Saturday, September 16, 2000, 1:00 pm

Staying in Balance: 
Accounting Concerns for the Small Business 
Jina-Michele M. Etienne, CPA 

Do you know how to calculate and/or forecast cash flow? Do you really understand what a balance sheet is? Do you know what it means to age your receivables? These are just a few of the many accounting issues and considerations every business owner should know. 

If you hire an outside accountant to assist in bookkeeping, accounting, and tax return preparation, do you have the skills and basic knowledge to supervise the work? How can you know whether the service you are getting is good or even adequate if you don't know what the final product should include and look like? Can you communicate your accounting information with confidence, demonstrating that you understand the implications of your own financial records? Can you have an intelligent and productive conversation with bankers and potential investors? 

To be the true captain of your ship, there are some fundamental accounting terms, concepts, and processes that you need to understand. This presentation will walk you through some of the major areas of concern and provide definitions, descriptions, and examples so that you will understand the concepts and can apply them immediately to your business. Whether you gross more than a million dollars a year in sales, or are just getting started as an independent consultant, you need to know: How much did we made? What does our cash flow look like? Can we manage our major expenses? Are we paying too much in taxes? Will we survive another year? 

The presentation will focus on the following key areas: 

• Calculating net income
• Calculating and managing cash flow
• Using credit cards in your business
• Managing and tracking accounts receivable
• Implementing good billing practices and procedures
• Accepting payments by credit card (merchant accounts)
• Planning for, recording, and writing off major expenses, such as asset purchases and payroll
• Minimizing taxes by--
• Improving recordkeeping
• Maximizing writeoffs
• Deducting home-office expenses
• Making good health insurance choices
• Selecting retirement plans and options wisely

Bring your questions. According to Small Business Administration (SBA) statistics, one of the main reasons for small business failure during the first 5 years is undercapitalization, often the result of bad recordkeeping, or no recordkeeping at all! 

Come ready to learn, and find out how to Stay in Balance! 

Speaker: Jina-Michele M. Etienne, CPA, has more than 11 years of public accounting experience. She began her career with Deloitte & Touche, one of the "Big Eight" accounting firms, where her focus was tax planning and compliance for corporations, partnerships, and S corporations ranging from government contractors and vending companies to hospitality and retail firms. When she left Deloitte and Touche after several years, her focus shifted to the needs of small- and medium-sized businesses. 

Now with her own practice, Jina Etienne provides a wide range of accounting services for businesses and individuals, including tax planning and preparation, and business consulting. Her client base is diverse, including retail and service-based businesses as well as consultants and contractors. She also has been involved in a variety of special projects ranging from budget estimating for government proposals and bids, to providing stock versus asset comparisons for a corporate reorganization. 

For individuals, her services are tax preparation and planning, including tax research projects and taxpayer representation cases. She has researched the tax consequences of incentive versus nonqualified stock options, the timing of capital stock sales, the applicability of the home-office deduction, and more. In her most notable taxpayer representation case, Ms. Etienne successfully defended a taxpayer's position, reducing an IRS assessment for more than $40,000 to a tax bill just under $3,000. 

Ms. Etienne earned an M.S. in taxation in 1993 and a B.S.B.A. in accounting in 1989 from American University. Jina has also taught accounting as an adjunct professor at American University and teaches QuickBooks at local seminars and conferences. She may be reached at jina@jmecpa.com, and her Web site is at http://www.jmecpa.com.

Saturday, September 16, 1:00 pm
National Institutes of Health (NIH) 
Lipsett Amphitheater 
Clinical Center (Building 10) 
9000 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, Maryland 
(area map; NIH campus map; Floorplan of first floor of Clinical Center) 

Free Parking: There's construction underway at NIH, so try to arrive a little early. (There are traffic police on the NIH campus--observe the
signs--speeding or rolling through stop signs, for example, can result
in tickets.)  You may park in the inside parking garage of Building
10. Enter from Memorial Drive and park on the P3 level. Watch for and
observe the signs, including those about types of cars permitted in
certain spaces (such as "handicapped" driver and "small compact"
only.) Tell any parking attendant you are attending a CPCUG event
(there will be no charge). You may also park in the many outdoor
parking lots.

Metro--Medical Center Stop on the Red Line (about 3 blocks across the NIH campus) 

Free (any door prizes are usually for CPCUG members only) 

RSVP: Not required to attend, but if possible, please RSVP via e-mail to bconn@cpcug.org. (Sometimes we have handouts, giveaways, or both,
and try to have enough for everyone.)