Starting a successful business

If you're contemplating starting up a practice, a firm financial footing often makes the difference between thriving and failing. Over 80% of start-ups fail in the first five years, most do to financing issues. Often avoidable issues.

Your business structure

We work with you to help you understand the pros and cons of your proposed business structure (incorporate, partnership or sole proprietorship).

We walk you through a two-page document Tax Tips for Consultants, which outlines the various business structures, what accounts need to be opened and the various expenses that are deductible for income tax purposes.

Incorporation

If you decide to incorporate, we can assist you with the incorporation. We help you register your business name by performing a name search, and handle the government paperwork for your incorporation.

Once the corporation is approved, we can assist with your application for a business number, and register your payroll and GST accounts with the Canada Revenue Agency.

Getting the financing you need

We work with you to determine your financing requirement, what assets you need to purchase and what expenses you can expect to incur.

We can also provide you with bookkeeping services, if you don't want to do them yourself.

If your practice is more complicated

If your requirements are complicated, such as starting up a mid-size business, the following might be of value to you:

• Assistance with your business plan, including preparing projected financial statements for submitting to a bank or other financial institution.
• Instructing lawyers and/or meeting with your legal advisors to structure the business and prepare a Shareholder's Agreement (where there are more than one shareholder).
• We will deal with your financial institution and assist you in negotiating with them for financing, where needed.
• Where you anticipate purchasing a practice, additional services might also be required:
• We can perform a valuation of the business along with a due diligence analysis of the business.
• We can assist you in the preparation of your offer to buy.
• We can assist you in negotiating the final purchase and sale agreement.
• We can work with you to help you obtain financing as needed.
• Our bookkeeper can train you or your staff on Simply Accounting software, in your office or ours. We contact you a couple of times after the training to ensure you're comfortable with the system. Should you have any questions, we encourage you to call us.

We're experts in valuing health care practices. Ernie teaches this skill at the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College (CMCC) and chiropractors and lawyers often refer clients to us who require a valuation of a business.