While some medical device manufacturers (MDMs) have their own packaging lines and skills, many businesses outsource their medical device packaging to a contract packager. Small-batch sealers are cheap, but high-volume production necessitates costly packing equipment that takes up a lot of valuable floor space in a manufacturing plant. As a result, many businesses prefer to hire a contract packager instead of investing in expensive equipment and space.
While Medical device packages there are multiple factors that need to be taken under consideration by a contractor. Read the full article to know more about medical device contract packaging.
Few Important Factors To Consider While Contract Packaging
Following are a few of the factors that should be taken under consideration while contract packaging:
The Medtech Knowledge For Packaging
Food, consumer goods, medical equipment, and pharmaceuticals are all packaged in some way. The medical device and pharmaceutical industries are governed by a system of laws and regulations that ensure that their goods are both safe and effective, as well as sterile to the point of use when necessary. A contract packager who regularly packages food or consumer goods may not be familiar with all of the medical and pharmaceutical packaging standards and requirements.
Package and Process Validation
The packing procedure must be validated. This involves, at the very least, an Installation Qualification (IQ), an Operational Qualification (OQ), and a Performance Qualification (PQ) for the equipment in question. You’ll also need a process specification for the packaging’s shaping, assembly, and sealing.
Calibration Schedule
The packaging equipment must be calibrated and maintained by the contract packager. They should, for example, have procedures and regulations in place to guarantee that the sealer operates within the certified process parameters at all times.
If you are looking for a medical device contract packaging Protech Design is just the right option for you. Contact us today!
While the previous year saw one of the worst global recessions in history, businesses, organizations, and even individuals are quickly adapting and creating a new normal in which they can flourish. Entrepreneurs are coming up with new solutions for new problems and creating sustainable business solutions.
Business Leaders have shared the most profitable ideas you can use to launch your own business.
eCommerce is a Growing Industry
“Let’s begin with one of the most adaptable company concepts available. If you’ve ever considered starting a retail business, now is the time to do so. An eCommerce site is ideal for small business owners looking for a career that they can accomplish from home and that has surprisingly low starting costs.
“Sure, you could wish to create and store the products you sell, but it’s simple to opt for a business strategy like dropshipping, which eliminates the need for inventory management. Dropshipping allows you to order and ship products from vendors based on client demand. It’s a low-cost solution that’s still gaining traction. You’ll need a website for whatever ideas you come up with. Becoming a website owner, the most important job for eCommerce enterprises isn’t as difficult as you might assume.”
“Businesses will pay you to advertise their products if you can persuade them to do so. This is one of those company ideas that can expand enormously if you’re a confident person or a marketing specialist. Affiliate marketing is when you promote the things that another company or store sells, and you are paid a fee by your customers if they buy them from your referral.
“Some people are able to create a business focusing on affiliate marketing services, which is a well-known side hustle that will bring in money while you focus on other business ideas. It pays to build a strong online presence and expand from there if you want to succeed as an affiliate marketer. You can more easily get started from the comfort of your own home. Create a blog, a website, or use your social media accounts to bring a diverse range of customers to your clients.”
“It’s low-cost, high-reward, and simple to begin. You can create bespoke designs for everything from greeting cards to t-shirts and then outsource the printing and production to a manufacturer. They’ll also take care of the shipment. This is one of the greatest side hustle business ideas for creative folks who want to supplement their income – you can use your design skills while someone else handles the logistics.
“This is one idea that you can quickly grow if you want to go all-in with on-demand printing and make it into a small business. Consider putting your items and services on marketplace sites as well as your own website; before long, you’ll have established your own brand.”
Food Truck, Online Bookkeeping, Online Teaching, Digital Marketing Services
“As a CEO and founder, due to the COVID-19 epidemic, I noticed a shift in the business industry with people’s attitudes toward products and services. In 2021, finding profitable online business ideas or starting a home-based business might be difficult due to limited resources. Yet with these limited resources, I believe there’s more it could offer.
“Since it is pandemic, and dine-ins are not allowed in any restaurant, it is an excellent idea to start a food truck business. It’s also a fantastic strategy to establish an educational business, such as online teaching or online bookkeeping because it’s less expensive and offers a high return on investment.
“With people being more engaged on social media, it is great to start being an online seller because people are into purchasing items on the internet. In addition, digital marketing services are always in high demand, and many small and midsize businesses would like to outsource rather than hire a pricey in-house team. Developing a team that allows you to work from home is a terrific business opportunity.”
Jonathan Saeidian, Founder and CEO of 3 successful startups: Brenton Way, INITIATE.AI and Take Sessions
Delivery Services
“E-commerce boomed last year up to the present day. That being the case, demands for delivery services increased, making it one of the most profitable businesses currently.” (Dan Belcher)
Dropshipping
“Dropshipping and e-commerce have made waves during the pandemic because everyone is locked in their homes. This business is ideal for people who don’t have the financial resources to start up. It is also a safe business because you don’t need to pre-purchase items which might make your money stagnant. You only need to accept orders from customers and purchase them when they’ve already paid.”
“With an increasing number of brands competing for customers’ attention, small companies need a sleek and professional image more than ever. Whether or whether they can afford a large-scale advertising or marketing firm, virtually every small company will sometimes need graphic design services.
“Are you familiar with Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign? Have you attended any design courses and developed an eye for effective branding? As a freelance graphic designer, you may turn your talents into a company. You’ll have almost little overhead and may charge substantial hourly rates for doing what small company owners are incapable of doing themselves—creating great marketing visuals.”
Taking on a business partner is a big step forward for your business; it means working in collaboration with another corporation for faster and improved progress. While it’s an exciting new phase, this isn’t the place for haste. Take the time to understand your prospective business partner and what you are getting into with this alliance.
Talking to business professionals, we have compiled a list of the top things they recommend to consider when entering a business partnership.
1. Your Communication Styles Need to Align
“A strong, long-term business partnership requires clear, honest communication. Make sure you talk about your communication style and preferences before doing business with someone. Some people prefer to check in numerous times throughout the day, while others prefer a weekly check-in. Early agreement on a communication plan can help avoid future confusion and conflict. “The importance of direct communication cannot be overstated. When someone is caught off guard, emotions become involved.”
