A professional employer organization (PEO) helps companies outsource their human resources requirements and manages such areas as employee benefits, payroll and workers' compensation. This lets the client companies maintain their focus on what they do best -- run their business. A PEO is different from standard HR consulting or outsourcing firms, which may provide a limited number of services. PEOs should also not be confused with temp firms, staffing agencies or payroll administration companies. A PEO integrates completely into a company's HR framework, providing a comprehensive approach to manage a client company's day-to-day HR needs and responsibilities. Just like having an in-house HR department, a dedicated team of HR specialists will be on-hand to handle critical human resource responsibilities and to manage employer risk factors. The HR team maintains an employer relationship with the client’s employees and assumes certain employer roles, along with the corresponding rights, responsibilities and risks.
The tasks and functions taken on by a capable PEO include recruitment and hiring, managing workers' compensation and benefits, payroll and payroll tax management, and managing compliance with government requirements. The PEO staff can help formulate and implement training and development programs, performance management initiatives and policies and guidelines for best practices. This separation of responsibilities is called "co-employment." Companies that do not yet understand the principles and benefits of the co-employment arrangement with a PEO may mistakenly think that they are giving up control of a key area of company operations, and may be hesitant to hire a PEO. But as many success stories amply demonstrate, working with a PEO can actually give the company more control over details that would have otherwise been overlooked.
The PEO industry today is experiencing steady growth as companies across the country realize and appreciate the value and benefits PEOs offer. These advantages include the following:
* Companies get to offload employment administration and get to focus instead on their core competencies and revenue generating activities.
* Clients have access to a team of HR experts who can offer a wealth of solutions, boosting their ability to manage their employees. Having this expertise often translates into higher levels of efficiency and productivity for the company.
* By having someone monitor employment practices, government compliance, and risk management, companies minimize their liabilities. The PEO also shares in employer related risks, further reducing the company's employer liabilities.
* With someone looking after employment benefits for them, companies can become better places to work in become competitive in the labor market. Client companies can attract high quality workers and improve their workforce.
* A company that partners with a much larger PEO also gains the purchasing power of the PEO, allowing them to enjoy the same discounts and savings as the bigger company.
Commercial Resources, Inc. (CRI) of Iowa is at the forefront of the PEO industry. Offering a wide range of services, CRI helps companies establish a solid business foundation by effectively integrating systems in all areas of a company's operations. CRI transforms its expertise in regulatory compliance, technology adoption and social trends into tangible benefits to its clients. CRI's services span accounting and bookkeeping, human resource management, financials and web development.
Monday, October 10, 2011
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Minimize Employment Problems Now!
Employees are often the greatest challenge to the entrepreneur. In most cases limiting employees limits your opportunity. Employees can prove the single largest distraction from the important work of entrepreneurship.
In all my years working as a supervisor, manager, business owner or consultant the single most common thread that runs through all businesses with employees is that of employee management. Employees are in fact customers of yours and with each passing year they feel more like customers and demand more as customers.
Entrepreneurs often end up being crushed beneath the combined weight of regulation and employee expectations. All too often the entrepreneur doesn’t survive. The original mission of creating and operating a profitable business comes second to meeting regulatory needs and making your customers happy. Ultimately you feel hostage. In extreme cases the experience can feel like a public rape leaving you asking why your romantic vision of providing goods or services and creating jobs and value could be turned into a villain’s work.
No entrepreneur that has ground the grist eludes these emotions. But they don’t have to overwhelm. You don’t have to be the maître. There are tools and techniques to improve your bottom line and minimize your employment problems now. They take up front work and they take some follow through, but be assured the effort of being proactive will be 10% of that you will suffer without it.
The key to improved success lies in a strong position description or as Michael Gerber of E-Myth fame would call it a “position contract”. Our companies use the position description as a proactive tool to keep people on track and to serve as an accountability tool that they must live up to. It feels good to have a meeting with a poor producing or bad behaving employee and with no emotion point out in detail the reasons you are counseling them or even releasing them.
Many business owners think a job description is to be a paragraph with a rough outline followed by “other duties as assigned”. In my companies our position descriptions are between 3 and 7 pages. They are very clear and go so far as to break duties down into categories ranging from those duties that are regular and repetitive without room for change and those that expect reasonable and adaptive thinking skills to take care of on the fly.
The position description is then merged with an audit or review tool that matches it.
We’ve introduced position descriptions to our companies, our client companies and even the boards that our employees serve on. They are always met with some level of scrutiny. They are called “oppressive”, “micro-managing”, “restrictive” as well as other words. These comments tend to come from those the description is written for. After implemented, the employer usually feels a great deal of relief and if audited and maintained the staff start to feel much more confident and their focus seems to turn to appropriate focus and execution of services and tasks.
Take some time to research position descriptions and look for examples that seem similar to what I’ve share here. If you want help creating position descriptions that meet your specific needs, you can contact my company at http://www.commercialresources.com/ or countless others to have them created specifically for you.
Ultimately it is important for the entrepreneur to reconnect with their original mission and to pull themselves from beneath the oppression of regulations and employee expectations and get control of their role as a customer of the employee. The employee is selling you their time, effort and ability in exchange for pay. The well done position description is your agreement outlining what you can expect as a customer. If you were signing a contract with my firm for the amount of the annual salary of any individual employee of yours, you would likely require a very clearly written and easy to understand agreement. Why not expect the same from those you hire?
Commercial Resources, Inc. is a professional business service provider and professional employer organization (PEO). CRI is a longstanding member of the National Association of Professional Employer Organizations (NAPEO). Facebook and LinkedIn contacts are welcome and encouraged.
By: Bill Burch
In all my years working as a supervisor, manager, business owner or consultant the single most common thread that runs through all businesses with employees is that of employee management. Employees are in fact customers of yours and with each passing year they feel more like customers and demand more as customers.
Entrepreneurs often end up being crushed beneath the combined weight of regulation and employee expectations. All too often the entrepreneur doesn’t survive. The original mission of creating and operating a profitable business comes second to meeting regulatory needs and making your customers happy. Ultimately you feel hostage. In extreme cases the experience can feel like a public rape leaving you asking why your romantic vision of providing goods or services and creating jobs and value could be turned into a villain’s work.
