Thursday, September 20, 2007

Hello, [Firstname].

We're pleased to bring you this another edition of GrowthForce's email newsletter. In this issue of GrowthForce eNews we've got information on the benefits of incentive compensation, Stephen King being named chair of the Northeast Satellite for the Houston CPA Society, a QuickBooks tip and info on our QuickBooks Training seminars.

Pay for Performance
How to Make It Work
Using Incentive Compensation to Boost Your Business

One of the best practices a business owner can implement is a bonus program tied to performance. Managers and staff then act like owners with an interest in the bottom line, instead of employees interested in just a paycheck.

First, clearly define and communicate the vision for company. This is what the company wants to be and why this is important. A meaningful vision helps employees understand their role with a higher purpose. Once the vision is defined it needs to be communicated until everyone owns and believes in that vision. Second, the vision needs to be translated into understandable financial goals. This can be as simple as, “need to generate $200K per month in gross income and make 15% net income.” Or as detailed as, “we need to spend less than $6.82 to clean a room. “It needs to be easy to understand and you have the ability to show actual versus plan. Finally, the business owner needs to buy into open book management. This means sharing the information managers and staff need to know to determine how they are doing against plan. Sharing information makes the team they feel like owners. No one needs to know salaries, but you need to share the results that drive performance goals.

The challenging part is to develop a system that defines goals and then tracks actual results against those goals. Once achieved, business benefits such as revenue growth, profitability and reduction in overall staff turnover will be like a walk in the park. These systems will be discussed by the President & CEO of GrowthForce in the upcoming free “Creating a High-Performance Culture: Making Great Teams & Great Profits” seminar.

> > CLICK HERE FOR INFO ON THE SEPT 25TH SEMINAR

Stephen King Named Chair of Houston CPA Society’s Northeast Satellite
GrowthForce President & CEO leads training, social outlet for local CPAs.

Stephen King, CPA^* was recently named chairman of the Houston Certified Public Accountant Society’s Northeast Satellite. Recently on the CEO Show, King stated, “You can make a difference in Houston pretty quickly. You get to know who the leaders are, and they’re very supportive. It’s just really a pleasure to be here. Really is.” Through his efforts involving area school leaders, he has arranged for dual credit in local school districts for high school accounting students since many of the brightest kids were passing on the high school accounting class. An incredible achievement, this will help future accounting students begin an interest in accounting early on in their academic careers.

The Houston CPA Society is the largest chapter of the Texas Society of CPAs and the third largest CPA Chapter in the United States with more than 8,000 CPA members in Houston and 13 surrounding counties. In addition to providing continuing professional education to its members, the 78-year-old Houston CPA Society has donated millions of dollars to charities through its charity events and golf tournaments. This year it presented $179,000 for accounting scholarships and $52,000 to CPAs Helping Schools for its program of scholarships for students, grants for schools and a variety of recognition programs and contests.

For questions please contact us at contact@grothforce.com. For Sales or Customer Service questions, please call 281-358-2007 (US).

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* GrowthForce is not a CPA firm.

QUICKBOOKS™ TIP:

QUICK CALCULATIONS

Where’s a calculator when you need one? Right in QuickBooks, of course. And it’s in the most convenient place – any numeric field. All you have to do is click in the field where you want to make the calculation. Open the calculator by pressing the = key or type a number followed by +,-,*,/, or =. On the paper tape that appears, enter as many numbers and operators (+,-,*,/ or =) as you need to complete the calculation. Press C once to clear an entry, twice to clear the tape. To enter the result press Enter or Tab. To cancel press Esc. That’s all you need to know.

QUICKBOOKS TRAINING

Discover what you and your employees really need to know to unleash the power of QuickBooks^TM with hands on computer training with a Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor.

This class is a must for anyone responsible for the financial activities and transactions.