The Shift

MindShift Partners CFO & Controller Services

MindShift Partners — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 19:40:20 +0000

MindShift Partners: CFOs & Controllers

MindShift Partners has been providing CFO and Controller Services in Los Angeles and Orange County, since 2005, on a part-time or project basis. This is ideal for companies who need extra bandwidth during crunch times, particularly when preparing for their audit, or even for the duration of the audit.

A MindShift CFO can compliment the efforts of your existing accounting department by cleaning up the books and preparing schedules well before the audit even begins. We can also draft 10-K and 10-Q footnotes The net result is that your company will save time and money (you’ll pay less in audit fees), not to mention the fact that the audit will run much more smoothly.

Additionally, we can provide a CFO or Controller to assist with the day-to-day accounting on a part-time or project basis. Again, this is ideal for companies can’t afford a full-time CFO or who need a higher level of expertise, on a project basis, to assist the in-house accounting team.

Our CFO-level Associates have 15+ years of experience in Accounting and have Audit experience. Please take a look at our Case Studies or Contact Us today!

MindShift Partners
“Make The Shift”
Tel. (310) 684-3977

Landing Pages: Google PPC Campaign

MindShift Partners — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 21:12:01 +0000

Here’s an example of a MindShift Partners landing page we created for our Google Adwords campaign. Take a look at the full page here.

MindShift Partners

MindShift Audit Prep Campaign

MindShift Partners — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 15:00:10 +0000

Here’s the Audit Prep postcard we sent to the small public companies in California. The idea was simple: Let MindShift Partners clean up your books and prepare your schedules before the auditors start their field work.

We’ve found that the less work the auditors have to do, the more money we can SAVE for our clients. That’s because our CPAs and CFO-level associates bill out at about half of what a CPA firm would charge. In addition, since we’re able to streamline the audit process, that means keeping audit fees well within the clients’ budget.

We’ve been doing audit prep work since we founded the company back in 2004, back when we were still known as Project Solutions. Check out our Case Studies or visit MindShiftPartners on the web for more info.

Entrepreneur Spotlight: Mike Hale & Tibesti.com

MindShift Partners — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 23:22:44 +0000

The Best of The Best: Tibesti.com

From time to time we’ll be spotlighting some of our most dynamic clients on The Shift, The MindShift Partners blog. Recently, we interviewed founder Mike Hale about his company Tibesti.com

The Shift: What is Tibesti.com?
Mike: Tibesti is a consumer-driven shopping site that delivers the “Best Expert Reviews. Best Products. Best Prices.” Tibesti has seven million unique universal product pages and lists the product information on each page. Tibesti then presents this information in a way that dramatically simplifies the online shopping experience.

The Shift: How did you come up with the idea for the company?
Mike: Out of sheer frustration! I found out that there was no single ”Best” site on the web. I had to go to six different places to get all the information I needed. I just wanted one credible and trustworthy website to give me everything I needed all in one place.

The Shift: What makes Tibesti unique from other shopping/social networking sites?
Mike: Tibesti focuses on the “Best Products. Best Prices.” and features exclusive product reviews from nationally known unbiased experts. It gives consumers total transparency while making it easy to find the best possible products.

The Shift: How do you see Tibesti changing the way people shop and interact on the web?
Mike: By simplifying information and the shopping experience we can give consumers the “Best” options so they can make smart buying decisions quickly and easily.

The Shift: What do you see as the next step in the evolution of the company? What will Tibesti be like a year from now?
Mike: Tibesti will eventually add the ability for manufacturers worldwide to sell directly to the American Consumer. This will give shoppers greater variety and even lower prices.

The Shift: What is the most outrageous (and fun) product on Tibesti?
Mike: In addition to the relevant product information on our product pages, we also include the “World’s Most Expensive” product for that category just for fun. For example, how does a $23 million bra sound?

This I’ve got to see. Visit www.Tibesti.com for the best shopping experience on the web.

The Shift

Employees Vs. Independant Contractors

MindShift Partners — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 23:11:01 +0000

It is incredibly important for clients and employers to know the difference between independenat contractors and employees. This sums it up nicely.

Credit: Michelle Fabio, Esq. Legal Zoom (July 2010)

As an employer, it is crucial that you understand the distinctions between an independent contractor and an employee so that you can be sure you are abiding by federal and state tax laws.

Employee vs. Independent Contractor

If a worker is an employee, the employer is responsible for paying Social Security, unemployment insurance, Medicare, and possibly other costs like workers’ compensation insurance for the employee; at the end of the tax year, the employer is responsible for compiling all necessary payroll reports, including W-2 forms.

If a worker is an independent contractor, the employer is not responsible for any of the above taxes or payments, and the only added paperwork is the issuing of a 1099 to the independent contractor at the end of the tax year, if he or she has made more than $600 with the employer.

So why not just call everyone who works for you an “independent contractor” and save time and money? Because you, as the employer, are not the one who decides whether someone is an employee or an independent contractor; the law does, and there could be penalties if you make an incorrect determination.

