THERE are a number of things that entrepreneurs may want to take on at the start of this new year, in a bid to boost their bottom line.

* Do an annual legal review

It isn’t enough to hire a good lawyer and pray you don’t get sued. Every business has laws and regulations you need to know about, and it’s your responsibility to learn about them so that you can prevent lawsuits before they happen.

Take your lawyer to lunch sometime this month; tell him or her everything your business did last year and is planning to do this year; and get some education on how to do things better. If you’ve got a corporation or limited liability company, have your attorney draft some resolutions for you and your partners, ratifying the big decisions you made last year.

* Get your taxes right.

If you’ve been selling things online and haven’t been paying taxes, now is the time to get into compliance with the tax laws. The tax authorities are losing patience with people who don’t know they’re in business when they’re selling online.

* Renew your web address.

If your business is dependent on the Internet, make sure you check your Web domain hosting service at least once each year to make sure your Web address hasn’t expired. They do send you renewal notices, but often, these get filtered as spam by e-mail systems, so you never see them. Next thing you know, your Web address expires and gets grabbed by someone else.

* Update your software twice a year.

Just about every software programme gets updated at least once or twice a year, but not every software developer sends you an e-mail announcing the latest updates. Make it a point to visit the websites of each software company whose products you license, and look for a button that says “check for updates” or something like that. It just may save your PC.

* Control the time you spend online.

Make 2012 the year you stop being a social media slave. Use Web analytics software to find out which of your Internet marketing programmes are working and which are not — and where your customers are really coming from. Never mind how much fun something is or that everyone else is doing it; if your Facebook page and Twitter tweets are not generating revenue for your business, lose them.

* Get control of your bookkeeping.

If your bookkeeping system involves a shoebox, you have absolutely no idea what’s going on in your business.

Sign up for your local community college’s evening class on QuickBooks Pro, and learn to do it the right way. If you use live bookkeepers, meet with them at least three or four times every year; review your chart of accounts and other operating statements with them; and get their opinions on things you’re doing right and things you need to improve. Because they’re looking at your business from a bird’s eye view, they’re likely to see patterns and trends that you’re too busy to notice.

* Escrow for estimated taxes.

If you pay quarterly estimated taxes and find yourself occasionally without enough cash on hand to make the tax payments, you need to start escrowing for these taxes. Tally your gross sales each month, withdraw 35 per cent of that amount from your business checking account, and deposit it in an interest-bearing savings account.

Do this every month, and learn to operate your business on the remaining 65 per cent of revenue. This way, you’ll be sure to have enough cash on hand to make your tax payments when they become due.

* Run for public office.

If you’re fed up with the political system, it’s time to get involved. Too many State and federal government representatives are professional politicians — people whose careers managed to bypass the private sector entirely. Not only do they not understand business, they look at it as a necessary evil whose primary purpose is to create jobs and tax revenue (not necessarily in that order) and as something that needs to be regulated heavily. In their view, businesspeople are either sociopathic nincompoops or corrupt predators.

We need more entrepreneurs and self-employed people in government. Make this year the year you decide to run for office. Even if you lose, you’ll send strong messages that government needs to be more responsive to the business community, that most successful businesspeople are indeed good citizens and that free enterprise is essential to a democratic society (to say nothing of the free publicity your campaign will generate). As they said back in the 1960s, if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.

— Creators News Service

This column is no substitute for legal, tax or financial advice, which can be furnished only by a qualified professional licensed in your area.