No entrepreneur that has ground the grist eludes these emotions. But they don’t have to overwhelm. You don’t have to be the maître. There are tools and techniques to improve your bottom line and minimize your employment problems now. They take up front work and they take some follow through, but be assured the effort of being proactive will be 10% of that you will suffer without it.
The key to improved success lies in a strong position description or as Michael Gerber of E-Myth fame would call it a “position contract”. Our companies use the position description as a proactive tool to keep people on track and to serve as an accountability tool that they must live up to. It feels good to have a meeting with a poor producing or bad behaving employee and with no emotion point out in detail the reasons you are counseling them or even releasing them.
Many business owners think a job description is to be a paragraph with a rough outline followed by “other duties as assigned”. In my companies our position descriptions are between 3 and 7 pages. They are very clear and go so far as to break duties down into categories ranging from those duties that are regular and repetitive without room for change and those that expect reasonable and adaptive thinking skills to take care of on the fly.
The position description is then merged with an audit or review tool that matches it.
We’ve introduced position descriptions to our companies, our client companies and even the boards that our employees serve on. They are always met with some level of scrutiny. They are called “oppressive”, “micro-managing”, “restrictive” as well as other words. These comments tend to come from those the description is written for. After implemented, the employer usually feels a great deal of relief and if audited and maintained the staff start to feel much more confident and their focus seems to turn to appropriate focus and execution of services and tasks.
Take some time to research position descriptions and look for examples that seem similar to what I’ve share here. If you want help creating position descriptions that meet your specific needs, you can contact my company at http://www.commercialresources.com/ or countless others to have them created specifically for you.
Ultimately it is important for the entrepreneur to reconnect with their original mission and to pull themselves from beneath the oppression of regulations and employee expectations and get control of their role as a customer of the employee. The employee is selling you their time, effort and ability in exchange for pay. The well done position description is your agreement outlining what you can expect as a customer. If you were signing a contract with my firm for the amount of the annual salary of any individual employee of yours, you would likely require a very clearly written and easy to understand agreement. Why not expect the same from those you hire?
Commercial Resources, Inc. is a professional business service provider and professional employer organization (PEO). CRI is a longstanding member of the National Association of Professional Employer Organizations (NAPEO). Facebook and LinkedIn contacts are welcome and encouraged.
By: Bill Burch
 |
| Bill Burch is the President of Morgan E. Cline Companies as well as the founder and president of Commercial Resources Inc. |
How One Man Changed Rural America
Rural communities are drowning. Children are leaving never to return. Their historical town squares are falling in and burning only to be replaced with gravel parking lots. A majority of those with great ability and opportunity chase opportunity, opportunity they don’t see in their rural hometown community.
Centerville, Iowa was no different. What happened? Due to the marketing efforts made on behalf of our multiple businesses I’ve received more attention in regard to our community’s turn around than I deserve. Let me share the real reason Centerville, Iowa and Appanoose County are turning around.
First there was a lot of groundwork by multiple small groups of people at different times. The foundation was set by a truly entrepreneurial group a half century ago. They did what it took to capture a federal project now known as Rathbun Lake. When the lake went in the torch was handed off and for 30 years a small group worked on the establishment of a resort on Rathbun Lake. Honey Creek Resort on Rathbun opened in 2009.
There was also a group who pioneered the town square restoration project on what is Iowa’s and possibly the country’s largest county seat town square. There are many other groups who played their part. It is interesting to me to notice how most things of true value were organized by small gorilla like ad hoc groups who, with an entrepreneurial spirit, saw a need and went after it.
All these things happened in Centerville and Appanoose County to create a foundation for something unprecedented and unheard of. This is where the attention needs to be directed.
In 1996 a local boy who was born in Appanoose County 64 years earlier took an interest in his home community. Those great leaders who truly impact the world for decades, if not centuries, all do things the same way. But the way they do things is often exactly opposite of how the rest of the world, including rural communities like ours, do things. What is it that they do? They inspire. They first know the heart of why, then they work on the how of their dream and then the what of the details.
Most the rest of us start with what then how and finally why. That is another story altogether.
In Appanoose County our world changed in 1996. We just didn’t know it was changing yet. It was that year when that local boy took an interest and slowly started to unleash his attention on an unsuspecting and tired rural town. Now it is 15 years later. Our world has certainly changed. This is a short story about how entrepreneurship, volunteerism and philanthropy combined to start a fire of success in the deepest of rural areas in our United States.
It was the last graduating class in a dying coal mining town in Exline, Iowa. The 16 year old valedictorian of the class came from a famously poor family. Picture a child in nothing but shorts, bareback on a pony, carrying a cane pole headed to the pond to fish and you have an accurate picture of this young man. This same boy, in the bitter cold of a pre-dawn winter morning, while milking the family cow thought to himself, “I’ve got to do something to get out of this. I don’t want this life.” Did he ever.
Now it is 1996 and this barefoot, pole fishing, cow milking kid had become one of America’s elite. Most don’t know his name but people around the world know his work. Zig Ziglar is famous for saying you will get what you want if you help enough other people get what they want. So it was in this story. Think about the people that know about and want such things as Ben Gay, Unisom, Lipitor and most famously, Viagra and you know his work. This rough shod country boy went on to found what is now arguably the world’s largest pharmaceutical advertising agency. Now he was sharing not only his wealth but his knowledge with his rural community. That is where I came in.
The character we’re discussing is Morgan Cline and now it is 1997 and he is ready to open his first business venture in Centerville. Originally built in 1866 and rebuilt after a fire in 1892 The Continental had been restored to its original grandeur. The opening was approaching and the business was in need of a manager. I was that manager and by accepting that position I unwittingly climbed into the most thrilling roller coaster of a ride. And much like a roller coaster a great deal of attention gets paid to the person riding it but people lose track of those that invented, invested, and operated the ride in the first place.
Ultimately the mission was to save two towns – Centerville and Exline - and in turn, help the entire county wide community. We’ll talk more about this in other places but for now it is important that everyone recognize the true horsepower behind Centerville’s, Exline’s, and Appanoose County’s turn around…Morgan Cline.
