Building the Financial Team That Will Help Your Business Thrive

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For many entrepreneurs and small to mid-sized business owners financial management is one of the most challenging aspects of running their business. For some it makes sense to hire knowledgeable staff to manage financial processes internally; for others, contract services make more sense. So what are the different financial roles and services available, and what can they do for your business? I’d like to help define three roles—Bookkeeper, Controller, and Chief Financial Officer—and talk a bit about the different ways these roles can support your company’s overall growth, health, and wellbeing.

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Get ready: Paid Family & Medical Leave is on its way!

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All Washington employers must provide paid family and medical leave under a bill signed by Gov. Jay Inslee on July 5. 

The new law creates an insurance fund that employers and employees both pay into, with a 0.4 percent payroll tax. Payroll deductions will begin on Jan. 1, 2019, and benefits will become available to employees on Jan. 1, 2020.  https://www.paidleave.wa.gov/ 

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Six Steps to Hiring the Right Person for the Job

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This article is excerpted from an HR best practices webinar that Clarity presented in partnership with Washington Nonprofits.

Human resources are the people that make up your workforce—from the largest corporation to the smallest business or nonprofit organization. They are the engine that power your ability to invent things, produce things, or deliver services. Humans bring the value to your enterprise. As a business or nonprofit organization, your employees are your greatest expense and your greatest opportunity.

Once hired, it takes 6 months for an employee to learn all aspects of their job, and an additional 6 months to become proficient at it. This means it takes a full year to begin to offset the cost and investment of the employer. To receive a return on investment of a full year of expenses associated with hiring, on-boarding, training, and supporting your new employee to proficiency, you really need to keep an employee for two years. This is why it’s important to find just the right fit for your position during the hiring process!

Here are six steps every organization should take to boost their chances of finding and hiring a great match.

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Celebrate Earth Day, Green Your Business

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There are so many reasons to go green! Increasingly, people are recognizing we have a shared responsibility to lighten our collective environmental impact—for our children, and future generations of all living things. More and more business and nonprofit leaders see the potential their sectors have for pushing our culture and economy toward sustainability, and are stepping up to do the good work.

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Dashboards Can Be Springboards!

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“Measure everything of significance. Anything that is measured and watched, improves.” - Bob Parsons, founder of GoDaddy
 
Most businesses and nonprofits today are swimming in data, and generating more all the time. It’s stored in customer databases, inventory software, QuickBooks, marketing programs, social media platforms, and even Google Analytics. Many entrepreneurs and leaders know intuitively that this can be a powerful tool for smart decision-making, but feel overwhelmed by the prospect of mining and making sense of it all. This is where dashboards come in.

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