Cash only? Sounds like a bunch of tax dodgers to me.
If they said cash only, they should have also said “exact change required” - like a public bus. If you got $100 and it’s $79, that means you’re paying $100.
I keep a jar of about $100 in mixed bills at the house at all times. What do you do if the Girls Scouts come around selling cookies? LOL.
Ownership stake in a business that’s filing for bankruptcy … includes you in the bankruptcy.
Don’t do it until after the business is solvent.
Not an accountant, but you should talk to one.
For capital assets that are used from year to year, e.g. durable goods, computers, furniture, etc., you would depreciate the cost of that equipment over time. You also need to keep track of this equipment, because as a business you will be required to pay personal property tax to your state for what assets your business owns, over a certain minimum amount. In my state, I pay $300/year personal property tax minimum as an example.
You can’t write off more than you made in a single year. If that $2500 was “profit” and you spent $5000 in equipment, the most you can write off this year is $2500. In that case, you’d be better off depreciating the expense and taking some write-off this year, and more in coming years when your net income is higher.
I think you’re fighting against problem #1 when it comes to business – your niche is “too niche”. According to statistics, the birthrate in the USA (as a whole) is about 60 births per 1000 women of childbearing age. If you add in the grandmothers and aunts and friends, you -might- be targeting “a few %” of the population as potential customers. Then, you have the task of convincing those potential customers that your product is valuable and unique and a good gift idea.
I would think first about expanding the footprint of who your gift box ideas are aimed at. I used to be a partner in a small business decades ago that did gift boxes, hand-delivered to college students at exam time and holidays at local colleges. Candy bars, stuffed animals, books, etc.
I am curious what type of business you have, what kind of market you are in, and what your sales expectations of “success” are.
I ask this because some people go into business because they want to be entrepreneurs, but never really sit down and do the “math” to figure out how much business they need to do to be profitable, and by “profitable” I mean after paying your business expenses including your owner salary.
I do consulting for people who are interested in getting into business, not necessarily rescues of failing small business. Good example of this is people want to open coffee/breakfast shops. They want to make $50,000 a year for themselves, have one or two employees, and be open from 7am-1pm six days a week. I look them in the eye, and go “Don’t do it,” and they immediately ask why. I show them the spreadsheet of expenses and receipts broken down by month for 12, 24, and 36 months and they immediately go, “Oh, I see it now.” and then we try to work up alternatives and options. The number of businesses I’ve walked into on opening day and say to myself, “This place won’t be open next year.” is shocking.
Send the hard drive to a data recovery service, and then sue the former employee for the charges to recover the data – and probably loss of productivity and time as well.
Unless the drive was “secure-erased” - it’s probably recoverable.
$300 is small claims court territory… Best she can to is take you to small claims, at which point you’ll show your shipping record, the UPS photo of it being delivered to her doorstep, and you’d be off the hook. I’m sure she’s upset, but this is not your problem at this point.
When she stops through she places all of her inventory in front of my place, and attempts to pull my customers in before they even get to my entrance.
This is not a friend. She’s a leach. When you say she “in front of your place” does she have a business license / permit for your small town? I’d be inclined to report her to the local permits and licensing division the next time she did it in front of my store.
Some people are cheap. My ex-FIL would go across the street to buy something 10-cents cheaper, regardless of product quality.
Around here, it would likely fail.
According to national polls, only 3% of the population are “vegan” with 5-8% being “vegetarian”. You’re starting off on ground zero by potentially alienating 90% of the population. When it comes to a food business, I’d shoot for “inclusive” vs. “exclusive” menu planning.
Now, if you were in LA, San Francisco, Seattle, etc., vegan/vegetarian havens of the West Coast, you might have a better chance - but you’re also going to have substantially more competition from local businesses. I’d carefully profile the success of those other ventures before deciding if I’d get into it myself.
We did have one restaurant where I used to live that featured home-grown produce, scratch-made recipes, soups, and bread - and it was pretty great. They did serve locally-sourced meat products in addition to their own vegetables, etc. Eventually they folded, because you can’t pay 4 family members, the electricity, external vendors, insurance, and taxes on $500 a day in gross revenue. It was a “great” restaurant, with “great” food, but unfortunately, there simply wasn’t enough people coming in the door to make ends meet.
Ignore the haters. The public is 75% assholes and 25% saints. Unfortunately, you end up doing business with all of them.
I agree with your mom.
I have a standard response that goes sort of like, “Thank you for your interest in working for XYZ, Inc… We are not hiring at this, but encourage you to watch for our job postings on somewebsite.com and apply in the future.”
It takes seconds per message. If you are getting hundreds of thousands of messages a day, I’d suggest setting up an applications@ or jobs@ or postings@ address and then configure an auto-reply message with similar text if you have no openings.