Question:

I am currently considering hiring an assistant. Since I work out of my home, this assistant would be helping me pick up the slack around my house, with my personal and business errands as well as helping me with some of the busy work of my business that I don't seem to have the time for.

What I am wondering is if anyone else here has hired an assistant, and whether they actually helped simplify your life, or whether having them around to supervise all the time made it more work for you.

Answer:

I have had both employees and subcontractors. I hired a neighbor to do my errands. She was reliable and a pleasure to work with. I hired her as a subcontractor which meant she did the errands on her schedule (other than picking up the items when I called) and paid her own taxes. There isn't as much supervision with a subcontractor (too much and the IRS calls them an employee).

I have had two employees over the years. Neither of them were wildly successful. They both performed the basic functions of the position but didn't go above and beyond (i.e. didn't show much initiative). After they left I found errors in their work that were unacceptable (i.e. I audited the books for the clients there were responsible for). I obviously didn't keep a close enough eye on their work. I set their hours, trained them, gave them projects to work on and had them in my home office. Therefore, I was responsible for payroll taxes.

I have also hired from a temp agency. She was my most successful hiring. She was my employee but I paid the temp agency and they paid all the taxes. If I had enough work I would hire her back in a heartbeat.

There is always a risk with hiring someone to help. Whether it's a subcontractor, a temp or an employee interview him/her to find out if you can work together. Do you like their work ethic? Can you get along with their personality?

Will you be saving money if you hire someone? For example your errands take 3 hours a week. If you charge $20 an hour to do what you do that is $60 a week you could be earning instead of running around. Now, if you hire someone at $10 an hour you would be paying $30 (if she/he is a subcontractor). $60 vs $30

In my case, I paid my subcontractor $20 each time I had her run errands. Yep, a flat fee. Sometimes it was a trip to the bank. Other times I had her drop off / pick up materials from the printers, run to the bank and drop something off at school.

You may find that just having someone run your errands frees up enough time for you to do some of the work in your business you have been unable to get to.

You may find that just having someone run your errands frees up enough time for you to do some of the work in your business you have been unable to get to.

Tax season is well underway. This is the time of year when I get some of the most interesting questions and problems to solve.

It has taken about three months for a client to decide it is better to have me do her taxes rather than trying to do them herself. My client and her two brothers bought an existing retail company in October. This is the first business any of them have owned or operated.

In November, I was brought in to set-up the accounting software. Peachtree wasn't their first choice but after a series of rebates it was the least expensive. My client quickly discovered that it wasn't going to be easy to learn so she gave me a call with a request to set-up the books and teach her how to use it.

Between the holidays and work schedules, her books were finalized in January. Then the training began. Looking at her budget, my client determined she could only afford 3 hours of training. We scratched the surface. She learned just enough to now she has much more to learn.

I didn't hear from her for about 6 weeks. She has a list of questions. I am more than happy to help. As we work through the list, she is feeling more overwhelmed with the prospect of having to prepare taxes (a Partnership return for the last three months of 2004).

Today she determined that she isn't in a position to accurately complete her tax return and hired me to do it for her. As I just stated, I am happy to help.

Here comes the interesting problem. When the business was purchased the existing inventory was not counted. My strong suggestions (just short of demands) to count the inventory in late December and early January went unheeded. Hmmm. . .

They did, however, count the inventory yesterday. Every pen, pencil, phone card, box and stamp. I was told they hope to never have to do that again. I said with a smile on my face that they would, indeed, be counting again in three months unless their cash register was altered to correctly reflect each item sold each day. If that is the case, I told them they will only be counting once a year (may be twice).

For retail companies, inventory and cost of goods sold are a very big part of the income tax return. Without accurate figures . . . well you can guess the end result.

I have less than 14 days to get this one solved.