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Helping Milwaukee Entrepreneurs

nicholas • Oct 14, 2016

This past Tuesday night, I had the opportunity to help Milwaukee entrepreneurs compile their business plans. I occasionally volunteer my time with the Wisconsin Women’s Business Initiative Corporation. WWBIC is a great organization with this mission:

WWBIC is a leading innovative statewide economic development corporation “Putting Dreams to Work.” We focus on individuals who face barriers in accessing traditional financing or resources in pursuit of their dreams and economic well-being. We provide targeted individuals interested in starting, strengthening or expanding businesses with access to vital resources and tools such as quality financial and business education and responsible financial products. We improve the economic well-being of targeted low income individuals by building assets and advancing economic self-sufficiency. We particularly focus on women, people of color, and low-income individuals, providing direct lending and access to fair and responsible capital, quality business education, one-on-one technical business assistance and education to increase financial capability.

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The students of WWBIC are put through classes which teach them all aspects of starting and maintaining a business plan. My duty is to review their business plans with them and inform them of important aspects of tax and accounting that they should know.

This past session, I met with an aspiring gym owner, in-home care specialist, beauty salon owner, record label owner, and clothing line designer. It is great to see individuals with a vision and goals to become their own boss and do what they love to do.

Here were the main questions that were asked by these entrepreneurs, and the topics I really tried to emphasize to them:

  • The difference between being a sole proprietor, corporation, and partnership.
  • How to decide if people that do work for me should be employees on payroll or should be subcontractors.
  • The importance of having a profit margin that is sustainable.
  • What kind of taxes am I subject to as a business owner and when should they be paid.
  • Keeping track of business related mileage.
  • How to improve cash flow.
  • Projecting profit and loss for 3 years. What kind of goals do you have in mind.
  • How to file a tax return as a sole proprietor.
    The many roles of an entrepreneur!
      The many roles of an entrepreneur!

 

WWBIC really pushes their students to come up with a complete game plan to prepare for the world of being self employed. It is a tough task for an entrepreneur to handle all the aspects of owning a business. That is where Hammernik & Associates comes in to help. Our main focus when dealing with business owners is to relieve the stress of dealing with the financial aspects of their business. By giving a business owner peace of mind that their financial paperwork is being taken care of, it allows them to do what they do best…produce sales.

We work with businesses of all sizes and business owners with different needs. We have packages available for the business owner that wants all hands on deck, and also packages for the owner that just needs some occasional advice.

I encourage any aspiring entrepreneur to contact us so that we can get you off to the right start in reaching your goals. I also encourage any business owner that is stuck in neutral to contact us so that we can analyze how we can develop a strategy to get you back over the hump. If you need accounting help in Milwaukee, Waukesha, and everywhere in between, we have been helping business owners for 30+ years.

My Dad, Dale, has written a book which should be a hand book for every small business owner in Wisconsin. It covers all the aspects of running your own business and is a good resource whenever a question may arise. That book, Straight Talk About Small Business Success In Wisconsin, can be purchased on Amazon or contact our office if interested.

Any time you volunteer, you get that feeling that you are helping out someone that needs your help. The truth is, we get that feeling of satisfaction every time that we help our clients out. As I mentioned, our services focus on providing our clients the free time to work on their business, make money, spend time with family and enjoy life to the fullest. We help Milwaukee, Waukesha, Brookfield, New Berlin, Wauwatosa with small business tax preparation, small business accounting and small business tax planning.

I have been with WWBIC for about 2 years now and will continue working with them. If you are interested in using your skills to volunteer for them OR if you are an aspiring entrepreneur that needs some help, visit them at  http://www.wwbic.com.

 

Dream big, entrepreneurs, dream big.

 

Nicholas Hammernik, EA

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