From Greg's Head

I’ve been thinking about the benefits of corporate jets lately.

When the Detroit Three flew to Washington for their initial Congressional hearing, then drove down for the second one, I thought it was interesting.  Is it worth the time and investment to have the CEOs fly private?

Not having to worry about flight delays, security and random people sitting next to you could be nice.  Also the uninterrupted work time has to count for something. 

On the other hand, the cost to maintain, fuel, and fly the jets is quite high.  Is it worth the money to afford the CEO a couple hours of uninterrupted work time?

What are your thoughts? Would you want your CEO flying in a corporate jet or commercial?  When we’re all watching the bottom and top lines is it reasonable to expect the leadership of large companies to drop the corporate jet?

With that, have a happy and safe New Year’s Eve tonight.  See you in 2009!

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Continuing with last week’s post about the 12 Days of Tax Savings, PKF Texas recently released our 2008-2009 Tax Planning Guide. It can be found on our website at www.pkftexas.com/publications.  Looking ahead to 2009, I hope you find this guide useful when making decisions in the new year.  Many of our clients have found it beneficial and I wanted to share it with my readers.   

Topics include: tax law changes, deductions, gains and losses, and education.

If you have any questions or need assistance with any of the presented information, please don’t hesitate to contact your PKF Texas tax advisor or send me an email at GregsHead@pkftexas.com and I can point you to the correct tax professional in our firm. 
 

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Note: Running Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook™ page of the PKF Texas website.

A recent study from Deloitte Financial Advisory Services has found that bankrupt companies are three times as likely to have been cited for fraud.  The study went on to say that companies who are cited for fraud are twice as likely to end up in bankruptcy court. 

The study does not make it clear whether employees at bankrupt companies are more likely to commit fraud, or whether the microscope of bankruptcy makes it easier for regulators to detect it.

In either case, it is definitely something business owners should be aware of and discuss with their management team.

It’s important that you take the necessary steps to identify the potential for fraud in your company. PKF Texas has a diagnostic survey located on our website at pkftexas.com/FraudSurvey which can serve as a starting point to begin a dialogue with your management team.

With the economy the way it is right now, you can’t afford to be losing money to controllable factors like fraud. 

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Merry Christmas Eve!  I hope this post finds you healthy, happy and with loved ones.

AccountingWeb has written a series of articles called the 12 Days of Tax Savings.  In the spirit of the season, I’m passing along the link to you.

Taking the idea from the song, the 12 Days of Christmas, the 12 Days of Tax Savings pieces offer tips from when to pay spring college tuition in order to qualify for certain deductions to information about how long a foster child has to live in your home to qualify as a dependant. 

This is all good information to have at the start of the new year when you begin to think about preparing your 2008 taxes.

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For those of you scrambling for last minute Christmas gifts, there’s a novel one: Steven Zelin, The Singing CPA has released his latest CD, “No Accounting for the Holidays.”

Songs on the CD include: “We Wish You a Great Refund,” “Most Deductable Time of the Year,” and “Taxes, Taxes, Taxes.”  The CD is available on his website, www.thesingingcpa.com.

Kudos to Steven for following his dream of a music career and mixing it with his former career as an accountant.  It reminds of the Battle of the Business Bands event during CelebrateEnterprise!, where bands made up of C-level executives compete to win the CelebrateEnterprise! Silver Guitar.  These guys continue to prove the stereotype of the boring accountant wrong!

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Note: Running Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook™ page of the PKF Texas website.

Well every day you see more and more folks using them and you ask yourself should I breakdown and get that Blackberry, iPhone, of PDA/Phone that keeps you 100% wired 24x7?

While the question is a technology play, the answer and the reasons for using the technology are not.  They have to deal with the simple basic requirements of your business and how you want to balance them with your personal life.  I happen to use a PDA/Phone because my team and our client requirements require me to be available to either manage an issue directly, or be available to a team member or a client with a question. 

By using the device, it allows me to be projected across a broader base and be more fully involved in many processes.  But there is a dark side to the technology as well.  And many of you have crossed over to the dark side.   There are some of you who have allowed the “crackberry” device to command your attention 24X7 and you are constantly looking at them throughout the day vs. managing yourself.   Make sure you don’t irritate the person you are with by constantly reading your e-mail, etc.  Develop a process of when to check and not check the device so you are focused on the job at hand.