“In my opinion, the contribution of the partners is the most important thing to consider when forming a business partnership. Make sure you spell out each partner’s role in the company’s formation and ongoing finances. What will each partner pay to the business’s start-up costs, and what will each partner’s future duties be? Define what each partner will provide, not just in terms of money, but also in terms of time, effort, clients, equipment, and so on, in your agreement.”
“I cannot emphasize how critical this is! Trust me when I say that you and your partner(s) will not always agree on everything. You’ll need to figure out how you’ll handle the day-to-day management and long-term decisions. Who has the last say? Determine which decisions require a majority vote from all partners and which ones can be made by a single partner. You’ll lay the groundwork for a more frictionless business by establishing a decision-making process that everyone understands and agrees on.”
“Don’t actually write your business plan unless you and your partner agree on the same aspirations, goals, and vision for your new venture. Do you envision a part-time catering business that allows you to spend more time with your family while your partner dreams of opening the next Starbucks? If you want the business to flourish, you and your partner must have the same basic beliefs, goals, and work ethic.”
5. Clearly Define Each Partner’s Role And Responsibilities
“In the early stages of a business, an informal structure where each partner does what is needed at the time may succeed, but not in the long run. By providing each partner control over his or her domain, defining each partner’s job title and responsibilities helps to eliminate conflicts. Employees and consumers benefit from understanding which partner is in charge of various elements of the company.”
“Even if you’re starting a business with your kindergarten best buddy, you’ll need to create legal paperwork that covers your business structure, capital contribution, decision-making process, dispute resolution, and what happens if one partner wants to leave the company. It’s easier to deal with any challenges that come if you go through all the things that could go wrong and how you’ll address them.”
7. Consider The Type of Partnership that Best Fits You
“When going into business with a partner, it’s wise to consider which type of partnership is the best fit for you and your partner. The most common option is a general partnership. This is an agreement between two or more partners running a business that allows for equal division of all profits, liabilities, and management duties for each partner.
“Additionally, partners may decide to form a joint venture partnership. This is similar to a general partnership, but it is designed to be temporary. Often, a joint partnership is established when a certain phase of development has been completed or to help speed up certain processes, like business expansion, within the company. The joint venture partnership then expires once the specific strategic growth objectives have been met.
“You may also consider a silent partnership, which allows one partner to provide capital for the business but not participate in its day-to-day operations. Instead, the other partner assumes these responsibilities. And, depending on your profession, you may form a limited liability partnership (LLP) to receive limited liability protection and a pass-through tax structure. Forming an LLP is limited to professionals in roles licensed by the state, such as doctors and lawyers. Discuss these options with your partner(s) to determine which is the best fit for you and your business.”
“One should consider the potential business partner’s background performance, both their inside operations and public relations. You will learn much from how they perform and several things you may consider beneficial or harmful to your business.
Research on how they conduct their operations, also considering their workplace culture and ethics. You may look up their achievements as a business or recent cases of violations. Consider checking potential financial red flags that may also risk yours. You can also consider checking their face in public. It is beneficial to learn such things to gauge whether the partnership is safe to enter and ensure success for both your businesses.”
“Understand your potential partner’s current financial situation. If they’re in a lot of debt, it might not be a good idea to partner with them. Also, do background checks even if you think you know them well. See what kind of history they have so that there aren’t any surprises down the road. Most importantly, have an attorney vet the partnership docs.”
Getting your Startup off the ground and running is hard work and it keeps you occupied looking after each aspect of your business. One of the more essential points that should not be overlooked in all the hassle is- your progress check. What did you set out to accomplish? Are you making progress? What would you define ‘progress’ in the first year of your business?
We often assume once we make our initial business plan, we are done and we can now barrel ahead. That isn’t true; however, we need to keep revisiting our plan, see where do we stand now and perhaps even make some adjustments. If the past year has taught us anything, it is that flexibility is vital to any business.
The best way to ensure you’re making progress is by creating a one-year goal checklist for your business. We have consulted professionals from the business world to help us with that. Their ideas on what to put on your checklist can definitely get you on track to progress.
Identifying Your Ideal Niche
“By the end of your first business year, you’ll need to be able to identify your ideal customer profile so that your business’s resources can be used to convert those prospects into loyal customers. You’ll also need to decide whether you’re a B2B (Business to Business) or a B2C (Business To Consumer) organization so that you’re better able to optimally market your products. Create a realistic budget: You should be able to create a sustainable financial budget by using various costing accounting methods.
“The first year in business is often expensive so entrepreneurs will need to conduct frequent financial analyses to better be prepared for the coming years. They can do so by analyzing their cashflow forecasts, calculating gearing ratios, interest coverage ratios, and debt to asset ratios to assess whether they’re holding too much or too little debt.”
Ensure You Have Progressed Since a Year Ago, Made Some Sales
“One of the things that should be in a startup’s checklist is to ensure that they are not in the same place as they were a year ago. They should’ve already made sales, even though they haven’t had an ROI yet. Starting out a business is not as easy as you might think and that is okay. But at least set goals and formulate strategies that won’t make you be in the same place as you were. Because if you still are, then there’s something wrong with what you’re doing.”
“Your first year in business is when you start to establish yourself as a fixture in your industry and in your community. It’s also a good time to focus on your current customers and listen to what they have to say. Develop your professional network to create opportunities for collaboration and co-branding. Look for a mentor, advisor, or consultant. Finally, communicate with your customers and incorporate their suggestions into your plans and strategy.”
“Every startup’s one-year goal should include improving marketing strategies. By the end of the year, they need to have established a name and be visible in the market they aim to penetrate. There are continuous marketing-related advancements; therefore, startups must be aware of them to be competent and trusted.”
“A one year goal of small businesses should be to create a new customer service process. You have grown your business for a whole year, so check in on how you communicate with your customers. How does your business handle complaints and what can you do to to make it an even better experience. Figuring this out will help your business to continue flourishing.”
