Billing and Internal Audit

Internal Audit is necessary no matter how tight you think your accounting parocesses are. Many believe that audits help reduce fraud and stealing, but it also assists in finding honost billing mistakes.

Salaries and Raises

One of the hardest items to manage is that of compensation. We all want more money, we all value our employees and feel they should make more money, but we all have a fiscal responsibility to the firm. In short I believe we all want to be fair when it comes to compensation, but it is very easy to let emotion take over. I have standardized our process in that each job description has a salary range. The salary range is derived from the responsibilities of the job (not title) and compared to available industry benchmarks. Individuals are hired within the ranges and each year we check to confirm that all individuals are paid appropriatly for the position.

When annual reviews are preformed employees are elgible for up to a 7% raise. The reviews are done on a 5 point scale. If an employee scores at 3 or below they are not raise elgible. Score of 3-5 recieve a corralating increase in compensation starting at 2.5% for 3.1 up to 7% for a 5 (by the way - I have never given a 5 review). If the manager wants to give additional monies, they have to look for a promotion.

I believe this is as fair as can possibly be, but if someone has a better idea......

Creating Systems

Over the last few months I have met with multiple CEOs of growing service firms. One of the biggest challanges that they all faced is that they are very quick to jum in a solve an issue, but they have a tendancy not to create a system that others can follow. In order to continue gorwing, firm leadership must create and document processes. They must take the time to teach people the system. If an issue ocome up more then twice, did you ever really fix the issue.

Innovation

I believe innovation is derived from collabration and that genius comes from a group - not an individual. As a firm becomes more mature it becomes very process oriented. This allows people to become complaicent and less innovative. In short innovation burns more calories then just following process. To be innovative you must talk to others, think outside the box, and go over and above. Managers must take steps to keep the blinders away from their staff and encourage collabration. Developing a puzzle solving culture where stand up meetings are the norm wil keep new ideas flowing and will provide insight that many firms never understand.

Process and Methodology

Its important to remember that no matter how "custom" you business is you still need a process with associated time benchamrks. A process allows for training of new individuals, consistancy for delivery, and expectations of time to deliver. In short not haveing a process with cost you money and frustrated employees.

Hiring of Staff

In a small firm you must always be looking for new talent - even if you dont have available positions. Multiple times throughout my career I felt like we had a solid team and no one was looking to leave. In some cases I followed my own advice and had individuals "on deck". In many cases its easy to let the day to day grind get the better of you and to forget this.

Furthermore dont ever think that someone cant be replaced. I have lost some great employees over the years, only to find individuals that are much more talented.