As you would expect there are those who don’t understand and could even be described as resenting the effort. They are a common statistic. There is also the large group who fit somewhere in an area that we might call “bewildered but appreciative”. Finally there is another small group likely the same size as the resentful backward group. This last group would be made up of those with the vision and wisdom to recognize and partner in Mr. Cline’s dream and with the willingness to help it happen.
Almost every one of the nearly 30 projects Mr. Cline is responsible for had a local leader or leadership group attached to it. Cline provided vision and the money. The locals provided the additional ingredients that made it happen. Cline was the Chef with the base ingredients, the rest of us happily play the role of seasoning. He has been the flour and chocolate chips we’ve been the baking soda and vanilla.
While there are many stories to be had from this, the mission here is to revisit the real reason for a community’s rebirth. Yes committees, organizations and individuals over decades of time have had immeasurable impact on the community but no single person has had the impact of Morgan Cline. I may get a great deal of attention but it is his work, his interest and his giving that is at the heart of it all. I’m lucky. Morgan Cline is generous, interested and committed.
How does this relate to you? It could be you. To most, what has happened to my home community seems like luck, magic or a combination of the two. The secrets that make what you see seem like magic are only camouflaged. They are there. I can guarantee that every community has what it takes. What I can’t guarantee is if your community has the heart or the level of “want to”.
Appanoose County is seeing the tide turn. More college graduates are returning home. More alumni are returning home to spend retirement with friends. More people who have never been here before are retiring here from other parts of the country. This is just the beginning for us.
More information can be found at http://www.morgancline.com/; http://www.gocenterville.com/; http://www.growcenterville.com/; and http://www.commercialresources.info/ or doing a Google search for Morgan Cline, Bill Burch or Centerville, Iowa. E-mail can be sent to billburch@commercialresources.info.
By: Bill Burch
Centerville, Iowa was no different. What happened? Due to the marketing efforts made on behalf of our multiple businesses I’ve received more attention in regard to our community’s turn around than I deserve. Let me share the real reason Centerville, Iowa and Appanoose County are turning around.
First there was a lot of groundwork by multiple small groups of people at different times. The foundation was set by a truly entrepreneurial group a half century ago. They did what it took to capture a federal project now known as Rathbun Lake. When the lake went in the torch was handed off and for 30 years a small group worked on the establishment of a resort on Rathbun Lake. Honey Creek Resort on Rathbun opened in 2009.
There was also a group who pioneered the town square restoration project on what is Iowa’s and possibly the country’s largest county seat town square. There are many other groups who played their part. It is interesting to me to notice how most things of true value were organized by small gorilla like ad hoc groups who, with an entrepreneurial spirit, saw a need and went after it.
All these things happened in Centerville and Appanoose County to create a foundation for something unprecedented and unheard of. This is where the attention needs to be directed.
In 1996 a local boy who was born in Appanoose County 64 years earlier took an interest in his home community. Those great leaders who truly impact the world for decades, if not centuries, all do things the same way. But the way they do things is often exactly opposite of how the rest of the world, including rural communities like ours, do things. What is it that they do? They inspire. They first know the heart of why, then they work on the how of their dream and then the what of the details.
Most the rest of us start with what then how and finally why. That is another story altogether.
In Appanoose County our world changed in 1996. We just didn’t know it was changing yet. It was that year when that local boy took an interest and slowly started to unleash his attention on an unsuspecting and tired rural town. Now it is 15 years later. Our world has certainly changed. This is a short story about how entrepreneurship, volunteerism and philanthropy combined to start a fire of success in the deepest of rural areas in our United States.
It was the last graduating class in a dying coal mining town in Exline, Iowa. The 16 year old valedictorian of the class came from a famously poor family. Picture a child in nothing but shorts, bareback on a pony, carrying a cane pole headed to the pond to fish and you have an accurate picture of this young man. This same boy, in the bitter cold of a pre-dawn winter morning, while milking the family cow thought to himself, “I’ve got to do something to get out of this. I don’t want this life.” Did he ever.
Now it is 1996 and this barefoot, pole fishing, cow milking kid had become one of America’s elite. Most don’t know his name but people around the world know his work. Zig Ziglar is famous for saying you will get what you want if you help enough other people get what they want. So it was in this story. Think about the people that know about and want such things as Ben Gay, Unisom, Lipitor and most famously, Viagra and you know his work. This rough shod country boy went on to found what is now arguably the world’s largest pharmaceutical advertising agency. Now he was sharing not only his wealth but his knowledge with his rural community. That is where I came in.
The character we’re discussing is Morgan Cline and now it is 1997 and he is ready to open his first business venture in Centerville. Originally built in 1866 and rebuilt after a fire in 1892 The Continental had been restored to its original grandeur. The opening was approaching and the business was in need of a manager. I was that manager and by accepting that position I unwittingly climbed into the most thrilling roller coaster of a ride. And much like a roller coaster a great deal of attention gets paid to the person riding it but people lose track of those that invented, invested, and operated the ride in the first place.
Ultimately the mission was to save two towns – Centerville and Exline - and in turn, help the entire county wide community. We’ll talk more about this in other places but for now it is important that everyone recognize the true horsepower behind Centerville’s, Exline’s, and Appanoose County’s turn around…Morgan Cline.
As you would expect there are those who don’t understand and could even be described as resenting the effort. They are a common statistic. There is also the large group who fit somewhere in an area that we might call “bewildered but appreciative”. Finally there is another small group likely the same size as the resentful backward group. This last group would be made up of those with the vision and wisdom to recognize and partner in Mr. Cline’s dream and with the willingness to help it happen.
Almost every one of the nearly 30 projects Mr. Cline is responsible for had a local leader or leadership group attached to it. Cline provided vision and the money. The locals provided the additional ingredients that made it happen. Cline was the Chef with the base ingredients, the rest of us happily play the role of seasoning. He has been the flour and chocolate chips we’ve been the baking soda and vanilla.
While there are many stories to be had from this, the mission here is to revisit the real reason for a community’s rebirth. Yes committees, organizations and individuals over decades of time have had immeasurable impact on the community but no single person has had the impact of Morgan Cline. I may get a great deal of attention but it is his work, his interest and his giving that is at the heart of it all. I’m lucky. Morgan Cline is generous, interested and committed.