“Some things that should be on your 1 year goal checklist are revenue goal, employee turnover goal, employee count goal, employee satisfaction goal, customer NPS high, and positive customer reviews. All of these things are important to measuring the success of the business. If you are falling short on any of these benchmarks it is time to evaluate how you are running your business and pivot in a different direction.”
“Starting a business can be very rewarding, but it’s a lot of hard work. The goals you set in your first year are critical to your long-term success. Here are some goals to set for your first year in business:
Research your ideal client and what they need
Increase your productivity
Keep your business expenses low
Create your first product that solves your client or customer’s problems
Create systems, templates, and workflows (this makes hiring your first employee easier)
Hire your first employee or contractor
Master SEO or hire someone to help you with it to increase traffic to your website
Create a social media strategy (organic and paid)
Amira Irfan, Business Lawyer, seven-figure Blogger, and Coach at aselfguru.com, an online company that helps entrepreneurs make money online and legally protect their Businesses
Finance Goals
“Small businesses need to stretch their budget as much as possible and should always look for ways to reduce or restructure their budgets. Decide what expenses are necessary for running your business and eliminate all other spending. Consider insurance protection in case of unfortunate circumstances and have enough savings to keep your business afloat for several months.”
Chris Vaughn, CEO of Pacific Consolidated Holdings (PCH). PCH’s signature platforms include Emjay
Improve Your Product and Service Offerings
“As a founder, for a 1-year goal checklist for a start-up, it will be great to have a better understanding of the market. Set a goal to improve your product and service offerings, as well as your marketing plan, by incorporating client feedback. Refine your product, as well as your marketing and sales strategies. Setting a goal to improve your own and your team’s productivity is also a good idea.”
Jonathan Saeidian, Founder/CEO of 3 startups: Brenton Way, INITIATE.AI, and Take Sessions.
Close to Breaking Even
“The first-year checklist should always include how close you are to breaking even. It’s completely normal to be unprofitable on the first year the company is founded. Therefore, it’s important to keep a checklist of quarterly financial targets and objectives on the path to breaking even. If you get lucky, you can already turn a profit within a few months, but in most cases, you need to work your way towards first breaking even. So it’s helpful to strategize and set tangible goals that you can work towards in the first year of business.”
By Expert Panel® Forbes Councils Member, Dec 11, 2020
To say that Covid-19 has been a game-changer for small businesses in the United States would be an understatement. Facing financial constraints and other limitations imposed by the pandemic, many small businesses have had to come up with creative solutions to maintain a steady stream of revenue.
The pandemic hasn’t subsided yet, and it is bound to continue influencing small businesses in the year to come. Below, 15 Forbes Coaches Council members discuss the trends they believe will drive small business in the year 2021 as well as ways to prepare for them.
Forbes Coaches Council members discuss trends that will drive small business in 2021. PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS.
1. Visible Digital Footprints
An excellent digital footprint and visibility will be a must for the small business next year. As everyone is spending significant time on the internet, having a great digital presence and branding will help when competing for new projects, contracts, partnerships and opportunities. This is an excellent way to highlight your product or service, engage and build community. – Izabela Lundberg, Legacy Leaders Institute
2. Agility
Restrictions will still be around, heavily affecting small and medium-sized enterprises. However, they have an advantage over the big corporations: A smaller size means potential for quick shifts of focus, be they in service delivery, marketing or team structuring. The quicker small businesses are able to pivot and adapt during these ongoing turbulent times, the higher their fitness and success will be. – Ruben Crawford, Empowertale Ltd
Small businesses will continue to battle talent problems in the foreseeable future. The war for talent was only paused during Covid-19, and it has already resumed in most industries. Organizations have a choice: They can build learning and people-development cultures to keep teams engaged long-term, or they can build recruiting empires to address the constant turnover of employees. – Brad Cousins, Ingage Human Capital Strategies
5. Pre-Meeting Packs
A trend that will drive small businesses is the use of customized pre-meeting packs. These pleasant surprises take advantage of snail mail in a time of digital saturation. Many organizations send their board members these packs a day prior to a long online meeting. The packs can include a mix of food snacks, office accessories or stationery. Highlighting local businesses is a big opportunity for small firms. – Natalie Nixon, Figure 8 Thinking, LLC
6. Workplace Culture
Workplace culture is a trend for leaders to optimize, capitalize and maximize. What people believe, think, say and do as well as the collective output of their behaviors define their company culture. The evolutionary impact of recent events is driving leaders to align budgets and priorities to support organizational health, resulting in better alignment to vision, values, goals and prosperity. – Lori Harris, Harris Whitesell Consulting
7. Customer Reviews
Customer reviews will be key. As people feel the financial pinch caused by this year’s pandemic, they will be looking for ways to save. They might forgo buying the big brand names and look around for alternatives. This opens the door for small businesses to step in. While they might lack the credibility of a big brand, a list of glowing reviews from customers can definitely sway the sale. – Gabriella Goddard, Brainsparker Leadership Academy
8. Clarity
Our time seems to be eaten up with virtual meetings and webinar training. Be absolutely clear about whether a meeting or training is going to be paramount. We are tired of being on virtual meetings that waste our time, leaving us frustrated and overwhelmed. Before the meeting, collaborate on a clear agenda, clear objectives and desired outcomes. Also, start and finish on time. – Frances McIntosh, Intentional Coaching LLC
9. Creative Joint Ventures
I think more small businesses will seek out creative collaborations and joint ventures with other small businesses. Diversifying the risk via another collaborator and entering markets not previously considered will increase their chances of longer-term survivability. – Karan Rhodes, Shockingly Different Leadership
10. Local Community Networking
People buy from people, especially now that we’re limited in where we’re able to go. If small businesses want to compete with the big brands and online options, they’ll need to connect with their communities more than ever. Nothing helps a business more than locals spreading the word to their friends. So get “out there,” network on sites like LinkedIn and watch your business thrive! – Miranda VonFricken, Miranda VonFricken – Masterminds & Personal Growth Coaching!
