We cannot believe that we are heading into the fourth quarter of 2022. It feels like only yesterday that we were talking about the fourth quarter of 2021! We believe that the fourth quarter of the year is a great time to review several aspects of your business and to prepare for the start of a new year well in advance. Today we want to discuss some of our top tips.
Policies
Right now is a great time to review your employee handbook (hopefully you have one!) It is important to make sure that your policies are up to date. For example, do you have employees in different states? Did you add employee(s) in a new state this year? If so, you need to have an addendum for each state in which you have employees working for you. In today’s post-Covid remote environment, many businesses have employees working remotely in multiple states. Make sure you protect yourself and that your business is complying with the requirements of each of those states.
In addition, many states have laws relating to discrimination and harassment that continue to evolve and expand. This is another area where you can make sure that your policies are up to date and in compliance with each state in which you have employee(s).
If you have expanded this year and have yet to designate someone in your company to direct your employees to if they have a complaint (such as harassment or discrimination), consider designating someone so that if an employee does have an issue, they are clear on who they should direct their complaint to.
In addition to the foregoing, it is important to check in and make sure you are in compliance with your state’s labor laws. Have any of the laws changed? Are you classifying your employees correctly? Calculating and accounting for overtime? These are all major issues a business must keep on top of to avoid having to deal with issues that could end up imposing a significant financial burden if the business is not in compliance.
Confidentiality Agreements
If you have proprietary information that your employees have access to, and you have a confidentiality agreement that they are required to sign, it’s important to review this agreement annually. If anything has changed in your business in the past year, and there is something that should be added to your confidentiality agreement, do it now.
Contracts
If you have template contracts that you use, now is a great time to review those contracts and make sure that they are sufficient to meet their purpose. If you are a general contractor, for example, and you have a standard contract that you use with your customers, or subcontractors, review it to make sure that it is still in compliance with any state and local laws that might apply.
Towards this end, if your business has a standard written employment agreement that you use, you should review any non-compete clauses and non-solicitation clauses to make sure that they are still enforceable. The landscape of non-competes and non-solicitation clauses is constantly changing and evolving (and in many states, becoming more restrictive), so if you have not reviewed the language that you use in a while, you will want to review it to make sure that it is still enforceable.
Finances
Taking a deep dive into your business’s finances can be daunting. However, there is so much value in knowing and understanding the finances of your business so that you can forecast tax liabilities and any other expenses that you might be expecting. Schedule a meeting with your accountant or financial advisor to review the year to date and forecast whatever you can for the remainder of the year, and even the upcoming year. It is worth it.
These are just a few of the items that you can look at to “check up” on your business. It might not be the most exiting task, but it is worth it in the long run to make sure that your business is protected and that you are running your business, rather than having it run you!