At some point many of us have left a meeting mentally to check our e-mail, text message or some other matter that was of more interest to us.  The reality is, we need to better manage our use of the technology and not become a slave to it.

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With so much unpleasant news surrounding us right now, I want to remind our readers of some of the good things happening in the Houston economy.

The 2008 FastTech 50 companies are collectively responsible for creating nearly 3,270 jobs in Houston.  They also have contributed over $629 million in revenue into the local economy.  Those are impressive figures and that’s only 50 companies.

Several retailers like Sun & Ski Sports and JC Penney are expanding in Houston because there are real estate opportunities to jump on.  I hope this will be a continuing trend that retailers and other business recognize it’s worth taking a risk in Houston.

While the overall mood of the nation and the economy is troubling, there are still bright spots that tell us that the economy will eventually rebound.

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I read a magazine called The Week.  If you haven’t read it, it’s a magazine that compiles the best articles from the U.S. and international media from the previous week.  Their tagline is “All you need to know about everything that matters.”

The November 28th issue had an excellent article called “Why Recessions Happen.” It details in plain English how we know we’re in a recession, what causes recessions and how recessions end.

I think we need more articles like this that don’t immediately jump to scare tactics to get their point across.  It is well balanced and states the simple facts.

What have you read lately that you’ve said to yourself, “FINALLY, an honest report!”?

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Note: Running Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook™ page of the PKF Texas website.

Strategic planning is key to the growth of a company.  Market forces often impact the planning and you must move quickly to respond to opportunities and threats.

Using the one page plan model can allow a company the nimbleness it needs to respond to these opportunities and threats.

Central to the creation of the one page plan is the concept of NOW, WHERE, HOW.  Where is the company NOW? WHERE does the company want to be in the future and HOW are we going to get there?

When developing the plan with your management team, document the company status NOW in regard to the areas where improvement is needed, the current status of the company as a whole and then where your company should in the next 6 to 12 months.

The HOW section of the plan documents what strategies and tasks are necessary to move the company from where you are NOW to WHERE you want the company to be in the next 6 to 12 months.

The key is to be as specific as possible about your strategy on HOW to move the issues from where it is NOW to WHERE we want to be in a specific period of time.

The one page plan is a living document, it can be easily updated, edited and communicated on an as need basis.  Key performance indicators can be developed to track the company’s performance with the implementation of the objectives identified in the one page plan.

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The average price of gas nationwide reached nearly a five year low on Sunday. While it’s great for our wallets, what does it mean for our economy here in Houston?

Aidan Arney, a senior manager in our tax department, wrote an article during the record high gas prices this summer for our Leading Edge Magazine. He makes the point that the industry is very unpredictable. I wasn’t sure we were ever going to see gas come back down to below $2 a gallon.

I’m curious to hear your reaction to the low gas prices? Are you skeptical they will stay will they are? How is this affecting you and/or your business? If you are in the transportation industry, are you seeing any increase in business? On the flipside, if you’re in the oil or related industries what have you seen in your business?

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Last week, AccountingWeb ran a very timely article about the correlation between companies who file for bankruptcy and those cited for fraud.

The article makes the point that it’s not clear whether employees at bankrupt companies are more likely to commit fraud, or whether the microscope of bankruptcy makes it easier for regulators to detect it.

In either case, it is definitely something business owners should be aware of and discussing with their management team. Like I mentioned in my post when we launched our fraud prevention survey, I think it’s important that companies take the necessary steps to identify the potential for fraud in their company. With the economy the way it is right now, you can’t afford to be losing money to controllable factors like fraud.

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Note: Running Fridays in FromGregsHead.com, is a continuing series of tips brought to you by Greg Price. These run Saturday mornings during the BusinessMaker’s Radio Show on KPRC 950AM. Audio files can be found on the Entrepreneur's Playbook™ page of the PKF Texas website.

Do you know your corporate Key Performance Indicators?    Are people asking for a Benchmark Report on your business?  As your company grows, are you treading water?  Are you ahead or behind of your competitors?  Success leaves clues, so do you know where to look?  We call these clues your corporate DNA.