11. E-Commerce
If they aren’t already, small businesses must get into the world of e-commerce. Everything a business offers should have an e-commerce component, and training, onboarding and other aspects of leadership have to be e-commerce ready. As 2020 has proved, you have to be ready to pivot on a dime to survive in an ever-changing landscape, and it starts by getting everyone e-commerce-facing. – Jon Dwoskin, The Jon Dwoskin Experience
12. Data-Driven Digital Strategies
Small companies will work intensively on digital strategies to adapt to new forms of consumption and other consequences of the pandemic. It will be especially important to carry out market studies that allow us to know the new demands firsthand. Additionally, small businesses should work on the flexibility of structures and costs to make them viable and competitive. – José Luís González Rodriguez, ActionCOACH
13. Technological Disruption
Pandemic-fueled technological disruption will continue to shift the very nature of work, affecting how organizations maintain a sustainable competitive advantage in the marketplace. This will be particularly true for small businesses, which, in an increasingly interconnected virtual world, will be competing not only with bigger players in the market, but also with other small businesses from around the globe. – Jonathan H. Westover, Ph.D, Utah Valley University & Human Capital Innovations, LLC
14. Unique Online Courses
Online courses have been a great way to pivot business during the pandemic. If you have a unique knowledge base and a customer engagement model, pouring knowledge into do-it-yourself courses can independently save your business this coming year. It is not limiting, and it becomes passive income, as long as you use quality cameras in the creation of original course content. – Amera McCoy, McCoy Consulting LLC
15. Investments In Infrastructure And Customer Engagement
Next year will pay dividends to small businesses who invest wisely now in themselves and their customers. The small businesses that are operating out of fear right now will face even more fear and losses to competitors who are investing in their infrastructure and customer engagement to stay relevant now. Don’t let fear drive you. Find the opportunity and capitalize. – Dhru Beeharilal, Nayan Leadership, LLC
LONDON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Short sellers betting against European and U.S. travel, leisure and bank stocks lost billions of dollars on Monday, after news of a COVID-19 vaccine triggered a rally in shares of companies that have suffered under months of virus-fueled restrictions and lockdowns.FILE PHOTO: The German share price index DAX graph is pictured at the stock exchange in Frankfurt, Germany, October 15, 2020. REUTERS/Staff
Investors positioned to profit from declines in European travel, leisure and bank stocks alone lost more than $500 million on Monday, according to data provider ORTEX Analytics.
Among U.S. shares, just seven travel-linked companies, Carnival Corp CCL.N, Expedia Group EXPE.O, Booking Holdings Inc BKNG.O, Royal Caribbean Group RCL.N, American Airlines Group AAL.N Wynn Resorts WYNN.O and Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings NCLH.O, accounted for $2.35 billion in losses for short sellers, the firm’s data showed.
Total short-selling losses across industries are likely to have been much higher.
European travel and leisure stocks .SXTP are up 12% since the start of the month while shares of banks .SX7P, which are sensitive to the state of the economy and among the markets’s worst performers since the coronavirus outbreak in March, reached a five-month high on Tuesday.
The Dow Jones U.S. Travel & Leisure Index .DJUSCJ jumped 8.2% on Monday and is up nearly 15% for November. On Tuesday, the index fell 1.7%.
This week’s dramatic rebound in beaten-up share prices followed Pfizer’s announcement of positive data from its vaccine trial, raising hopes of an economic recovery.
Calculations by ORTEX Analytics showed short sellers of European travel and leisure companies lost $284 million based on positions held on Monday. Losses for European bank short-sellers totalled $233 million.
Rolls-Royce RR.L, Carnival CCL.L and British Airways owner IAG ICAG.L rank among the biggest winners of this week’s rally, while bank stock risers include Societe Generale SOGN.PA, Barclays BARC.L and Lloyds LLOY.L, all up between 10% and 25%.
But for short sellers the rebound equalled pain after several months of profitable bets — they lost an estimated $101 million on Deutsche Lufthansa LHAG.DE on Monday, $52 million on TUI TUIGn.DE and $66 million on HSBC, ORTEX data showed.
“Whilst Pfizer described yesterday as a great day for science and for humanity, it was anything but for short sellers who look to have been caught out by the market adjustment.” said ORTEX co-founder Peter Hillerberg.
Hedge funds profit when they borrow a stock and sell it back when the price falls, pocketing the difference, a practice known as short-selling.
Funds with significant short positions in travel and leisure stocks include D.E. Shaw, GLG Partners – which had a net short position in Rolls-Royce of 0.92% on Nov. 4 – and Marshall Wace, according to UK regulatory filings. The funds either declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment.
STILL SHORT
Betting against travel and bank stocks had been a winner for hedge funds since governments shut down swathes of their economies in March.
Short sellers had made an estimated $1.87 billion from bank shorts since March to Nov. 6 and $140 million from wagering against travel and leisure companies, ORTEX calculates.
Investors have banked profits and reduced positions since August. But significant outstanding short exposure remained as some bet on further falls following another round of government lockdowns.
“Companies whose business models have been most impaired by COVID are yet to fully recover from their lows,” analysts at Barclays said in a note on Tuesday.
“They could therefore be the biggest beneficiaries of a successful vaccine deployment, as their depressed revenue and earnings are yet to recover,” they added.
Reporting by Tommy Wilkes in London and Saqib Iqbal Ahmed in New York; Editing by Rachel Armstrong, Jonathan Oatis and Tom Brown
Every company, big or small, is always concerned about one thing: Managing money. Proper financial management is crucial to surviving a volatile economy and industry competition. Small businesses especially need to exercise caution with their financial decisions from the very beginning; it takes more than just a good idea to run a business.
Every business needs a financial structure that generates a profit to stay credible. Entrepreneurs need to be equipped with good money management abilities to turn their venture into a success story. Not all business owners, however, are adept at handling finances. But that doesn’t mean all hope is lost. Here are six tips for managing small business finances.
