The business is launched, the product is being worked on, you’ve signed a few angel investors, and you have a few employees. You can see that things are going to continue getting better, until one day when one of your employees asks about health insurance. And if you are growing and you are about to hit that 50 full-time employee mark, the Affordable Care Act definitely needs you to think about health insurance. But when it comes down to it, there are three ways that you can go about getting your employees health insurance. Few businesses do this because it just takes too much time.

Have you been in business for a little while? If so, it might be time to bust out the company swag. Business Tips Fun

Practical Matters is a series of conversations with founders and senior executives at companies we know and love. As a business that helps other businesses, Justworks loves interviewing innovative people. Every month, we ask fellow entrepreneurs and their teams about their experience starting and running their respective companies. It’s insightful to hear their stories and perspectives. Here are some of our favorite tips, lessons, thoughts, and business strategy from our Practical Matters series so far. Go back and read your favorite interviews for some real inspiration!

One of the easiest types of businesses that an individual can set up is a sole proprietorship. As the name implies, this is a business that is owned by a single individual. However, unlike other types of corporate structures — like LLC, S-Corp, and C-Corp — a sole proprietorship is unincorporated. Business Tips

With the Affordable Care Act, size matters. small employer (SE) must file different reports than those required by an applicable large employer (ALE). Another primary difference between differently sized employers: only ALEs may be subject to certain tax penalties, and only SEs with a certain number of employees may apply for tax credits under the ACA. We've covered the ACA's impact on small businesses before. Download our in-depth guide for free. Get up to speed on the big changes in 2016 for businesses under the ACA. Learn the basic ACA requirements with which employers must comply.

NerdWallet is a source for information, insight, and consumer-driven advice about personal finance. It also connects you with experts and financial comparison tools to help you grow your small business. The more challenges your small business can overcome, the stronger it will be. The next time you’re faced with a small business financing hurdle, consider these expert solutions. Business Tips

How you deal with failure says a lot about you. Do you give up, or do you persevere? Most great leaders have dealt with failure at one point or another in their careers. While many failures are preventable or even due to untreated solopreneur fatigue , startups are an inherently tough business with a high failure rate. In fact, 90% of startups fail. But great startup leaders know how to take that failure and turn it into a lesson - and ultimately, a success. Follow our tips, and who knows? Maybe you’ll become the next great startup success. Business Tips

Our work lives are busy, busy, busy. With long hours and packed schedules, it’s easy to get burnt out. Taking time off from work is crucial to preventing burn out and helping us recharge. This is somewhat obvious, right? Well, it’s proven. Studies show that vacation and time off has positive effects on your health. And if you have been missing out on your vacations, you are twice as likely to have problems balancing your work and personal life. Don’t we all come back from vacations rejuvenated and ready to work? And it’s possible. Fun Vacation Policy

My inbox is a mess. I’m that friend of yours that has the number 15,000 in red on the mail icon on their iPhone. never delete anything because I'm afraid I'll need it. What if I delete something, and that was the very email I needed to reference? Are you like me? Do you need to develop better email organization habits? Well, my friend, here are some organization tips that you (and I) can use for cleaning out our inboxes. Now, inbox zero is a rather rigorous approach. Don't expect to keep your unread e-mails at zero all of the time. Business Tips

We've built an entire guide on employee savings. Download it for free here to learn just how and why employee savings programs work. When you envision retirement, are you traveling the world or hanging out with your grandchildren? Here’s a scary thought: What if you don’t have enough to cover your essential living expenses for more than a few years when it’s time to retire? It turns out that having to work a nine-to-five gig just to make ends meet during retirement is a real possibility for a lot of Americans. As an employer, you can help motivate your employees to prepare for their future.

W-2, 1099, W-9. The sheer number of tax forms for employers and employees can get complicated. For companies, corporate taxes can be cripplingly complex. We want to take that complication off your plate, starting with the IRS Form 941 for employers. Payroll Taxes

One of the most common forms of corporate structure is the Limited Liability Company (LLC). As we’ve already covered, if you’re aching to get your business started and don’t need much liability or potential tax optimization, the sole proprietorship is your best bet. But if there is going to be more than one person owning the business, you want to ensure that you’re not held liable, and can take advantage of certain business friendly taxes, the LLC might be the next best step for you. Read on to learn the advantages and disadvantages of an LLC. Download it for free here.