If you know your corporate DNA, you can adapt to changing business demands more readily.  There are several areas that make up corporate DNA.  These include but are not limited to: revenue growth, operating income margin, percentage cost of good sold, days sales outstanding, days in inventory, and days purchases outstanding.

Corporate DNA must be combined with performance metrics to drive success.
No matter what metric you use, make sure it is easily understood by many managers throughout your company.  Use the metrics to reward performance of your employees.  Also, make sure your corporate DNA relates to shareholder value.

Make sure you know the comparison between your corporate DNA and your industry.  If you do, you can implement improvement plans to put money in your pocket.

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I’ve been reading a lot of reviews lately about the recently released 4th generation (4g) iPod nano.  With holiday shopping in full gear, I wanted to share what I’ve read with all of you.  Now that users have had plenty of time to try it out, (it was released in September) the “real” reviews have begun to roll in.

The reviews are definitely mixed.  Most people really like the return to the shape of the 2nd generation iPod, the shake to shuffle feature and the choice of color.

One of the most common complaints was that users couldn’t turn off the Cover Flow feature, which when the nano was turned on its side the user could browse through the songs by the album cover art.  This has apparently been corrected by a software update that Apple released in early November.

Other frustrations included the lack of compatibility with existing iPod accessories, shortened battery life, and problems with the sensitivity of the accelerometer.  The accelerometer is the part of the nano that allows the screen to flip when it’s tilted.  Until now the only Apple products using the accelerometer were the iPhone and the iTouch. 

What have your experiences been with the 4g nano?  What features do you like?  Which features have been problematic? Do you plan to buy one for yourself or as a gift?
 

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I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving and didn’t over indulge too much!  There are many things going on at the Greater Houston Partnership in the coming weeks and months that I would like to make you aware of.  From getting involved in a committee as a member to networking luncheons, there is something for everyone.  The GHP is one of the best organizations in Houston to be involved with as they have touches in all facets of Houston’s economy.  Below is a list of all that is coming up for the GHP.  If you have any questions about any event on the list, visit www.houston.org for more information.

Houston Happenings: Something for Everyone!

MAKING THE MOST OF YOUR MEMBERSHIP
 
Choosing the Right Committee For You
Thursday, December 04, 2008
With over 60 active committees at the Partnership, where do you start? Take the next step and learn how to Choose the Right Committee for You. Getting plugged into a committee can greatly improve your networking opportunities and allow you to actively participate in the Partnership’s initiatives.
 
Maximizing Your Membership
Thursday, December 11, 2008
How do you know your company is getting the most out of your Partnership membership? We want to be sure you are benefitting fully.
 
2009 Annual Meeting
Thursday, January 08, 2009
Traditionally known as “Houston’s first business meeting of the year,” the Partnership’s Annual Meeting brings together over 1,600 business professionals to hear about our accomplishments of the previous year and learn of our priorities for the upcoming year. Did you know the 20th anniversary of the Greater Houston Partnership is in 2009? Help the Partnership turn 20!

PUBLIC POLICY
 
State of the Airports
Monday, December 08, 2008
Please join us as the Partnership welcomes Rick Vacar, Director of the Houston Airport System for the Fourth Annual State of the Airports Address. Hear more about the rapid growth of the fourth-largest multi-airport system in the United States!
 
Annual Elected Officials Reception
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Don’t miss this end-of-year reception honoring the Houston region’s local, state and federal elected officials, in recognition of their public service throughout 2008.
 
State of the City Address
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Considered one of the Partnership’s premiere events for networking with key local decision makers, join us for this annual forum with City of Houston mayor, Bill White, as he comments on the year in review in his final State of the City Address.

MIX BUSINESS WITH PLEASURE
 
An Audience with Malcom Gladwell
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Staff writer for The New Yorker since 1996, Malcom Gladwell is best known as the author of the books The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (2000) and Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (2005). Join the Greater Houston Partnership on January 21st and don’t miss this trend-setting speaker as he previews his newest book sensation that looks at how, and why, some people succeed far beyond their talents merit in Outliers: The Story of Success!

 
2008 Houston’s Greatest Awards Dinner
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
“Houston’s Greatest” Award is the premier annual event honoring regional leaders who have advanced the greater Houston region as a business magnet. And now is also the time to cast your vote for this year’s People’s Choice winner in each of the categories!
 

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