First, educate yourself. One of the first things that you should do is educate yourself about the various aspects of Finance. For starters, learn how to read financial statements. Suppose you don’t know how, financial statements tell you all about your money; where it originated from, how many hands it changed, and where it is. Financial Statements contain four essential details: cash flow statement, income statement, balance sheet, and shareholders equity statement.
The Cash Flow Statement analyzes operating activities, investments, and financial outflow. The balance sheet provides information related to the company’s assets, liabilities, and shareholders’ equity.
The income statement reflects the revenue earned within a specific period of time. Shareholders’ equity represents how the company is financed through common and preferred shares to separate personal and business finances. Always keep your personal and business finances separate. This entails getting a business credit card and putting all related expenses on it. This should help you track your outlays and keep you in control. You will also do well in opening a savings account dedicated to your business, wherein you can transfer a certain amount of money from each payment that you receive and gradually build a considerable corpus. You can use this money to pay taxes three cut costs.
Entrepreneurs must stay tight-fisted to keep their expenses in-check without hampering customer satisfaction. This especially holds true for small businesses. In every business, there are two types of costs- fixed and variable. Fixed costs have to be borne irrespective of whether your business is making money or not. There is scope for savings and variable costs. For example, instead of buying costly branded software, you can work with free, cloud-based open-source software, which is equally good. Conduct free online calls video conferences instead of traveling long distances. You can also try bartering your services with other professionals and cut costs for invest in cloud-based accounting software.
While you can download regular accounting software to manage your finances, it will never give you the kind of convenience cloud-based accounting software can. Web-based software provides you with real-time insights as most allow you to store, update, track and access data from anywhere at any time. Whether you’re at home, office, or traveling, you can conveniently work with your data from anywhere you like. It is error-free, hassle-free, and dependable.
Monitor and measure performance. As a business owner, you must keep tabs on the movement of your money, especially when large amounts are involved. Keep looking at your company’s financial performance compared to the past financial statements to project your future revenue, expenses, and cash flow. Being aware of these aspects will help you make informed decisions for your business.
Also, hire professional help. Everyone needs help, especially a budding entrepreneur interested in making a huge success of his venture. Sometimes it pays off to engage an expert’s services, even if it is on a part-time basis. That can help you determine where your business is heading by using and analyzing your data. Ensure you hire someone you trust, though, whether it is tax planning for the next financial year or payment for the current year. Their expertise can go a long way and guiding you and bringing you peace of mind.
Conclusion
While owning and running your own business can be exciting, it can also be nerve-wracking, especially when handling finances in a lucrative manner. Don’t let your business suffer due to poor money management. Keep the above tips in mind and give your venture a bright future.
Every company, big or small, is always concerned about one thing: Managing money. Proper financial management is crucial to surviving a volatile economy and industry competition. Small businesses especially need to exercise caution with their financial decisions from the very beginning; it takes more than just a good idea to run a business.
Every business needs a financial structure that generates a profit to stay credible. Entrepreneurs need to be equipped with good money management abilities to turn their venture into a success story. Not all business owners, however, are adept at handling finances. But that doesn’t mean all hope is lost. Here are six tips for managing small business finances.
First, educate yourself. One of the first things that you should do is educate yourself about the various aspects of Finance. For starters, learn how to read financial statements. Suppose you don’t know how, financial statements tell you all about your money; where it originated from, how many hands it changed, and where it is. Financial Statements contain four essential details: cash flow statement, income statement, balance sheet, and shareholders equity statement.
The Cash Flow Statement analyzes operating activities, investments, and financial outflow. The balance sheet provides information related to the company’s assets, liabilities, and shareholders’ equity.
The income statement reflects the revenue earned within a specific period of time. Shareholders’ equity represents how the company is financed through common and preferred shares to separate personal and business finances. Always keep your personal and business finances separate. This entails getting a business credit card and putting all related expenses on it. This should help you track your outlays and keep you in control. You will also do well in opening a savings account dedicated to your business, wherein you can transfer a certain amount of money from each payment that you receive and gradually build a considerable corpus. You can use this money to pay taxes three cut costs.
Entrepreneurs must stay tight-fisted to keep their expenses in-check without hampering customer satisfaction. This especially holds true for small businesses. In every business, there are two types of costs- fixed and variable. Fixed costs have to be borne irrespective of whether your business is making money or not. There is scope for savings and variable costs. For example, instead of buying costly branded software, you can work with free, cloud-based open-source software, which is equally good. Conduct free online calls video conferences instead of traveling long distances. You can also try bartering your services with other professionals and cut costs for invest in cloud-based accounting software.
While you can download regular accounting software to manage your finances, it will never give you the kind of convenience cloud-based accounting software can. Web-based software provides you with real-time insights as most allow you to store, update, track and access data from anywhere at any time. Whether you’re at home, office, or traveling, you can conveniently work with your data from anywhere you like. It is error-free, hassle-free, and dependable.
Monitor and measure performance. As a business owner, you must keep tabs on the movement of your money, especially when large amounts are involved. Keep looking at your company’s financial performance compared to the past financial statements to project your future revenue, expenses, and cash flow. Being aware of these aspects will help you make informed decisions for your business.
Also, hire professional help. Everyone needs help, especially a budding entrepreneur interested in making a huge success of his venture. Sometimes it pays off to engage an expert’s services, even if it is on a part-time basis. That can help you determine where your business is heading by using and analyzing your data. Ensure you hire someone you trust, though, whether it is tax planning for the next financial year or payment for the current year. Their expertise can go a long way and guiding you and bringing you peace of mind.
Conclusion
While owning and running your own business can be exciting, it can also be nerve-wracking, especially when handling finances in a lucrative manner. Don’t let your business suffer due to poor money management. Keep the above tips in mind and give your venture a bright future.
Funded in part by his wealthy family and aided by a personal connection at the Illinois Gaming Board, Andrew Rubenstein’s Accel Entertainment now owns a third of the state’s video gambling machines, making it the biggest video gambling operator in the nation.
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This story was co-published with WBEZ Chicago and the Chicago Sun-Times.