Recruiting candidates for your company has traditionally involved making classified ads, attending career fairs, and networking. While these are all solid recruiting methods, the advent of the Internet has explosively expanded candidates' and employers' options. But with LinkedIn, Indeed, Glassdoor, Monster and more comes a lot more noise. Trying to find employees online could be overwhelming. Recruiting now has a sort of paradox of choice; there are so many candidates, how to you find the top-notch employees ? And which do you reach out to? Download it for free here.).

In May 2009, the governor of New York officially signed the Metropolitan Commuter Transportation Mobility Tax (MCTMT), which is a 0.34% tax that every employer and self-employed individual that has payroll over a certain threshold has to pay. However, only those businesses and self-employed individuals in the Metropolitan Commuter Transportation District (MCTD) had to pay. Compliance

Your employees are at risk if they aren’t planning for their future. Saving money is not easy, but it’s essential to achieving financial well being. The sooner employees start saving, the stronger their retirement will be down the line. And a 401(k) is an important savings opportunity for employees that only an employer can give them. Many smaller companies believe that offering a 401(k) is too expensive, risky or confusing to be worth the perceived bother. It’s easy for small employers to worry they do not have the stability or resources to set up and maintain a retirement plan. 401(k

We've discussed five big changes taking place with the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2016. That article included several basic definitions that are necessary to understanding the requirements of the ACA, as well as a chart of the basic requirements of the ACA for both small employers (SE) and applicable large employers (ALE). In this article we will discuss those requirements in more detail. We've written a whitepaper about the impact of the ACA on small businesses. If you'd like to download it for free, you can do so here. Benefits Compliance Healthcare

This is a guest post from NerdWallet. NerdWallet helps empower small business owners with the information and tools necessary to start and effectively run their businesses. Whether you want to turn your online store into a brick-and-mortar shop, expand to a new location, or just add a few employees, your enterprise could benefit from a small business loan. wide array of lenders offer an even wider variety of loans, each with a different set of rules and qualifications. Applying for a business loan can be daunting, but you can remove some stress from the process by taking these steps.

This guest post is from Kisi. Kisi makes it easy to manage employee and visitor keys to your office with smartphone access. According to the FBI, in 2014 approximately 26% of accounted burglaries in the US were non-residential. Office spaces are easy targets for burglary, identity theft, unlawful entry, and a wide range of other criminal threats. Effective security measures can reduce the likelihood of these threats, but what are those measures? How can you protect your office from a potentially detrimental security breach?

Gym membership. Company car. Lunch-time sushi bar. Post-lunch yoga session. Friday evening office happy hour. For some, these are everyday features of a standard workplace. For the appreciative and the jealous, they are persuasive perks. Companies competing for top talent are embracing all kinds of new employee perks that promote health, work-life balance, and staff motivation. As a forward-thinking leader, you've probably noticed what kinds of employee perks other businesses offer. Now you can decide which ones are worth it for your company by calculating the costs of fringe benefits.

Confused about how the Affordable Care Act impacts your small business taxes this year? We’ve build out a guide to explain that for you. Tax day is looming on April 18th this year, and if you’re a small business owner, you likely have a mountain of paperwork to fill out on time. We’ve compiled our information on the most common (and sometimes most confusing) tax forms, to clarify your last-minute small business tax questions. Taxes

We’ve built a new robust reports center that allows you to pull comprehensive, customizable data about your employees based on census, benefits, payroll, and PTO data. Additionally, we recently launched a feature that gives you control over when to send Justworks invitations to your employees. These two launches make Justworks more flexible to cater to the needs of your company — giving you more control over the information you need when you need it. Justworks Love Product Updates

Leading a business isn't as much a 9-5 job as a 24-hour lifestyle. You're no stranger to the hard work and sacrifice that comes with your company’s growth — and in the battle for balance, R&R are usually the first sacrifices to the entrepreneurial gods. But the question you should be asking yourself is whether that's really the best strategy for running a business. While we all agree that taking time off is nice, it’s easy to forget just how vital such breaks are to our physical and mental well-being. Business Tips Fun Vacation Policy

Giving to a charity has many benefits for small business, not the least of which are the tax deductions that it offers. A tax deduction reduces the amount of income that is subject to tax and therefore reduces the amount of taxes you owe. charitable contribution is a great way for businesses to receive tax benefits, but what how exactly does it all work? Taxes

