent posts on budgets we have had many interesting questions presented to us. One frequent question is: How can you budget cash flow? We all know that cash flow is the blood of every business. Without adequate cash flow life can be the pits.

A quick recap on the definition of cash flow is the following: Money coming in from any source matched to money going out of a business. Do you have enough cash to pay your bills or are you short?

For over 30 years we have worked with many types of businesses. We have learned both valuable and painful lessons. One of which is the importance of: Developing a cash flow plan (budget) for your business. Then, at least on a monthly basis(for the current year) figure out what money is coming in and going out, account by account. Project your money collections and what money is being paid out to operate your business. Do they match? Are you short of money or have a surplus?

If you are a cash basis business, it's simple. Your money coming in should at least match the money going out. Is it enough to pay current bills or do you need to delay payment or borrow operating money?

If you are an accrual business and are having great sales that may not be enough to keep your business afloat. The fly in the ointment is... are you collecting your accounts receivable at least at a rate that you need to pay your bills which are your accounts payable?

A cash flow budget is a plan to collect money from sales which is then used to pay the expenses incurred while generating those sales. If you have a surplus of cash during business operations invest it. Eventually you will be able to draw on these funds during periods when cash collections do not cover your bill payments. Should your sales and collections of receivables not cover your bills to stay in business you will need to borrow funds. Most businesses need to do this from time to time.

Your life will have less stress if you have a cash flow budget. Your backers or banker will be happier to know that you have an understanding of when you will be short of cash, and when you will have a surplus. Figure it out and plan it out.

If you need help with budgeting cash flow, send us an email at either cdi@srv.net or snap@srv.net and we will send you some links, suggestions and possible solutions.

Budgets: Part 3 - Enterprise / Job / Projects

After our last posting of operational budgets for a business we received numerous calls and emails. Many of you wanted to know more about budgeting by different parts of the total business.

Great examples of budget needs for parts or areas of a business are the following:

• Agriculture - By crop or livestock operation, to a field level or farm.
• Agri-Business - By differing operations or locations
• Construction - By type of job, such as remodels, new homes, commercial
• Service Business - By truck, van, different communities, routes
• Consulting Business - By customer, marketing area or projects
• Software Developers - By project, product, updates or marketing area
• Web designers - By customer, web site, updates or maintenance
• Graphics projects - By customer, client, project
• Property Management - By apartment, rental building, etc.

Budgets can be developed either manually or with the use of software. Budgets that are part of the total operation are invaluable to achieve the goals or cost management of a business.

Remember, parts of the business make up the total business. If you can identify success or failures at the lower levels of a business you, the owner or manager, can make quicker adjustments in controlling costs, time, materials or the marketing sales price of your products.

This level of overview of budget vs actual for components of the total business is once again a proven method to a successfully run business.

Budgeting: Part 2 - Operating Budgets

Every business owner or manager wants to know how things are going during the year. For many the request may be about sales, costs, cash-flow or profits. Each are great indicators of what is happening in the business.

One guidepost generally overlooked is the actual for the year compared to what was planned or budgeted. Each business entity should seriously consider creating an operating budget for each year.

Your operating budget might simply be made up of last year's actual without changes or with modified numbers to reflect what you want your business to do this year compared to last year.

An operating budget plans for income, expenses, asset purchases, debt reductions, marketing, profitability and new business development (R & D). As the year progresses do a monthly or at least quarterly comparative of budget vs actual to see how your plan is working. Make changes and adjustments as needed.

Many software programs and some spreadsheets will help with planning, reviewing and tracking of budgets. Your accountant or bookkeeper can also be a great asset in this process.

Cash-flow tracking of budgeted cash-flow compared to actual cash-flow is invaluable for decision making. Cash-flow is the life blood of your business.

Budgeting: Better Road to Success - Part 1

When I travel I like to look at a map or at least the itinerary of the trip and my destination. When I review the details or at least the general travel information of the trip I get a better feel for what is going to happen. In many cases the plans will get changed or be adjusted due to bad weather or other situations.

A trip for business or pleasure generally goes better if a map or plan is followed. Just taking off hoping to get somewhere usually is a waste of time and money.

The same holds true in your business. Planning is always better than no plan especially when financial objectives are at play.

Over the next postings I will discuss business budgeting using the experiences of clients, both good and bad. Budgeting is most helpful when clouds are on the horizon, yet sunny days also require budgeting as well. Stay tuned...

Part 3: How Search Engines Work

By better understanding how search engines work, you can make subtle changes to your site to increase the chance that people will find you when they do a relevant search online. The science (and art) of figuring out how to improve search engine rankings by bettering your web site is called “Search Engine Optimization”, or SEO for short.

Thankfully, many SEO experts publish practical tips on increasing your search engine rankings. Here are some of them:

• Plan Ahead. What keywords do you think people will use to find what you offer? Come up with a list, with the most important keywords at the top.

• Use Keywords In Your Text. After you come up with your list, use those keywords on your web pages in the text of the web page. Search engines assume the text towards the top or front of the page is more important than the bottom of the page, so put your important keywords first.

• Bold, Italicize, and Highlight important phrases. Search engines assume that if you've made a phrase bold, italicized, or big, then it must be more important than the rest of the text. Make sure your keywords are in there.

• Use Descriptive Links. A link that says Click Here is not as helpful to humans or search engines as a link that says Learn More About Our Products. When appropriate, use keywords in the links.

• Get A Keyword Analysis Audit. SEO experts invest in special software tools, reports, and programs and can give you a detailed roadmap of what to do to increase your search engine rankings. Warning: There are many SEO scams out there. You probably get SPAM e-mail from some of them. Stay away from “experts” that guarantee placement. Stick with companies you trust. See below for our recommendation.

Dan Purcell of Danemco LLC provided this content. Check it out at www.danemcoweb.com