How does this relate to you? It could be you. To most, what has happened to my home community seems like luck, magic or a combination of the two. The secrets that make what you see seem like magic are only camouflaged. They are there. I can guarantee that every community has what it takes. What I can’t guarantee is if your community has the heart or the level of “want to”.
Appanoose County is seeing the tide turn. More college graduates are returning home. More alumni are returning home to spend retirement with friends. More people who have never been here before are retiring here from other parts of the country. This is just the beginning for us.
More information can be found at http://www.morgancline.com/; http://www.gocenterville.com/; http://www.growcenterville.com/; and http://www.commercialresources.info/ or doing a Google search for Morgan Cline, Bill Burch or Centerville, Iowa. E-mail can be sent to billburch@commercialresources.info.
By: Bill Burch
 |
| Bill Burch is the President of Morgan E. Cline Companies and the founder of Commercial Resources, Inc. |
Best Human Resources Outsourcing and Administrative Services Provider
Commercial Resources Incorporated (CRI) is the best human resources outsourcing and administrative services provider in Iowa for small businesses.
Whether our assignment covers bookkeeping, accounting, payroll, human resources, professional employer services such as health insurance and 401(k) benefits, web marketing, or web management, we pride ourselves on being leaders helping clients develop a solid business foundation. Today’s business environment is a complex mix of increasing regulation, fast changing technology, and even faster changing social paradigms and trends. Our experience shows that true competence and integration of systems in all areas yields greater efficiency of operation and cost savings for our clients.
Accounting
Accounting services can actually be divided into 2 segments: Bookkeeping and Accounting.
We do not charge accounting rates for bookkeeping functions. While popular with traditional accounting firms, it is offensive to our sensabilities as it will be yours when you find the difference it makes in your bottom line.
Click here to learn more
Payroll
Have you ever worried about payroll?
Have you ever had questions about whether or not you are filing your employment taxes correctly?
Every time you sit down to process, is payroll a headache?
Have you ever had a bad behaving employee and needed advice? Who do you call?
Do you ever wish you had a business friend to bounce ideas off of?
Is good employee retention difficult to come by?
Our Human Resources Outsourcing Services Include:
PEO Brand Statement per NAPEO:
“Professional Employer Organizations enable clients to cost effectively outsource the management of human resources, employee benefits, payroll, and workers compensation. PEO clients focus on their core competencies to maintain and grow their bottom line.”
PEO’s, through a contractual relationship, provide:
A relationship with CRI involves a sharing of employer responsibilities between ourselves as a PEO and our clients. This employment relationship is referred to as co-employment.
Employers (you the client) continue to direct the day to day activities of your employees and CRI, as a co-employer is responsible for many human resource administrative functions and manages employee benefits administration, manages automated payroll processing and payroll tax preparation and filing, and is the "employer of record" on employees' W-2s. We also handle, state unemployment insurance and claims and much more.
Click here to learn more
Regulatory Compliance
Do you find it difficult to keep up with the ever changing rules and regulations of business?
Are you worried you may not be in complete compliance with all of the IRS and State government rules?
We can help with a number of the following compliance issues:
Need help organizing and starting your new small business?
Not sure who to turn to and want to avoid costly CPA and Attorney Fees?
We can help with:
Whether our assignment covers bookkeeping, accounting, payroll, human resources, professional employer services such as health insurance and 401(k) benefits, web marketing, or web management, we pride ourselves on being leaders helping clients develop a solid business foundation. Today’s business environment is a complex mix of increasing regulation, fast changing technology, and even faster changing social paradigms and trends. Our experience shows that true competence and integration of systems in all areas yields greater efficiency of operation and cost savings for our clients.
Accounting
Accounting services can actually be divided into 2 segments: Bookkeeping and Accounting.
We do not charge accounting rates for bookkeeping functions. While popular with traditional accounting firms, it is offensive to our sensabilities as it will be yours when you find the difference it makes in your bottom line.
Click here to learn more
Payroll
Have you ever worried about payroll?
Have you ever had questions about whether or not you are filing your employment taxes correctly?
Every time you sit down to process, is payroll a headache?
- Support for hourly, salary, commissioned tipped and piece-work payment based employees
- A variety of payment methods, including payroll check, direct deposit and, in some cases, a debit card arrangement
- Payroll input methods via phone, fax and the Internet
- Filing local, state and federal government paperwork (W2s, W4s, FICA, FUTA, SUTA)
- Tax Reporting and Compliance
- Certified Payroll, Job Costing and Departmental Billing
- Prepare and distribute payroll checks
- Payroll data maintenance
- Prepare and distribute payroll checks
- Response to I9 inquiries
- Vacation and sick leave tracking
- Direct deposit of wages to bank accounts
- Federal, state and local withholding and tax deposits
- Direct deposit of wages to bank accounts
- Reporting and job costing
- Direct deposit of wages to bank accounts
- Payroll software management and accounting (GL) entries
- Year end W2s and W3s
- Payroll related record keeping, audits, inquiries and verifications.
- Time clock management
- Tax changes administration
Have you ever had a bad behaving employee and needed advice? Who do you call?
Do you ever wish you had a business friend to bounce ideas off of?
Is good employee retention difficult to come by?
Our Human Resources Outsourcing Services Include:
- Site-specific Employee Handbooks
- Termination Assistance
- Unemployment Claims & Hearings
- Policy & Procedure Manuals
- EEOC Compliance
- Sexual Harassment and Managerial Training
- Pre-Screening Interviews
- Drug Testing Policy
- Human Resource Consulting
- Employee Orientation
- COBRA Administration
- Fair Labor Standards Act Guidance
- Employment Eligibility Verification
PEO Brand Statement per NAPEO:
“Professional Employer Organizations enable clients to cost effectively outsource the management of human resources, employee benefits, payroll, and workers compensation. PEO clients focus on their core competencies to maintain and grow their bottom line.”
PEO’s, through a contractual relationship, provide:
- Relief from the burden of employment administration.
- A wide range of personnel management solutions through a team of professionals.
- Improved employment practices, compliance and risk management to reduce liabilities.
- Access to a comprehensive employee benefits package, allowing clients to be competitive in the labor market.