2015 has been a big year for Justworks ( see CEO Isaac Oates’ recap here ). We’ve grown our revenue sevenfold and our customer base by nearly the same. The Justworks team has grown from about 20 to 75+. And Justblog got up and running. Our blog aims to help you - a CEO, founder, or leader within a startup - build your business and inspire your team. We’ve covered everything from 1099 and W-2 forms to employee morale. From compliance to owner’s draws. To celebrate the end of 2015, we’ve rounded up the Justblog articles that resonated most with you. Tweet your ideas to @JustworksHR.

created a guide for you to figure out your business expense plan , from mileage reimbursements to employee meals. Sometimes employees have to hit the road to get business done. But if they’re on a mission for work, they shouldn’t shoulder all the travel expenses. That’s where mileage reimbursement comes in. Employers aren’t required by law to provide mileage reimbursement. But doing so is a mutually beneficial opportunity to receive tax reductions for both the employee and the employer. This blog post will help you get on the right track. Benefits Business Tips Taxes

With the year over, it is important to be prepared for what forms you need to gather, send to your employees, and what forms to file for 2015. Fortunately, the bulk of them have to do with taxes; however, there are a couple that are meant to assess whether you need to pay any fines to the IRS. There are three key dates that you need to remember to ensure that all of end-of-year forms are filed correctly, on-time, and without any fines assessed. Compliance Taxes

Update: We created a checklist of wage details for deceased employees, along with how to provide workplace support. You can download it for free here. The loss of an employee due to death is a difficult time for a business. Not only is it hard to lose a friend and colleague, but the business faced with a loss of productivity, the need to hire and train a replacement, and complicated legal issues. One of those issues involves how to properly handle any wages that are due the deceased employee. HR Compliance

Once you have determined that you need to expand your team and have successfully completed interviewing candidates, it’s time to move on to the next crucial step: negotiating salary. Above all else, don’t go into negotiations with a confrontational attitude. Negotiations with a new hire present a wonderful opportunity to reflect your company’s core values while empowering your newest team member. Want a positive experience for all? Follow these eight tips on how to negotiate salary. HR Payroll Business Tips

Practical Matters is a series of conversations with founders and senior executives at companies we know and love. Every month, we interview fellow entrepreneurs and their teams and ask them about their experience starting and running their respective companies. We recently spoke with Gillian Morris , CEO of the mobile app Hitlist. This week, we’re talking to Joe Walsh, the founder and CEO of Green Clean Maine , an environmentally-friendly cleaning business based in Portland, Maine. Today he has over 300 clients around the Portland area and oversees a staff of 27. Founder Talk

We’ve written a whitepaper on how to correctly classify employees , so you’re getting full time, part time, and everything in between right. If you’re researching the question about what constitutes full-time and part-time hours, you’ve likely run into different definitions in different places. And with conflicting government definitions floating around, it makes it hard to know what’s correct and what’s not. So, what really makes for a full-time and part-time employee in the United States? And what are the consequences for employers if they don’t get it right the first time around? Complianc

The day is inevitable: at some point or another, your employees will leave. Everyone knows that jobs rarely last a lifetime, but it’s still important to retain the talent that will really make your company shine. Companies spend $4,000 on average to fill an open position , and that doesn’t even begin to speak to the amount of lost productivity and impact an empty role has on a small team. So how can you keep the people who make a difference in your company? Compensation is only one small factor — in fact, most of it has to do with employee motivation and happiness. Recruiting Management

As each year comes to a close, small business scramble to make sure that they have all of their paperwork in place to maximize their tax write offs. But even if the small business has all of their paperwork squared away, many times, they don’t realize that there are certain small business tax write offs that can help to minimize what they owe. Compliance Taxes

Learning more about business expenses? We have a free resources library to help you out with that. Compliance Business Tips Management Taxes

Check out our full guide on how to boost employee morale here, which you can download for free. We've all been there before — having a boss who doesn't trust you to do your job can demoralize even the most productive of workers. Studies show that only 12% of employees leave their job for more money, so there's obviously a lot more at play. Now that you're on the other side, you know the importance of maintaining employee morale. So where does it all start? Put simply, trust. Trust is the essential ingredient to a strong team and empowers high-performance, risk-taking employees.

Networking. You’ve heard it before, and we'll say it again: it is vastly important. We’re told that it's also essential for finding a job, building a name, and staying connected. But a lot of the time, it's hard to know where to start. This can be especially tricky with startups. There is no traditional school in which to build your core network, businesses are changing all the time, and the climate can be completely different from traditional fields. So naturally, making a connection is slightly different than the traditional professional world. But fear not — it’s not as terrible as it seems.

