Category Archive

February is a wonderful month. We have the Festival du Voyageur, where we can warm our hearts and celebrate Franco-Manitoban and Métis culture and heritage. We have Valentine’s Day, when we can express our love for those who matter the most to us. Above all in the world of accounting, February is, in most people’s minds, the start of tax … Read More

Running a business out of your home can be incredibly fulfilling. Think about all the different businesses that have started in someone’s garage; most of today’s uber tech giants were started as home businesses. That means there’s no telling how large your home business will grow – you might have to move out of the bedroom office you’ve made for … Read More

Those of you reading this are probably still using old accounting methods. Plug all of your numbers into an Excel spreadsheet, print them out, bring them over to your accountant, wait, have the accountant return the spreadsheets, evaluate, make appropriate changes. Rinse and repeat. Okay, to be honest, I sincerely hope none of you are printing Excel spreadsheets; hopefully you … Read More

Accounting is a complex subject, requiring years of study to learn, rigorous on the job training to practice, and decades to master. Canada has had certification programs for accountants for decades. Certification programs are useful because they allow clients to ensure the professionals they work with are being held to a high-standard; without designations, it would be impossible to know … Read More

Small businesses don’t always work out. There are so many factors at play: maybe it wasn’t the right time to move your product to market, maybe there was an unexpected breakdown in the supply chain. New taxes might have sliced into your profit margins enough that you couldn’t keep the business going, or a new technology might have rendered your … Read More

The world is filled with stressors. This is in many ways especially true for small business owners, who may feel like they need to be hands-on in every element of their company. You’ve made the business from the ground up, with your own two hands, invested time, money and energy into creating something great. With so much of yourself in … Read More

A quick summary for those who didn’t read the first post: there’s a personality inventory called the Big Five, and it evaluates people’s personalities based on five facets: Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism. During our last post, we discussed how the first three facets can affect the well-being of your small business. In brief, Openness is good … Read More

The Big Five personality traits are five traits (what a surprise) developed by psychologists that seem to account for a great deal of an individual’s personality. The five traits are Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness,  and Neuroticism. Each of the five can have an effect on the success of a business; when starting a business, it might be a … Read More

Change is inevitable. Being alive is change, down to the minute biological processes that make us tick. While change is very much a part of us, it can be something we’re incredibly resistant to. Comfort is necessary; without some level of consistency in our lives, it can be difficult to find a sense of ease or a sense of self. … Read More

New year, new you, or so the saying goes. When we change our calendars, it feels like we have to change ourselves; a fresh start is here, and the drive to become someone better is renewed. You can argue that the time for change is always here, and that the new year is an arbitrary point to start enacting those … Read More