Andrew Rubenstein rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange last November, then pumped his fist and cheered. He had much to celebrate. In a decade, the company he founded and led, Illinois-based Accel Entertainment, had grown from a tiny startup into the largest video gambling operator in the nation. Accel had also become the country’s first video gambling operator to be publicly traded. With the backing of investors, Accel now hopes to bring video gambling to other cash-strapped states hungry for new sources of revenue.
Few would have predicted Rubenstein’s fledgling enterprise to emerge as the industry leader in 2009, when Illinois legalized video gambling outside of casinos. He had no experience in the gambling business and no apparent ties to companies that, before legalization, had provided bars and restaurants with “gray” machines, simulated video slots and poker devices that were legal but widely known to be used for illegal gambling.
Rubenstein, according to the company, used a combination of savvy hires, well-timed acquisitions of other operators and infusions of capital from family, friends and private equity firms to catapult Accel to the top of the heap.
But records obtained by ProPublica Illinois, as well as interviews with current and former Accel employees who asked to remain anonymous, reveal that Rubenstein and his company also took advantage of connections at the Illinois Gaming Board. They did so using an unusual degree of access to a key board attorney during video gambling’s earliest days, when regulations were being drafted and the competition to lock up gambling locations was at its fiercest.
In addition, the company obtained internal gaming board documents about its competitors and benefited from board decisions that made it more difficult for other operators to gain a foothold in Illinois’ video gambling market.
Andrew Rubenstein, CEO of Accel Entertainment, rings the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange in November 2019 as Accel begins trading. (NYSE)
The gaming board lawyer, Bill Bogot, was a childhood friend of Rubenstein’s. He met with Rubenstein regularly and used two private email accounts to correspond with him, answering legal questions and helping the company when it ran into snags with other regulators, according to the emails and interviews.
After reviewing the emails obtained by ProPublica Illinois, gaming board officials said they have opened an investigation into whether the correspondence between Bogot and Rubenstein violated a state law prohibiting such communications to help ensure a level playing field in state-regulated industries. The officials also said they are “undertaking a comprehensive review of past and current [gaming board] practices.”
Similarly, industry insiders say the confidential documents in Accel’s possession would have given it an advantage in building its business. It’s also illegal for gaming board staff to release “protected personal information” to third parties; gaming board officials said they would investigate the leaked confidential documents and, if appropriate, forward any findings to other authorities.
“The IGB takes these allegations very seriously and will not tolerate unethical or illegal conduct of any kind,” said Marcus Fruchter, a former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement lawyer appointed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker in May 2019 to run the gaming board.
Attorney Bill Bogot at an Illinois Gaming Board meeting in 2018. (Michelle Kanaar, special to ProPublica Illinois)
Bogot said in an interview that he would have given any other video gambling operator the same information he provided to Rubenstein in the emails. Through a spokesman, Rubenstein declined to be interviewed for this story. He and other company officials did not answer questions from ProPublica Illinois.
“They keep getting bigger and bigger, which gives them more power in Springfield,” said Anita Bedell, executive director of the Illinois Church Action on Alcohol and Addiction Problems, who has spoken out against the company’s growth at gaming board hearings. “Anytime they want to lobby at the Capitol, they have a huge amount of resources. To me, it restricts the power of the regulators.”
Accel and its subsidiaries have donated heavily to Illinois politicians, including Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Cook County President Toni Preckwinkle and, more recently, new Senate President Don Harmon.
The Burr Ridge-based company consistently has been able to get more video gambling locations up and running than any other operator in the state. In the first year after video gambling went live, for instance, Accel had more than 400 locations come on line, roughly double the number of the next largest operator.
In fact, the company accounted for nearly one out of every five “go-live” events during that period, even as thousands of other licensing applications sat in the pipeline waiting to be approved, according to a ProPublica Illinois analysis of gaming board data.
When state lawmakers legalized video gambling, they did not provide the gaming board with adequate funding or manpower to write hundreds of pages of regulations, vet thousands of licensing applications and have gaming agents visit each location to physically turn on the machines — a huge undertaking. Nor were there rules governing the order in which the gaming board would approve locations or deploy its limited resources.
Accel became the largest operator out of the gate and stayed there. By the end of 2019, the company operated machines in more than 2,300 of Illinois’ roughly 7,400 video gambling locations, gaming board data shows.
Accel Grows to Dominate Video Gambling Market in Illinois
The first video gambling machines went live in the state in 2012. By the end of 2018, the company controlled about a quarter of the market.
Video gambling wasn’t the balm for Illinois’ beleaguered finances that its boosters had projected: It took nearly a decade for the money lawmakers were counting on from video gambling to materialize. Cities and towns, meanwhile, have seen little financial gain from video gambling, leaving some municipalities to push for more taxes and fees on the devices.
But it’s been a boon to Rubenstein. As Accel’s president and CEO, he received compensation in 2018 worth more than $2.3 million and holds shares currently valued at nearly $100 million, according to SEC filings.
A Well-Funded Launch
Rubenstein started Accel in July 2009, less than two weeks before then-Gov. Pat Quinn signed the Video Gaming Act into law. To get the company off the ground, his mother, Susan Rubenstein, an entrepreneur and philanthropist, invested about $1.2 million, according to Accel’s licensing application, which is not public but was obtained by ProPublica Illinois. Andrew Rubenstein invested $255,000; his younger brother, Gordon, added $205,000; and his younger sister, Emily, put in $25,000.
Andrew, now 51, would lead the company. Gordon, a venture capitalist who had moved to San Francisco, would sit on the board of directors. Their father, Jeffrey, is a partner at a Chicago law firm that helped draft many of Accel’s legal documents and contracts.
Before launching Accel, Andrew had spent a brief period in Seattle working for the accounting firm Arthur Andersen as a consultant during the 1990s. He helped an uncle run one of Illinois’ largest liquor store chains and assisted an aunt who operated beauty parlors in Seattle. He also owned a windshield replacement company there for nearly five years, according to Rubenstein’s personal disclosure form filed with the gaming board.
Rubenstein hired a group of friends and former coworkers to help him launch Accel, company records and interviews show. The group fanned out across the state identifying amusement companies to purchase. Those companies had already established long-standing relationships with bars and restaurants by providing them with pool tables, pinball machines and other amusements, including gray games.