- Assistance to improve productivity and profitability.
A relationship with CRI involves a sharing of employer responsibilities between ourselves as a PEO and our clients. This employment relationship is referred to as co-employment.
Employers (you the client) continue to direct the day to day activities of your employees and CRI, as a co-employer is responsible for many human resource administrative functions and manages employee benefits administration, manages automated payroll processing and payroll tax preparation and filing, and is the "employer of record" on employees' W-2s. We also handle, state unemployment insurance and claims and much more.
Click here to learn more
Regulatory Compliance
Do you find it difficult to keep up with the ever changing rules and regulations of business?
Are you worried you may not be in complete compliance with all of the IRS and State government rules?
We can help with a number of the following compliance issues:
- HIPPA
- COBRA
- Benefit Orientation
- Employment Verification
- Tax compliance
- New Hire Reporting
- State compliance
- Federal Compliance
- IRS Intervention
Need help organizing and starting your new small business?
Not sure who to turn to and want to avoid costly CPA and Attorney Fees?
We can help with:
- Business Creation
- Business Compliance
- Business Consulting
- Operations Procedures
- Maintain corporate records, books and minutes
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Bill Burch Entrepreneurship Locker Room Talk
The University of Sioux Falls in Sioux Falls, SD recently started an Entrepreneurial Studies program and Bill Burch, President of Commercial Resources, Inc., was invited to be the key note speaker at the college as part of the program’s public introduction. The event was open to college students, professors, and most importantly – entrepreneurs themselves.
Sioux Falls is no rookie when it comes to business. In CNBC’s 2010 “Top State for Business” rankings, South Dakota moved up from #12 to #7, and the city has been rated numerous times by Forbes Magazine as the best small metro area for business and careers (siouxfallsdevelopment.com). It is with good reason that the University of Sioux Falls decided to implement the Entrepreneurial Studies program.
Bruce Watley, a professor at the University of Sioux Falls and past resident of Centerville, Iowa is playing an integral role in the Entrepreneurial Studies program at the University of Sioux Falls. He quoted, “Centerville was a big part of my life. Moving was hard, but I’m thrilled that Sioux Falls and specifically the University of Sioux Falls have been so welcoming and anxious to pull me in and let me be part of making a great place even better.” Watley’s extensive experience in entrepreneurship, Marketing Degree and MBA make him a significant member of the staff at the University of Sioux Falls. He is a professor of several undergrad, MBA and DCP programs at the University, and is a long-time friend of Bill Burch’s. Watley thoroughly enjoyed having Burch as a guest and said “Bill made a real positive impression on the class and faculty, including the chair of the business school.”
The combination of Burch’s work experience and natural entrepreneurial abilities made him the perfect candidate as the key speaker for the event. Burch founded Commercial Resources, Inc. (CRI) in 2003. He was a frustrated business owner and manager fighting for ways to get benefits to small businesses without enough employees. He was constantly digging for ways to pull all of the businesses into one payroll, struggling to eliminate the waste of having multiple “book keepers” and managing multiple businesses and literally hundreds of special projects all at one time. As with most any valued creation born out of need, Bill identified the need for CRI.
Commercial Resources, Inc. has earned and sustained a hard-won reputation for excellence and value. The work of his teams – which represent multi-million dollar businesses – is some of the most recognizable, high-impact and firmly grounded in his industry.
During his Locker Room Talk, Burch covered three major topics:
Burch was very impressed with his overall experience at the University and said, “I have never been more impressed with a community’s entrepreneurial spirit and drive. It’s no wonder that Sioux Falls is leading the nation as a Top 10 place to start a business.” Burch felt the opportunity changed his life and the lives of some others for the better. The attendees left that night with not only a revived spirit, but with some new and valuable friends, as did he.
By: Cheryl White
Sioux Falls is no rookie when it comes to business. In CNBC’s 2010 “Top State for Business” rankings, South Dakota moved up from #12 to #7, and the city has been rated numerous times by Forbes Magazine as the best small metro area for business and careers (siouxfallsdevelopment.com). It is with good reason that the University of Sioux Falls decided to implement the Entrepreneurial Studies program.
Bruce Watley, a professor at the University of Sioux Falls and past resident of Centerville, Iowa is playing an integral role in the Entrepreneurial Studies program at the University of Sioux Falls. He quoted, “Centerville was a big part of my life. Moving was hard, but I’m thrilled that Sioux Falls and specifically the University of Sioux Falls have been so welcoming and anxious to pull me in and let me be part of making a great place even better.” Watley’s extensive experience in entrepreneurship, Marketing Degree and MBA make him a significant member of the staff at the University of Sioux Falls. He is a professor of several undergrad, MBA and DCP programs at the University, and is a long-time friend of Bill Burch’s. Watley thoroughly enjoyed having Burch as a guest and said “Bill made a real positive impression on the class and faculty, including the chair of the business school.”
The combination of Burch’s work experience and natural entrepreneurial abilities made him the perfect candidate as the key speaker for the event. Burch founded Commercial Resources, Inc. (CRI) in 2003. He was a frustrated business owner and manager fighting for ways to get benefits to small businesses without enough employees. He was constantly digging for ways to pull all of the businesses into one payroll, struggling to eliminate the waste of having multiple “book keepers” and managing multiple businesses and literally hundreds of special projects all at one time. As with most any valued creation born out of need, Bill identified the need for CRI.
Commercial Resources, Inc. has earned and sustained a hard-won reputation for excellence and value. The work of his teams – which represent multi-million dollar businesses – is some of the most recognizable, high-impact and firmly grounded in his industry.
During his Locker Room Talk, Burch covered three major topics:
- The entrepreneur gets paid last
- Entrepreneurs must concentrate on what they do best
- Entrepreneurs can never stop learning
Burch was very impressed with his overall experience at the University and said, “I have never been more impressed with a community’s entrepreneurial spirit and drive. It’s no wonder that Sioux Falls is leading the nation as a Top 10 place to start a business.” Burch felt the opportunity changed his life and the lives of some others for the better. The attendees left that night with not only a revived spirit, but with some new and valuable friends, as did he.
