October 2013

Bonding companies are requiring that year-end financial statements are properly prepared within three or four months of your fiscal year end.  Some are also requiring that you provide them with some kind of interim balance sheet and income statement on the percentage of completion basis.  Many, many good contractors cannot do that.  The hardening marketplace […]

Maximize your profit by regularly checking your ever-changing break-even point.  Indeed, as the construction market changes, you’ll want to manage your break-even point, or it could come back to haunt you – Big Time!  Your break- even point is figured by dividing your Total Fixed Expenses by your Gross Profit Percentage.  Thus, if your fixed

According to a recent report from the Fed, banks have been easing their lending standards and are experiencing stronger demand in most loan categories in the past three months.  About half the respondents reported stronger demand for commercial real estate lending.  This is good news in light of the spike in market interest rates after

The ingenious folks at Enron used hundreds of dummy corporations which no one seemed to own, to avoid taxes and hide boatloads of debt.  The Federal Accounting Standards Board (FASB) came up with FASB Interpretation Number (FIN) 46 to avoid this problem in the future.  This is a complicated economic test of related corporations to

We only gained 162,000 jobs in July.  Unemployment dropped to 7.4% but that was largely from frustrated people giving up on even trying to find a job.  According to the government, you aren\’t unemployed unless you are actively seeking work.  For some reason, the Fed is apparently more interested in this unemployment rate than total payroll numbers.  Thus,

Does anyone remember that quaint, cute little shopping area once known as Lake Buena Vista Shopping Village?  It was a quiet evening to stroll through the shops, have an ice cream cone, and look at Legos.  My, how time has changed.  In 1986, Disney built Pleasure Island to compete with downtown Orlando clubs, and later

In today’s bonding market, many surety companies are tightening up their underwriting considerably, and are extending less surety credit than ever before.  They are less willing to stretch, even when it makes sense.  Florida Surety Bonds has strong relationships with the best surety companies and represents over 600 contractors throughout Florida.  Our team is focused

    You\’ve gotta have heart! Your prospective bond agent can have experience, fancy cars, technical skills, equipment, pricing, computers, fancy software, and more.   The bonding agency can represent over 30 surety companies, over 600 contractors, and have a couple of offices around the state.  You can have all of that, but what you need