Accel raised an additional $7 million, mainly from friends and business associates. Positioning the company as a clean, regulatory-friendly alternative to former gray operators, the company said it had the resources to gain an edge on mom-and-pop competitors.
“We are very conscious of only working with those people that understand and respect that we are moving to a highly regulated industry,” Rubenstein wrote in a September 2010 investor update. “Following this approach has allowed Accel to emerge as a company that is respected for its integrity and strong ethics, as well as its strong management team.”
Once funding was in place, Accel bought more than a dozen amusement companies throughout the state.
In 2010, just over a year after creating Accel — and still two years before the state’s first video gambling machine was turned on — Rubenstein brimmed with confidence in the company he had created.
“I started this company about 14 months ago with the goal of becoming one of the largest, most successful and highly respected companies in Illinois’ new legalized gaming industry,” he wrote. “There was little doubt we were going to get there — but I never imagined success happening so quickly.”
Tough Competitor
In the early scramble to stake a claim to the state’s video gambling industry, one man seemed likely to be Accel’s main competitor: Nicky Nichols. Nichols was already a major player in Louisiana, where video slot and poker machines had been legal in truck stops for decades. He also was licensed as a distributor of the devices in Pennsylvania.
His experience gave him entree to a corner of the industry that had been operating just outside the law for decades in Illinois. The coin-operated amusement companies had been splitting the tax-free profits from the gray machines with the bar and restaurant owners. The Video Gaming Act set up the same equal payout, but operators and establishments had to get licensed, sign contracts called use agreements and pay taxes.
Use agreements are the building blocks of the industry’s prized assets: routes, which are groups of establishments strung together by geography and personal relationships. Because many of the operators who controlled gray video gambling routes were unlikely or unwilling to get licensed, a new business could scale up quickly by buying existing routes.
Louisiana video gambling operator Nicky Nichols, whose companies were denied licenses by the Illinois Gaming Board. (Photo obtained by ProPublica Illinois)
Accel bought routes all over the state and put them under one umbrella. Nichols created eight separate companies that operated in different regions. Each partner received an upfront payment and a stake in the company in exchange for running the route. Nichols agreed to provide money to buy machines, pay lawyers and bankroll acquisitions, interviews and documents obtained by ProPublica Illinois show.
Through an attorney, Nichols declined to be interviewed for this story.
By March 2011, a year and a half before video gambling went live, Nichols’ companies had signed up about 650 locations to Accel’s 315, according to Accel board documents obtained by ProPublica Illinois.
Then Nichols ran into trouble. News reports detailed the criminal conviction of his father-in-law, Robert Guidry, a former tugboat operator who had pleaded guilty in 1998 to bribing Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards to obtain one of the state’s first riverboat gambling licenses.
The stories came as the gaming board was vetting licensing applications. The video gambling law gives the gaming board wide latitude in making licensing decisions to “preserve the integrity and security of gaming.” But the board has been forced to reverse at least five licensing denials after being sued, according to a review of lawsuits and interviews with gaming lawyers and industry insiders.
In July 2012, less than two months before machines went live, the gaming board denied licenses to Nichols’ companies. The board cited his familial ties to Guidry — even though corporate records, Nichols’ licensing applications and documents from the Louisiana Gaming Control Board show Guidry had no connection to his son-in-law’s companies. The board also cited a misdemeanor gambling conviction from 1983, resulting in an $88 fine, that one of Nichols’ main investors failed to report to the board.
The gaming board denied a request by Nichols to withdraw and resubmit his applications so he could remove the investor from his companies. Other operators have been allowed to do this, records and interviews show. Current gaming board officials said they could not comment on previous practices and licensing decisions. The gaming board’s chairman at the time, retired Cook County Circuit Court Judge Aaron Jaffe, told ProPublica Illinois in a 2018 interview that there were multiple factors in Nichols’ denial and that allowing him to withdraw his applications would not have changed the outcome.
With Nichols blocked from the industry, Accel had a clear path to becoming the state’s biggest video gambling operator.
Questionable Communication
As video gambling operators across the state were jockeying for position and rushing to get reams of paperwork for their locations approved, Rubenstein had a direct line to Bogot, the gaming board attorney who helped write many of the regulations for the nascent industry.
Rubenstein and Bogot had grown up together in the northern Chicago suburb of Wilmette, attended New Trier High School in Winnetka and were friends. In an interview with ProPublica, Bogot said he had lost touch with Rubenstein until they ran into each other at a gaming board hearing in 2009.
“I hadn’t talked to him in two years,” Bogot said. “When he saw me, he asked what I was doing at a gaming board hearing. I said, ‘I work here.’”
At some point, Rubenstein and Bogot began communicating privately about video gambling rules, despite a state law prohibiting “any written or oral communication by any person that imparts or requests material information,” more than a dozen email strings obtained from multiple sources show.
In May 2012, for instance, Rubenstein contacted Bogot on one of Bogot’s personal email accounts seeking advice on how to help gambling locations get licensed. Bogot provided detailed information about how to identify the corporate officers of bars and restaurants, ending with the caveat, “I am no corporate lawyer, nor can I give you legal advice, so please independently confirm the above.”
“You’re better than a corporate lawyer,” Rubenstein replied.
In August 2012, about a month before video slot machines went live, Rubenstein sent an email to Bogot’s Yahoo and Google accounts asking about a truck stop sitting on 2 acres in the western Illinois town of Galesburg. To qualify as a location for video gambling, the site had to be at least 3 acres.
Rubenstein asked Bogot if the owner could lease a lot next door to meet the requirement.
“He certainly can lease more property to get over the line,” Bogot wrote. “After that he should amend his acres (I hope he did not try to fudge this initially) and complete the truck stop affidavit. That’s my two cents.”
“I could never imagine anyone in this industry trying to ‘fudge’ anything,” Rubenstein responded. “These are people who have honorably operated ‘gray’ games for over 25 years. Two cents gets this guy 3 acres.”