By: Cheryl White
 |
Cheryl White Commercial Resources, Inc. Executive Assistant to Bill Burch |
Commercial Resources Incorporated Best Professional Services Provider in Iowa
Commercial Resources Incorporated in Iowa or CRI has created a unique position in the marketplace as the premier small business administrative services provider. We are the one agency that is uniquely experienced, organized, and staffed to build your bottom line no matter where in the United States you are. CRI currently handles a very diverse client base.
The depth of experience allows us to fully leverage the relationships between our experience, our clients, and the bottom line. Our ability to deliver on our promises – time and again – is what makes CRI both so successful and so admired among our peers.
Professional Capabilities
At the very heart of our business is a deep and abiding commitment to support business potential. At the heart of a successful business is a driven mission, one that should create business building potentials and outcomes. It should be evident to the customers and clients, to the staff, and hopefully to the buyer that the business is a well oiled machine requiring only the slightest nudge from its owner from time to time.
CRI is organized to serve as your business’ success steward, from the earliest days of on-boarding to the day the reins are handed to someone else. CRI will adjust according to need, bill only for the work done, have the most appropriate person do the work, or simply “take care of it all”.
CRI’s client handling skills are second to none. We were born of the entrepreneurial spirit. We understand what it means to be standing in your shoes better than any other provider in the industry. We have 18 “in house” businesses of our own to prove it.
National Operations
CRI has gone to great lengths to make working with clients anywhere in the country a snap. It wasn’t a snap putting it together. First we had to bring in two separate ISP lines at the maximum speed available. Next we install switchers to make sure our office is running at maximum available speed at any given time. Next comes the redundancy of dual hubs to make sure if one drops the other takes over. Then there is the firewall system, the server, the backup server and the dual remote offsite servers located at different locations throughout the country. And that is just for our accounting systems.
To make it better we partnered with a web app software developer / provider to customize a remote delivery payroll system. We call it CRISaas (software as a service). Then we created the first link of its kind to merge the online payroll system to the internationally acclaimed high end accounting Sage Software program called MAS90.
What does that all mean? Our payroll competition will be scratching their heads asking, “How did they do that?” We like that. And as an FYI to our competitors, we could use a little competition to help us raise the bar a little higher.
Web Marketing and Management
The world is changing fast, often much faster than web sites and their updates. CRI has turned the tables on the traditional method of creating, changing, and updating web sites with their new Web Marketing and Management division.
Web sites have always taken a huge amount of time and investment to get it right. Often by the time you're ready to “publish” the site it is antiquated. We’ve change that. Call us about how our company can help you enjoy a completely different web experience. We have the systems and the talent to do what most small businesses only dream of and we can do it at a fraction of what you have experienced. Warning… we don’t do it like anyone else does. One or two paradigm shifts and you’re on your way to a much more productive web experience.
CRI Project Plan
CRI has invested heavily in other opportunities to help our clients be more successful. One way that we’ve done this is to work with web application and programming developers to deliver a free project management tool to our clients. http://www.criproplan.com/. It is a web based software application that allows our clients to manage their projects from anywhere in the world and anytime they want. Gone on vacation to Fiji and want to know who’s doing what and how things are progressing? Piece of cake. Go to any web browser log in from a web browser and you're there. You can tell what is going on with each project, check updates, leave comments, send e-mail messages or just see who has been working on the projects and when. Very cool stuff and it is FREE to CRI clients. Just another way we put our money where our mouth is when it comes to our commitment to small businesses.
The depth of experience allows us to fully leverage the relationships between our experience, our clients, and the bottom line. Our ability to deliver on our promises – time and again – is what makes CRI both so successful and so admired among our peers.
Professional Capabilities
At the very heart of our business is a deep and abiding commitment to support business potential. At the heart of a successful business is a driven mission, one that should create business building potentials and outcomes. It should be evident to the customers and clients, to the staff, and hopefully to the buyer that the business is a well oiled machine requiring only the slightest nudge from its owner from time to time.
CRI is organized to serve as your business’ success steward, from the earliest days of on-boarding to the day the reins are handed to someone else. CRI will adjust according to need, bill only for the work done, have the most appropriate person do the work, or simply “take care of it all”.
CRI’s client handling skills are second to none. We were born of the entrepreneurial spirit. We understand what it means to be standing in your shoes better than any other provider in the industry. We have 18 “in house” businesses of our own to prove it.
National Operations
CRI has gone to great lengths to make working with clients anywhere in the country a snap. It wasn’t a snap putting it together. First we had to bring in two separate ISP lines at the maximum speed available. Next we install switchers to make sure our office is running at maximum available speed at any given time. Next comes the redundancy of dual hubs to make sure if one drops the other takes over. Then there is the firewall system, the server, the backup server and the dual remote offsite servers located at different locations throughout the country. And that is just for our accounting systems.
To make it better we partnered with a web app software developer / provider to customize a remote delivery payroll system. We call it CRISaas (software as a service). Then we created the first link of its kind to merge the online payroll system to the internationally acclaimed high end accounting Sage Software program called MAS90.
What does that all mean? Our payroll competition will be scratching their heads asking, “How did they do that?” We like that. And as an FYI to our competitors, we could use a little competition to help us raise the bar a little higher.
Web Marketing and Management
The world is changing fast, often much faster than web sites and their updates. CRI has turned the tables on the traditional method of creating, changing, and updating web sites with their new Web Marketing and Management division.
Web sites have always taken a huge amount of time and investment to get it right. Often by the time you're ready to “publish” the site it is antiquated. We’ve change that. Call us about how our company can help you enjoy a completely different web experience. We have the systems and the talent to do what most small businesses only dream of and we can do it at a fraction of what you have experienced. Warning… we don’t do it like anyone else does. One or two paradigm shifts and you’re on your way to a much more productive web experience.
CRI Project Plan
CRI has invested heavily in other opportunities to help our clients be more successful. One way that we’ve done this is to work with web application and programming developers to deliver a free project management tool to our clients. http://www.criproplan.com/. It is a web based software application that allows our clients to manage their projects from anywhere in the world and anytime they want. Gone on vacation to Fiji and want to know who’s doing what and how things are progressing? Piece of cake. Go to any web browser log in from a web browser and you're there. You can tell what is going on with each project, check updates, leave comments, send e-mail messages or just see who has been working on the projects and when. Very cool stuff and it is FREE to CRI clients. Just another way we put our money where our mouth is when it comes to our commitment to small businesses.
