Throughout the year, businesses like yours need to be able to provide verified financial results to others. This may be your tax preparer, a lender or investor, a potential purchaser of your business -- should you decide to sell -- or another interested party. Not to mention that you, as the company owner should know your books are being done with accuracy and completeness. For all of these reasons, you should consider having your accountant prepare certified financial statem

Private equity funds offer a way to get a capital infusion for your company for a period of time while maintaining a role in its operation and avoiding a sale or a merger. It's called equity recapitalization and it typically involves selling a minority or majority stake in your company to a private equity fund. With an equity recap, you retain part-ownership and remain involved in the daily operations of the company for an average of five years. Following that period of restr

Small and medium-sized companies are particularly prone to employee theft because they typically don't have the staff available to assign more than one employee to processes to help ensure that fraud doesn't take place. Assigning more than one employee to certain tasks, also known as segregating duties, is one of the primary tactics that companies can use to fight internal fraud. The importance of segregating duties can be seen in one fraud case involving a roofing and sheet

If you are about to ask for a business loan, expect to deal with the issue of covenants -- constraints lenders impose on your company to keep it operating within specified financial ratios and to prevent it from taking certain actions. These clauses are meant to help the lender mitigate risk and get its money back. But if you are not careful, they can put your company in a stranglehold. Under some very strict loan agreements, if your firm violates a covenant, it can automatic

You wouldn't perform a surgery on yourself. The same holds true when buying a business. Unless you're well-versed in performing a comprehensive financial analysis of a business, it doesn't make sense to buy one without using a due diligence and valuation specialist. A due diligence report: Verifies the accuracy of the seller's information. Outlines a detailed understanding of the business. Contains vital information that can be used for negotiating the transaction, obtaining