With the advent of coffee shops, wifi, and laptops, the 21st century has presented us a beautiful gift: the advantage of working remotely. Remote work offers plenty of positive benefits for both employers or employees, whether daily or occasionally. At Justworks, I’m lucky to have a flexible work schedule that enhances my productivity. In fact, I’m writing this piece in a coffee shop right now; it’s arguably the most productive I’ve been all week. Here are the many reasons why it’s helps to switch up your working environment — and how to get the most out of your time in a fresh spot.

Download your free guide on the Affordable Care Act to learn how it impacts your business. When it comes to providing healthcare to your team as a small business, Affordable Care Act requirements are real. Whether it’s compliance mistakes, administrative issues, or the sheer cost, there are myriad factors to consider. According to the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans, the largest ACA costs to date are expected to arrive in 2016. And according to the employers surveyed, 57% expect administration issues to be the biggest challenge they face. Benefits Business Tips

This is a guest post by Camilla Velasquez , Justworks' VP of Product. When you’re part of a growing company, it’s easy to get caught up in the day to day tasks and projects that need to get done. Although that’s important for success and growth, it’s just as important to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Our customers are the reason we’re here — to help their businesses run health care, payroll, and compliance smoothly. That’s why we decided to do a customer-focused, “Surprise and Delight” hack week this March. So, what did that mean for the Justworks’ team and customers?

Looking for other forms of insurance for your employees? Understand unemployment insurance better. Commonly referred to as workman's comp, workers' compensation is federally mandated insurance that provides compensation for employees who have suffered an injury or illness on the job. Workers' compensation is a no-fault program, which means that the employee gets the benefit — regardless if a customer, coworker, employer, or employee was responsible for the injury. What matters is that the injury happened while on the job. Benefits

We recently announced Justworks permissions , which allows you to give access to different functionalities of Justworks to different members of your company. We’ve seen great use of that feature with CFOs getting access to payments, HR managers to vacation policies and accountants to reporting. We’ve heard from you that you’d like to take this access to functionality a step further, by giving certain members access to subsets of a feature. The most obvious example are managers. Enter: manager permissions. Justworks Love

What is the FLSA? Introduced in 1938, the Fair Labor Standards Act, or FLSA, is a federal law that governs working wages, hours, and recordkeeping for both full-time and part-time workers. The FLSA covers overtime pay, minimum wage, child labor standards, and record keeping. Who Does the FLSA Apply To? Employers with two or more employees are required to follow federal FLSA standards. What Are Exempt vs Non-Exempt Employees? In order to comply with FLSA laws, you must have a full understanding of exempt and non-exempt employees. Compliance

Are you building a distributed team? Check out our resources on hiring remote employees. If you’re running a business in the 21st century, a rental lease doesn’t necessarily have to be in the mix — especially if you’re just starting out. Whether you have a three person team or you’re working remotely , shared spaces are a great option to energize your small business. We sat down with Cassidy North-Reist, Grind’s Director of Community, and asked her what it’s like to work at Grind Spaces. Business Tips

With the Affordable Care Act comes the necessary paperwork that the IRS has to collect. Doing so ensures that employers are providing a sufficient option of healthcare for its employees. We’ve covered the Form 1095-C , which is meant to lay out the offered insurance to each individual employee. The 1094-C must be filed with the Form 1095-C, but it acts as a sort of cover sheet that sums up all the 1095-Cs. We've written a whitepaper about the impact of the ACA on small businesses. If you'd like to download it for free, you can do so here. Compliance Healthcare

Simply put, an employee is someone who works for your business. However, the true definition of employee can go deeper than that. Correctly classifying your employees help your business run more smoothly, and can save you from serious financial consequences. HR Compliance

Great 401k plans are a given in good workplaces. Your best recruits ask about them, your employees demand one, and you care about your own financial safety. Those are excellent reasons to seek one for your business. But is it a risk-free endeavor? If you guessed “yes,” guess again. Like all long-term business decisions, you’ll need to think and act strategically. Don’t overlook the importance of the process. Doing so could cost you, and your employees, substantially. Here are 5 important ways to minimize business risk when establishing a 401k for your business. Benefits

501(c)(3) organizations, informally referred to as 501c3, are non profit organizations in the United States that have received approval by the IRS to be tax exempt. For the most part, if you’ve donated to a non profit of any kind, you’ve made that donation to a 501c3 organization. As is pretty clear, pretty much any non profit is a 501c3. But what does that mean exactly? Benefits HR Payroll Nonprofit