How Entitlement Killed Unemployment
When a person becomes unemployed and is allowed benefits they are required to make two job contacts per week to maintain their benefits. At one end of the spectrum there are people pushing as hard as they can to find a job. They are visiting prospective employers, sending out resumes, networking and volunteering to increase their exposure to those that might be able to direct them to an opportunity. In my world, these people seem to be rare. Maybe not because there are fewer of them but because they don’t stay unemployed long. Some do, of course, but many are off to the next opportunity.
Then there is the other extreme. These are the people that see unemployment as an entitlement. Since it was made available it must be theirs to claim. These are the people that walk into a business, apply, and quickly leave with no actual interest in employment. If a business owner or manager asks to visit with the applicant they will share they are only making the contact to maintain their unemployment.
A number of people fit in the middle. They are adjusting to the lower income and actually consider it a half paid vacation. They are a bit like the grasshopper in the old story of The Grasshopper and the Ant. When the end of their employment comes close to an end the motivation to acquire a job will start.
Please don’t assume that any specific item here is to dishonor anyone truly trying to gain employment. That isn’t the goal. The point is to recognize that there are people all along the scale. My goal is to show that components of our current system need to be adjusted to recognize realities. Components include the attitude and choices of employers, employees, and the government.
It is time to take a look at a few facts about employers, employees and government. This is just one man’s perspective so let me know if you feel something here is incorrect.
First the government. First and foremost government is directed by our elected officials. Every area or department of government then does what it thinks it should from there. Our elected officials want to be elected. They merge the emotional wishes of their constituents with their own personal perspective. They take this romantic soup and create the laws and the basic outline of systems associated that departments and agencies use.
Second the employee. Speaking from my recently new experience with the Employer’s Council of Iowa, the employee is the “client”, “customer,” and “member” of the state employment agency. That puts the common citizen in a particularly odd and powerful position. The voter hires the government and then tells the government what he/she wants. Our basically immoral mindset motivates us to care more about “What’s in it for me?” and less about “How or who will pay for this?” The elected official says, “What can I do for you?” The employee says, “Give me more for less. I’m entitled to it.”
Lastly, the employer. The employer is the odd one out. Since the number of employers is far less than the number of employees the voice of the employer is much smaller. In effect the employee and the government merge efforts to push the employer to execute as directed. It is a lot like Cinderella and her evil step mother and step sisters. To run a business in the United States the business owner must accept this relationship of government, employees and people. Some will argue but it is hard to understand if you haven’t lived it. I’m sure it is a little like childbirth. Knowing my wife of 20+ years as I do and watching her deliver our children as I did, I know that even loving and caring for her as much as I do there is no way I could know either the pain or the depth of emotion felt by a mother. The same goes for the business. It’s often been felt that the business is the child of the entrepreneur much as the child is of the mother.
Bill Burch meeting with management at The Continental Care Center, a skilled nursing community in southern Iowa.
With the landscape understood, I’ll cut to the chase. Iowa is pumping tens of millions of dollars into making sure employers aren’t hiring people as independent contractors when they should be employees. The main reason is that hiring people as independent contractors avoids paying unemployment taxes. The government provided wonderful benefits and extended them for a very long time draining resources. Now with resources drained they are spending, in Iowa’s case, over $50,000,000 to audit this one are of operations alone in an effort to lower losses and improve revenues.
I don’t condone skirting the law to save money. It is not right and shouldn’t be tolerated. What is most painful is to watch the government threaten, audit and penalize businesses (which ultimately are only made up of people) while they only require two applications a week be completed and there is no accountability for those who refuse work or interviews. Our government and agencies trip over themselves to serve the client, customer, member then seem to turn a blind eye to improper and in my eyes immoral and illegal behavior. Lastly, why not audit the claimant? Did they make a reasonable effort? Were they interested? Did they wear shoes to apply? Yes, indeed I’ve personally seen multiple people over the years come in to apply and not wear shoes. As a matter of fact I’ve seen them come in using vulgar language, with it printed on their t-shirt, un-bathed, and most often simply sharing that they aren’t interested in a job, they are just making their two contacts required.
Another cut making the wound deeper is that employers are scared to death of regulatory departments. In most cases a business won’t turn and fight unless it is life or death. Once a regulatory misstep is so great that a business may fail because of it the business has nothing else to lose so fights back. If it isn’t that bad they try to duck lower than their competitor and hope the competitor takes the bullet.
As a community of citizens we’ve been distracted from the broader view of government and redirected to isolated problems individually that don’t considering the whole.
I’ve lost a great deal of hope in our country. Why? Because hope is empty and distracting without a method and we certainly aren’t interested in holistic methods. We’re interested in today’s comforts much more than tomorrow’s meals. Our system is to offload responsibility to the government. Then we complain and wrongly claim, “There is nothing I can do about it.”
It looks like a bunch of people in a boat floating in the middle of an ocean. The boat starts to leak but rather than do the hard work of fixing a problem in a precarious situation the passengers argue about whose fault it is and why it is someone else’s fault. The water continues to come in and when the boat gets desperately full they argue about who will bail, why, and for how long losing site of the fact the leak needs to be fixed. The boat is perilously unstable and then the storm blows. In this case it looks like they will drown before they choose to fix the leaks and bail like hell. Bail doesn’t mean dollars. Bail is a verb indicating work in this situation.
Answer these questions for yourself. Why are other countries starting to advertise in the United States stating they are a better place to live, own and operate a business than the United States? If that is true, what will keep businesses here? Especially international businesses? Why, when someone is unemployed and drawing benefits are they only required to make two contacts in a seven day period? Why, when claims are so high and resources drained so low is the government not also looking at the claimants to investigate fraud? Why, at the same time, are so many companies, even in these terrible economic times saying they can’t find good people? Too many grasshoppers and not enough ants.
Ultimately our troubles are of our own making. We individually are not doing enough and are not feeling responsible enough. In the past people made such comments as, “Someday we will have to pay.” We may not see it but today we are paying and we will continue to pay until such time as we understand the truth of what is happening and demand of both ourselves and others the hard work and higher standards necessary.