The prohibition on “ex parte” communication is designed to help ensure a level playing field and avoid conflicts of interest or even the appearance of such conflicts. The law requires state officials to report private communications with people from regulated entities, which Bogot acknowledged he did not do.
The gaming board’s administrator at the time said he didn’t know about the communications. “I was unaware that they were communicating about board business by private email,” said the administrator, Mark Ostrowski.
Bogot said his contact with Rubenstein was not improper, but he would not say if he had similar communications on his personal accounts with other operators. He said he recused himself from licensing or disciplinary decisions regarding Accel while working for the board because of his relationship with Rubenstein.
“Everyone knew that I knew Andy, so they wouldn’t ask me,” he said. “If it was Accel’s file, I would not weigh in.”
Nate Kitch, special to ProPublica Illinois
He also said he regularly forwarded his official emails to private accounts because he couldn’t access his state emails outside of the office, although none of the emails with Rubenstein appear to have been forwarded from Bogot’s gaming board account.
In the case of the Galesburg lot, Bogot said he provided Rubenstein information that was already widely known in the industry. The tactic of leasing property to meet the 3-acre requirement for truck stops is not detailed in state regulations for video gambling but has been used by other companies to gain approval.
“Did I treat Andy different than anyone else? The answer is hell no,” Bogot said in the interview. “That kind of email you have, I feel damn confident that I would handle the same way for anyone.”
Current gaming board officials said the emails raise ethical and legal questions.
“The IGB has already begun a process to examine these allegations, and it will take appropriate disciplinary action at the conclusion of the investigation where warranted,” Fruchter said in written responses to ProPublica Illinois.
Bogot left the board in July 2013 and not long after went to work for Donna More, Accel’s gaming attorney. More was the gaming board’s first general counsel and is currently running in the Democratic primary for Cook County state’s attorney.
Accel Jumps Out Ahead
When the Video Gaming Act passed the General Assembly in May 2009, lawmakers expected the industry to get up and running within a year. Instead, it took more than three years.
The wait put a strain on video gambling operators, which had purchased routes that weren’t yet generating revenue. In its first four years, Accel operated at a loss, which grew from $2 million in 2010 to nearly $3.4 million in 2013, company financial records obtained by ProPublica Illinois show.
There are no regulations in place for determining the order in which the gaming board would approve location licenses and bring the machines online, making the process opaque.
Ostrowski, the former gaming board administrator, said the board simply responded to applications when they were completed. “Usually, the locations that got through the system were those that were complete, with no errors or missing information,” he said. “If things were incomplete, we would kick them back.”
Nate Kitch, special to ProPublica Illinois
Accel got more locations approved than any other operator, allowing the company to jump out ahead, as other operators had thousands of applications waiting in the pipeline. In December 2012, for example, Accel got more than 70 locations up and running, about a third of the total approved that month and roughly four times the next highest operator, according to a ProPublica Illinois analysis of board data.
The data also shows that Accel was the first operator in about 70 cities and towns across the state during the first year of video gambling, more than any of its competitors, even when other companies had applications pending before the board in those places.
In addition to contracting with the firm that hired Bogot, Accel also retained the board’s former general counsel. And it has directly hired the board’s former secretary and a retired state trooper who supervised special projects for the agency. All of them remain with the company.
Accel began turning a profit in 2014, when its net operating income reached $2.6 million. Four years later, the company’s profits had reached $10.8 million, according to financial reports obtained by ProPublica Illinois.
King of Video Gambling
By the end of 2018, Accel controlled nearly one of every four video gambling machines in the state, generating on average nearly $1 million a day in revenue. Illinois’ market had grown so big, with players losing $1.5 billion that year, that it made Accel not only the largest video gambling operator in the state but also the largest in the country.
Since 2016, the company’s growth has been driven primarily through acquisitions of other large operators, a strategy driven in part by the saturation of the Illinois market and supported by an infusion of money from private equity firms.
Accel’s growth eventually attracted one of the world’s largest private equity firms, TPG Capital, which through a subsidiary began pursuing Accel early last year with the idea of taking it public.
TPG Capital didn’t respond to requests for comment.
As part of last year’s gambling expansion, state lawmakers sought to increase the 30% tax on video gambling, among the lowest in the country. Rubenstein partnered with other operators to try to kill the tax hike. Their campaign, called “Bet on Main Street,” claimed it was a movement of small business owners. In reality, it was driven by Accel and other large video gambling operators.
The tax increase passed, raising the rate to 34%, still lower than many other states.
Rubenstein, center, poses for a group photo with the Bet on Main Street Coalition on the steps of the Illinois Capitol in Springfield in May 2019. (Whitney Curtis, special to ProPublica Illinois)
When the Video Gaming Act passed in May 2009, the law placed a 5% cap on how much of the market an operator could control. It was designed to ensure the industry would remain a small business generator. But lawmakers removed the cap a year later. A new provision was inserted in its place, one that required the board to write rules preventing “undue economic concentration.”
The board produced those rules six years later but did not create a threshold for undue economic concentration. Nor does it have the power to review video gambling acquisitions before they occur, as it does with casinos, though it has recently drafted a rule that would give it that ability. Currently, the only enforcement for a violation of undue economic concentration would be a license revocation or denial. That has never happened.
When video gambling started in Illinois, about 80 operators were in business, according to gaming board data. Today, there are around 50 and the top 10 companies control more than 85% of the state’s video gambling machines and locations and account for more than 80% of the money they generate.
In late August, Accel announced that it was going to buy Illinois’ eighth-largest operator, Grand River Jackpot, for about $100 million. At the gaming board’s meeting the following month, Bedell, the anti-gambling activist, asked the board to block the purchase, claiming the deal violated the “undue economic concentration” rule. The board listened politely but did not comment.
The deal closed in November. Accel now controls nearly a third of the state’s video gambling machines. As the company looks to expand into other states, Rubenstein is highlighting Accel’s regulatory record and financial success.
In a quote published on the company’s website, he says, “There’s nothing more important than building relationships that start with trust and integrity, and maximize value for both parties.”