Employee or Independent Contractor?

The IRS (Internal Revenue Service) lists three categories of information to be considered in the determination of whether an individual is an employee or independent contractor:

Behavioral: Does the company control or have the right to control what the worker does and how the worker does his or her job?

Financial: Are the business aspects of the worker’s job controlled by the payer? (These aspects include things like how the worker is paid, whether expenses are reimbursed, who provides tools/supplies, etc.)

Type of Relationship: Are there written contracts or employee-type benefits (i.e., a pension plan, insurance, vacation pay, etc.)? Will the relationship continue and is the work performed a key aspect of the business?

An employer must show there is a reasonable basis to classify the worker as an independent contractor in order to escape the burden of paying taxes for the worker.

If you still aren’t sure whether a worker is an independent contractor or employee, the IRS provides Form SS-8, Determination of Worker Status for Purposes of Federal Employment Taxes and Income Tax Withholding (PDF); either the worker or the employer can fill out and send in the form, and the IRS will review the situation and tell you its determination on the matter.

Claiming an Employee as an Independent Contractor
If you have claimed an employee as an independent contractor, the IRS may hold you responsible for employment taxes for that worker; there are steeper penalties for “willful neglect” as well under Internal Revenue Code Section 3509.

The Shift
MindShiftPartners.com

Lessons Learned: Google Pay Per Click (PPC) Experiment

MindShift Partners — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 23:35:59 +0000

We Were Just As Qualified!

Many businesses have reacted differently to the downturn. Some have scaled back and some, if they’re smart, have tried to use the timing as an opportunity to learn new ways to acquire customers. Lessons learned from the 2000-2001 recession taught me that this can be a great time of opportunity to shake things up while your competitors are stuck with their heads’ in the sand.

For our business, we have always had a direct, indirect and an online channel for acquiring new business. In the past, we used Google Adwords to great advantage and, at times, we generated about a third of our business from Google. If done right, Google can be great. If not, you can end up spending a ton of cash for mixed results.

We’ve always operated under the assumption that we can always learn more and do things better and, in the first quarter of 2010, we decided to run a little experiment on Google. We thought that even though we were pretty good at running PPC campaigns, someone, somewhere must know more than us.

So, after four-five years of running this ourselves, we contracted with a PPC firm in town (I will not use their name because L.A. has a tight-knit business community…I want to spare myself a potentially awkward moment should we run into each other at a networking event here in town).

The long and the short of it is that when you engage a firm that does this for a living remember this: they have a million clients and do not, and never will, really truly understand your business. In the end it’s a waste of money. If you’re going to use someone to run a PPC campaign make sure they are (a) dedicated (b) engaged and (c) reachable.

For example, at MindShift Partners, we’re not running a “boiler room.” When we help our clients with Google PPC we are dedicated to them, not a zillion other clients and, though it’s an area we have expertise in, it’s not the only thing we do. Also, at the partner level, we never spread ourselves over more than a couple of clients each. If it’s lower-level work, we’ll assign an associate to save the client some money. We learned our lesson about outsourcing Google PPC – hopefully you won’t repeat our mistake.

Aron Gibson, Partner
www.MindShiftPartners.com

MindShift Partners: Audit Prep Case Study

MindShift Partners — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 18:59:24 +0000

We’re working on keeping in better touch with our customers and the folks in our network. So, having said that, we’re making an effort to send out a case study about once a month so people can see what we’re working on. Also, since we’re not just focused on accounting any more (we do fair amount of online marketing and web strategy) we want to get the word out about our other services. This went out in our newsletter today (we’ll be sending out a marketing case study next month):

Audit Prep Case Study
Situation
A company in the oil-exploration industry switched auditors and needed help preparing preaudit schedules to speed up field work and manage costs. The company did not have the necessary resources in-house to complete the work.

Action
MindShift Partners was engaged to prepare preaudit schedules. Significant attention was paid to revenue recognition, accounting treatment for stock options, and the equity section of the balance sheet which was quite complex.

Result
The auditors’ fieldwork was completed on time and the company received a clean audit opinion.

This is a great example of a small public company that had to complete their audit on an even smaller budget. By using MindShift Partners to complete the preaudit work, they were able to afford to engage the auditors. This was a win-win for everyone involved.

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment or contact us through our website.

Many thanks,

Aron Gibson
Partner
MindShiftPartners.com

Project Solutions Accounting is now Mindshift Partners!

MindShift Partners — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 07:44:19 +0000

Well, here we are. Project Solutions Accounting has changed its name to MindShift Partners.

Why the change? Well, for one we’re not an accounting firm (plus we couldn’t stand our old name) and, though we do some project consulting work in the accounting area, we also do a lots of other cool stuff like building financial models, e-commerce integrations, web strategy, software evaluation, web-based marketing (and more).

At any rate, I hope you enjoy the new site. If you have any feedback or questions, feel free to leave us a comment. “Make The Shift!”

Cheers,
Aron
MindShift Partners
www.mindshiftpartners.com