Owning your own small business means being your own boss and pursuing a career about which you\u2019re truly passionate.\u00a0 Unfortunately, it also means stepping up to the plate when it comes to legal issues outside your expertise.<\/p>\n
Just because you\u2019re running a small business and not an international corporation doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re immune from legal concerns.\u00a0 As the owner of a small business, you need to take steps to safeguard both your company and your livelihood.\u00a0 Here are five ways to protect your small business against legal fallout:<\/p>\n
1. Do Your Research<\/strong><\/p>\n As a small business owner, you need to research the employment and labor laws affecting your organization.\u00a0 Along with hiring laws, businesses need to know the guidelines surrounding employee benefits, human resources, and wages. As of this year, salaries employees earning less than $47,476 annually are eligible for overtime pay.\u00a0 If your team members regularly work long hours, you might want to consult a lawyer to be sure you aren\u2019t violating labor laws.\u00a0 There have been many instances recently where small businesses take help from independent contractors not fully understanding the rules that define the distinction between\u00a0independent contractors and employees.<\/p>\n 2. Stay Up to Date on Taxes <\/strong><\/p>\n Failing to file taxes on time \u2013 or neglecting to pay your bill in full \u2013 can put you in dangerous standing with Uncle Sam.\u00a0 Although tracking sales and expenses isn\u2019t always fun, it\u2019s crucial to record this information and check that you\u2019re only deducting those costs that the IRS allows.\u00a0 For best results, strive to record purchases as soon as they happen rather than waiting and fudging the figures down the line.<\/p>\n 3. Separate Your Business From Yourself<\/strong><\/p>\n As passionate as you might be about your small business, it\u2019s important that you not consider yourself and your company a single entity.\u00a0 As a sole proprietor, you can be sued along with your business, putting your home and other assets at risk.\u00a0 For this reason, business owners should consider incorporating to separate their personal finances from those of the organization.\u00a0 Because corporations have their own unique tax rules, owners should consider consulting with accountants upon incorporation to ensure they\u2019re following all the necessary rules and regulations.<\/p>\n 4<\/strong>. Protect Your Assets<\/strong><\/p>\n Savvy small business owners take steps to protect their assets in the eyes of the law.\u00a0 Rather than assuming your products are safe from copycats, consult a lawyer about trademarking, copyrighting, and patenting your business\u2019 property. It\u2019s usually cheaper to obtain a copyright immediately after the creation of a product than to deal with lawsuits and legal ramifications down the line.<\/p>\n 5. <\/strong>Don\u2019t Ignore Customer Complaints<\/strong><\/p>\n Overlooking customer grievances can result in legal consequences that affect your business in the coming years.\u00a0 Along with creating clear return and service policies, companies should strive to follow up on all customer complaints.\u00a0 The goal is to resolve the issue to everyone\u2019s satisfaction before it turns into a legal dispute.<\/p>\n It is always a good practice to consult a well qualified attorney who specializes in business litigation on matters where you have doubts.\u00a0 Hiring new employees, creating new products & services, determining compensation, firing of employees, exporting your products & services are areas where possible litigations may arise thus the need to get attorney consultations.\u00a0 Many business owners either purchase inadequate business liability insurance or do not buy at all, these could prove fatal for a small business\u00a0in the event of an expensive lawsuit or settlement.<\/p>\n Contact accurants for Business Accounting Made Simple<\/strong><\/p>\n From tracking\u00a0sales to keeping a record of inventory and expenses, accurants offers full-service accounting to suit a variety of small businesses. Because accurants is based in the cloud, users can record purchases the moment they occur. Additionally, it\u2019s easy to create professional-looking reports come tax season. The IRS will be happy, and you won\u2019t miss a single write-off. To learn more about our services, register to try accurants for free.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Owning your own small business means being your own boss and pursuing a career about which you\u2019re truly passionate.\u00a0 Unfortunately, it also means stepping up to the plate when it comes to legal issues outside your expertise. Just because you\u2019re running a small business and not an international corporation doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re immune from legal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6823,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[19,32,33,50,76,81,83,84,85,95],"class_list":["post-247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-assets","tag-business-liability-insurance","tag-business-litigation","tag-employees","tag-independent-contractors","tag-irs","tag-legal-disputes","tag-liabilities","tag-litigation","tag-overtime-pay","entry","has-media"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/08\/Legal-Fallout-Image.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/accurants.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/accurants.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/accurants.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accurants.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accurants.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/accurants.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7636,"href":"https:\/\/accurants.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247\/revisions\/7636"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accurants.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/accurants.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accurants.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accurants.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}