Tag: small business finance

An Overview of the Colorado Secure Savings Act: Employer Responsibilities

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If your business is in Colorado AND you have payroll (even if your payroll is only for yourself), PLEASE READ THIS ARTICLE!  

The Colorado Secure Savings Act, signed into law in May 2021, requires Colorado-based employers with at least five employees to offer a retirement savings program to their workers. 

****Regardless of the number of employees you have, this Act REQUIRES ACTION****

If Incline Business Essentials provides payroll services to your company, we have you on our list to assist.  If your payroll services are provided by a CPA or other outside company, please coordinate with us if you need assistance.  

BUSINESSES WITH FEWER THAN 5 EMPLOYEES 

  1. If your business has fewer than five employees, you will receive a PIN number from the State of Colorado.  You will receive this via a letter/postcard AND/OR via email.  This PIN is necessary to officially notify the state that your business is exempt.  Please be on the lookout for this PIN and forward it to your bookkeeper.  
  2. If Incline handles your payroll, Incline Business Essentials will ensure that you are registered as an exempt business with the State of Colorado.  Incline will bill you accordingly for this additional work.  If you have an outside payroll provider (CPA or other), please please coordinate with us if you need help setting this up.
  3. If you hire additional employees and reach the 5-employee threshold, PLEASE, PLEASE let us know.  We cannot ensure your compliance unless you communicate these changes to us.

BUSINESSES WITH 5 OR MORE EMPLOYEES

Do you already offer an acceptable employee savings plan?  Please read the applicable category below:

If your business has five or more employees and you already HAVE an acceptable savings program set up for your employees: 

  1. You will receive a PIN number from the State of Colorado.  You will receive this via a letter/postcard AND/OR via email.  This PIN is necessary to officially notify the state that your business is exempt.  Please be on the lookout for this PIN and forward it to your bookkeeper. 

If your business has five or more employees and you do NOT already offer an acceptable savings program:  

You are required by law to offer the Colorado Secure Savings program.  What does this mean for you?

  1. We will need to create an online account/portal for the Secure Savings Act.  You will receive a PIN number from the State of Colorado.  You will receive this via a letter/postcard AND/OR via email.  This PIN is necessary to set up the required online portal.  Please be on the lookout for this PIN and forward it to your bookkeeper. Incline will handle the setup and will bill you accordingly.  We MUST HAVE THE PIN from you.  Please send this to us no later than June 10th.
  2. Important:  YOUR EMPLOYEES WILL AUTOMATICALLY BE SET UP FOR THIS PROGRAM.  This is an “opt-out” program.  Your employees will receive an email with opt-out instructions.  This will come directly from the state after we create your online business profile.  It is YOUR EMPLOYEE’S RESPONSIBILITY TO “OPT-OUT” IF THEY CHOOSE NOT TO PARTICIPATE.   Incline cannot Opt-Out for your employee.  You cannot opt-out for your employee.  Your employee must complete this opt-out process.  Otherwise, 5% of their gross earnings will be automatically withheld from their paycheck to be placed into a savings account.
  3. Each pay period, Incline Business Essentials will log into the portal with the state and make the appropriate payments into the employee savings accounts.  
  4. Incline Business Essentials will be billing accordingly for this work.

TO HELP YOUR EMPLOYEES “OPT OUT”

Incline cannot opt your employees out.  The employee must opt out of the program themselves OR they will AUTOMATICALLY have 5% of their gross payroll withheld.  If they do not opt-out and funds are withheld, your employee will have to access their funds directly from the state.  Incline cannot assist you with withdrawing funds from Colorado Secure Savings.

  1. Your employee should receive an email from the state with opt-out instructions.
  2. If no email is received, please direct your employee to: https://coloradosecuresavings.com/ 

To our knowledge, this is the only way to opt out of the program.  If you have employees who may not be able to navigate the opt-out, we recommend that you sit at a computer or device and help them through the process.  While it is the employee’s responsibility, as the employer, it is your legal responsibility to inform your employee and ensure that your employees understand this will be happening.

Important Reminder:

Incline Business Essentials is NOT an HR company.  It is your responsibility to notify your employees in accordance with the Colorado Law.  For full details, visit the Colorado Secure Savings website.  If you are a Gusto or QBO payroll client, we can connect you with Gusto/QBO HR services if you need things like employee handbooks, etc.  

For more information about the Employer Responsibilities, please refer to: https://coloradosecuresavings.com/employers/program-details

Incline is here to help.  If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out.  If we don’t know the answer, we will do our best to help find the answer.  Reminder that we will be billing for our services in setting up these systems.

Why You Need Bookkeeping

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If you run a business, the act of bookkeeping is essential. Let’s start by defining bookkeeping. What exactly is “Bookkeeping?”

Bookkeeping is the process of recording the financial transactions of your company. Bookkeeping categorizes the money coming into your business as income. Expenses refer to money that your business spends in order to operate. The act of bookkeeping organizes your expenses into categories that are used to file your taxes.

Now let’s talk about why this matters.  

File Your Taxes

As a business owner, you will likely hire a CPA to file your taxes. You will need to provide the CPA with your income and your expenses. Your taxes cannot be filed without this information. This leads to the next important reason for keeping an accurate set of books.  

Pay Fewer Taxes

This is probably the most attractive reason to have a bookkeeping system in place. Bookkeeping identifies all of your transactions so that nothing slips through the cracks. You must categorize each and every transaction that goes through your bank account. By keeping an accurate set of books, you will know exactly what you spend on gas or office supplies, or advertising. When you are gathering your data at the end of the year, you aren’t trying to remember how much you spent on that new computer or which client you took to lunch in May. Without a clear bookkeeping system, you will invariably miss out on deductions. You must have a plan and a process to ensure that deductions are captured.

Your expenses must be organized into categories approved by the IRS in order to be considered “deductions”. Without deductions, you will pay taxes on the entire income of your business. With deductions, you will rightfully cut this tax bill thereby saving you and your business money. For example, if your business brings in $100,000 without deductions, you might pay the IRS upwards of $25,000. But, if you can clearly show business expenses of $60,000, you might pay $10,000. This is a tax savings of $15K — not just nickels and dimes!

Track Your Profit

Profit is a key indicator of your business’s success. You can only determine your profitability if you are tracking your income and expenses.

Make Decisions About Your Business

Bookkeeping can help you make decisions about your business. Is it a good time to hire? Should you be increasing your prices? Are you spending too much on utilities? These decisions are guided by your business’s financial health.

Financing

In order to get financing for your business, you will need to provide the lender a set of books showing your income and expenses. Banks will require you to show your expenses vs. your revenue, otherwise known as your Income Statement or Profit and Loss. Bookkeeping will provide this report.

Catch Mistakes

Were you overcharged or charged twice for a service? Are you paying for a subscription that you are no longer using? You will catch these transactions through your bookkeeping because you are looking closely at every transaction.

Where Is Your Money Going?

Through bookkeeping, you will understand where your money is going.  This will help you budget and plan cash flow for the development of your business.

Bookkeeping will save you money by saving on taxes, cutting down on mistakes, guiding you through financial decisions, and improving your cash flow.  Business owners often want to do this on their own. Sometimes this works. But often the books are the piece of the business that well-intentioned owners plan to do and just don’t have enough time in the day.  

Bookkeeping is essential but it does take time, pulling you away from your actual business and preventing you from focusing on your clients.  As a business owner, you wear so many hats.  This is one that you can easily outsource with confidence. Reach out for a complementary consultation to see if our services would be a good fit for your business.

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