TheArtist
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« Reply #8 on: July 28, 2016, 08:21:27 am » |
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Reading the nasty comments after the article and on Facebook it is apparent that many of them do not have small businesses of their own.
It is tough as a small business keeping track of all the bills and taxes you have to pay. There are SO many tax type things alone that it is tricky, I think there are about 30 tax forms we have to fill out each year, and many must be filled out multiple times each year, and a mistake can be made on any one of them, or heck one can be overlooked entirely and then you spend or invest the money thinking it is yours... I could only imagine having many businesses.
I just over paid my OTC by $1000 last month. I am just glad it was a mistake in the "overpayment" direction versus the other way around or people if they found out about it could say bad things. "We will see how quickly and determinedly the OTC gets us back money that is ""Not theirs to begin with"." Ooops wait, that is not going to happen. If I can make a $1000 mistake with my little store, I am sure bigger businesses can make bigger mistakes lol.
Employees do make mistakes and yes it is up to the owner to check on everything. I have a long list of things I have to check on each month (the list is saved on my desk top, and then I have directions on how to do it and what I am looking for cause there is so much stuff and not all of it is something I completely understand lol)
And remember, the taxes aren't the only thing a business owner has to be keeping track of, budgeting, employee performance and payroll, I have literally hundreds of vendors and vendor payments each month, hundreds of thousands of products in my store to keep track of (whats selling, what is not, what sells when and during what part of the year, etc.) then there are many credit cards and bank statements, many vendors we have "terms" or credit with which have different times when payments are due (you may get the product in on one month and the payments start or are due several months later, try budgeting with that when you have hundreds of vendors lol it can get quite tricky), permits and insurance, then I have events we put on (getting food, ice, promoting it, decorating for it, staffed for it, planned out right etc.), homeless/trouble people (yes they take up your time often hours a day, hours that you could be doing other work, when they wander in and start looking at every single product or asking questions, or trying to as they mumble incoherently, ask to use the restroom, etc. ) the painting classes we do and preparing for those, book signings, creating our own new products (which is time consuming) making the store better in general, promotions and budgeting for that, day to day keeping the store clean and organized and keeping care of the daily sales and the cash drawer, finding new interesting products at good prices, reordering product that is sold (or not if it is not doing well but you have to determine that properly) reordering hundreds and hundreds of books sold many through the many different book companies, unpacking everything you get in and making sure all that paperwork is right and taking care of orders that are not complete, damaged, following up with that, making sure they have their numbers correct, etc, pricing it, placing it on the floor in a good way and reorganizing product so it will sell well and keep the store looking fresh, scanning in all the paperwork and invoices into the correct places, answering phone calls, general promotions including posters and ads (which I design and create) business Facebook posts which can take time if done right, twitter, histogram, making sure the website is up to date and continually improved, (keeping track of all the domains, trademarks, etc and making sure they are paid for and hosted) going through tons of business e-mails, etc. etc. etc.... etc. etc. etc.
And there are basically 3 of us doing all of that. While....... I work my DAY JOB (lot involved there) and work on the house, and try to keep a museum running and growing (and helping with fundraising events for that, paying the bills, doing the accounting, taxes, sales with the gift shop, employee, volunteers, etc.), Helping with the Deco District, and try to have a life and pay all of the "home" bills and taxes, mow the yard, feed and take care of the critters, family, you all know the drill lol . in there somewhere.
I can see how mistakes can happen and they get away from you really quickly if your a busy, small business owner. Thank goodness my parter is a paperwork, organization freak Nazi lol.
Anyway, got to go and finish loading up some scaffolding to take to the new job I am starting today, and hoping that everything goes ok at the store while I am not there!
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