Though it still may be barbecue and beach season, the end of 2014 will be here before you know it. For consumers, this means holiday shopping and New Year's resolutions. But for business owners, it also means getting financial ducks in a row in preparation for the upcoming tax season.

You know you want a self-motivated team. Here's how to get there.

Small businesses added 75,000 jobs in January, according to payroll company Automated Data Processing. If things have been looking up at your organization, you may be eyeing a few new potential staff members as well. If you’ve been on the sidelines in the hiring game these past few years though, you might want to take a few moments to review some best practices for your expanding team. Here are seven tips for effective hiring at your small business.

The head of the U.S. Small Business Administration, Maria Contreras-Sweet, made a bold statement this week in an interview regarding the state of small-business lending and the SBA's role in aiding small businesses. Ms. Contreras-Sweet said "the counseling is almost more important than the lending."

Anyone who has started a business has his or her own rules and guidelines, so I thought I would add to the memo with my own. My "rules" below aren't just for those founding the companies, but for those who are considering going to work for them, as well.

We all encounter problems, but we don’t all handle them same way. Among problem solving approaches, one of the more unique - and effective - is the entrepreneur’s.

Productivity guru Tim Ferriss, author of the best-selling book “The 4-Hour Workweek,” popularized the idea that many seemingly difficult pursuits — running a business, getting in shape, learning a language — can be achieved in much less time than most of us imagine.

Anyone with a home office will have a new decision while preparing the 2013 tax return: Should I take the new “simplified” home office deduction or go with the standard, traditional method? The answer is trickier than you may think.

This is a good time of year to assess the health of your company. Review these 10 elements and determine your small business health score to find out where you stand.

There are occasions when despite your best effort, a customer payment is late or, worse yet, never arrives (even after repeated follow-ups). Here are four follow-ups to help remedy a missing payment and help prevent them in the future.