Commercial Resources, Inc. is a professional services firm providing consulting, accounting, and professional employer services to small businesses with less than 75 employees. You can find out more by visiting http://www.commercialresources.info/.
By: Bill Burch
Then there is the other extreme. These are the people that see unemployment as an entitlement. Since it was made available it must be theirs to claim. These are the people that walk into a business, apply, and quickly leave with no actual interest in employment. If a business owner or manager asks to visit with the applicant they will share they are only making the contact to maintain their unemployment.
A number of people fit in the middle. They are adjusting to the lower income and actually consider it a half paid vacation. They are a bit like the grasshopper in the old story of The Grasshopper and the Ant. When the end of their employment comes close to an end the motivation to acquire a job will start.
Please don’t assume that any specific item here is to dishonor anyone truly trying to gain employment. That isn’t the goal. The point is to recognize that there are people all along the scale. My goal is to show that components of our current system need to be adjusted to recognize realities. Components include the attitude and choices of employers, employees, and the government.
It is time to take a look at a few facts about employers, employees and government. This is just one man’s perspective so let me know if you feel something here is incorrect.
First the government. First and foremost government is directed by our elected officials. Every area or department of government then does what it thinks it should from there. Our elected officials want to be elected. They merge the emotional wishes of their constituents with their own personal perspective. They take this romantic soup and create the laws and the basic outline of systems associated that departments and agencies use.
Second the employee. Speaking from my recently new experience with the Employer’s Council of Iowa, the employee is the “client”, “customer,” and “member” of the state employment agency. That puts the common citizen in a particularly odd and powerful position. The voter hires the government and then tells the government what he/she wants. Our basically immoral mindset motivates us to care more about “What’s in it for me?” and less about “How or who will pay for this?” The elected official says, “What can I do for you?” The employee says, “Give me more for less. I’m entitled to it.”
Lastly, the employer. The employer is the odd one out. Since the number of employers is far less than the number of employees the voice of the employer is much smaller. In effect the employee and the government merge efforts to push the employer to execute as directed. It is a lot like Cinderella and her evil step mother and step sisters. To run a business in the United States the business owner must accept this relationship of government, employees and people. Some will argue but it is hard to understand if you haven’t lived it. I’m sure it is a little like childbirth. Knowing my wife of 20+ years as I do and watching her deliver our children as I did, I know that even loving and caring for her as much as I do there is no way I could know either the pain or the depth of emotion felt by a mother. The same goes for the business. It’s often been felt that the business is the child of the entrepreneur much as the child is of the mother.
Bill Burch meeting with management at The Continental Care Center, a skilled nursing community in southern Iowa.
With the landscape understood, I’ll cut to the chase. Iowa is pumping tens of millions of dollars into making sure employers aren’t hiring people as independent contractors when they should be employees. The main reason is that hiring people as independent contractors avoids paying unemployment taxes. The government provided wonderful benefits and extended them for a very long time draining resources. Now with resources drained they are spending, in Iowa’s case, over $50,000,000 to audit this one are of operations alone in an effort to lower losses and improve revenues.
I don’t condone skirting the law to save money. It is not right and shouldn’t be tolerated. What is most painful is to watch the government threaten, audit and penalize businesses (which ultimately are only made up of people) while they only require two applications a week be completed and there is no accountability for those who refuse work or interviews. Our government and agencies trip over themselves to serve the client, customer, member then seem to turn a blind eye to improper and in my eyes immoral and illegal behavior. Lastly, why not audit the claimant? Did they make a reasonable effort? Were they interested? Did they wear shoes to apply? Yes, indeed I’ve personally seen multiple people over the years come in to apply and not wear shoes. As a matter of fact I’ve seen them come in using vulgar language, with it printed on their t-shirt, un-bathed, and most often simply sharing that they aren’t interested in a job, they are just making their two contacts required.
Another cut making the wound deeper is that employers are scared to death of regulatory departments. In most cases a business won’t turn and fight unless it is life or death. Once a regulatory misstep is so great that a business may fail because of it the business has nothing else to lose so fights back. If it isn’t that bad they try to duck lower than their competitor and hope the competitor takes the bullet.
As a community of citizens we’ve been distracted from the broader view of government and redirected to isolated problems individually that don’t considering the whole.
I’ve lost a great deal of hope in our country. Why? Because hope is empty and distracting without a method and we certainly aren’t interested in holistic methods. We’re interested in today’s comforts much more than tomorrow’s meals. Our system is to offload responsibility to the government. Then we complain and wrongly claim, “There is nothing I can do about it.”
It looks like a bunch of people in a boat floating in the middle of an ocean. The boat starts to leak but rather than do the hard work of fixing a problem in a precarious situation the passengers argue about whose fault it is and why it is someone else’s fault. The water continues to come in and when the boat gets desperately full they argue about who will bail, why, and for how long losing site of the fact the leak needs to be fixed. The boat is perilously unstable and then the storm blows. In this case it looks like they will drown before they choose to fix the leaks and bail like hell. Bail doesn’t mean dollars. Bail is a verb indicating work in this situation.
Answer these questions for yourself. Why are other countries starting to advertise in the United States stating they are a better place to live, own and operate a business than the United States? If that is true, what will keep businesses here? Especially international businesses? Why, when someone is unemployed and drawing benefits are they only required to make two contacts in a seven day period? Why, when claims are so high and resources drained so low is the government not also looking at the claimants to investigate fraud? Why, at the same time, are so many companies, even in these terrible economic times saying they can’t find good people? Too many grasshoppers and not enough ants.
Ultimately our troubles are of our own making. We individually are not doing enough and are not feeling responsible enough. In the past people made such comments as, “Someday we will have to pay.” We may not see it but today we are paying and we will continue to pay until such time as we understand the truth of what is happening and demand of both ourselves and others the hard work and higher standards necessary.
Commercial Resources, Inc. is a professional services firm providing consulting, accounting, and professional employer services to small businesses with less than 75 employees. You can find out more by visiting http://www.commercialresources.info/.
By: Bill Burch
 |
| Bill Burch is the founder and president of Commercial Resources, Inc. based in Centerville, Iowa. |
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