By now, business owners have likely realized that the number of tax documents that the IRS requires companies to file is significant. There’s a reason that accountants responsible for corporate taxes make so much money. Taxes

Making the leap from a corporate work environment to a startup is more than just a career change — it’s also a lifestyle change. You’ll have the chance to expand your role and make a big impact at a smaller company, for better or worse. We got advice from Justwomen panelists Emily Menchel and Elizabeth Galbut, who both experienced firsthand how their roles shifted after making the switch. Emily and Elizabeth will share more on going from the corporate world to startup life at the next Justwomen event on May 18. Interested in attending?

All the terminology around fringe benefits can get confusing. Fringe benefits, regular benefits, perks, rewards — how can you tell them apart? Put simply, fringe benefits are an additional benefit on top of an employee’s salary. They’re the same as perks and can range from a company car to team meals out on the town. So, which fringe benefits should you offer, and what will make the biggest difference to employees? We’ve rounded up our past articles on how to sort out the difference between the two, and how to pick ones that will make your workplace shine. Benefits Recruiting Management

Terminating a team member isn’t easy. Get the complete guide on how to fire or lay off an employee. So, you have an employee who is not the greatest asset to your business. It happens to every company at some point in time. Whatever the reason may be, firing an employee with no advance signs or warning may result in serious repercussions for your company. Firing an employee can lead to wrongful termination lawsuits , fines for not following the law, and low team morale. Barring any extreme offenses, your employee should know if he’s headed towards a layoff. Business Tips Compliane

It’s sad, but true: only 32% of U.S. employees feel engaged in the workplace. And although it’s true that work is just that — work — low team morale can actually have a widespread and negative affect on your business. As it turns out, boosting employee motivation is actually correlated with higher productivity, higher profits, and higher growth

Whether your employee has left your company for another one or passed away , the required paperwork is hard to keep top of mind when a big transition is taking place. Offboarding a departing employee isn’t as simple as waving goodbye and wishing them well. Between IRS forms, payroll and benefit complications, and electronic account access, details can slip through the cracks. Have a procedure in place. Business Tips

In our guide to setting up a C-Corporation , we covered how corporations run into the risk of double taxation. What does this mean? The profits that the corporation makes are taxed and then any dividends that are distributed to shareholders are also taxed. The S-Corporation (or S-Corp) is an eligible C-corporation that can be converted and treated as a S-Corporation through a specific IRS tax election. Once that happens, the profits and losses can be passed through the corporation to the individual shareholders. Business Tips

It’s the end of a long year of hard work at your startup company. Business is slowing down, office parties are abounding, and everyone is in the holiday spirit. But the New Year is right around the bend, and you want to start 2016 off with a bang professionally. So why not make an early New Year’s resolution? Resolve to ask for that raise you deserve in 2016. How do you navigate asking for a raise, especially on a small and growing team? Look no further! Business Tips

Most people have seen the © or TM symbols that seem to appear on the footer of every website, book, or after brand name. Trademark and copyright are two legal rule sets put in place to protect the owner of specific types of assets. If someone uses what you’ve copyrighted or trademarked, there are grounds for compensation. But before you file for one, it helps to understand the differences between the two. Business Tips

Last week, the U.S. Department of Labor officially defined the new income threshold for exempt and non-exempt employees. Employers take note: these changes will affect wages or hours worked for approximately 13 million Americans, and perhaps some of your own employees. Compliance Payroll

We have some exciting feature updates coming out of our Hack Week — that’s right, you can start using them now. Justworks Love Product Updates

You can always use our easy guide to learn the difference between perks and benefits. The difference between perks, benefits, and fringe benefits can get sticky (as we’ve stated in previous blog posts and whitepapers ). Once you think you’ve finally got the difference between them figured out, another term pops up: de minimis benefits. So, what are de minimis benefits? Are they taxable in the same way that some fringe benefits are? We’ve got some answers to help clear it all up. Benefits Taxes

Today’s post is brought to you by Museum Hack. Museum Hack does fun company team building events at the best museums in NYC, DC and SF. Team building activities are an important contributor to company culture and growth. However, “team building” isn’t usually at the top of an HR manager or CEO’s to-do list. Instead, we prioritize perks like hiring bonuses, unlimited massages, and new hardware — items that are a flashier way to attract top talent. Business Tips