Looks What’s New
June 27, 2016
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The Cost of Doing Business
April 18, 2016
Most people I talk to
Admit to budgeting by….
How much did we spend last year?
How do you know what you spent last year;
Was the correct amount?
It may be a comfort level amount
In today’s growing market
It is good to look at all your costs…
Do not take what you paid last year
As the cost of doing business.
Just think…
The iphone was invented 9 years ago
Look how it has revolutionized how we do business
Businesses were once paying over $1000 a month for T1’s
You can now get 10 times the speed for a fraction of the cost
Cloud technology is transforming business…
Natural gas prices were once over $10 a dekatherm
We now have a new floor and….
Companies are saving thousands of $$$
In the deregulated gas and electric market
Did you know that NJ and PA have over a 12% error rate
In the payment of unemployment claims
The state is taking money out of your account
Without asking.
When property values went down
How come we continued to pay the same property taxes?
Is sales tax really the cost of doing business…
What is this real property exemption?
These are questions we all should be asking ourselves…
These are questions we deal with…
Everyday
Don’t just settle and accept that
What we are currently paying
Is the cost of doing business…
At HBS
We validate what you are currently paying and
Look for opportunities to save you money
We are experts in providing smart solutions
That will grow your bottom line.
Come to think of it
June 16, 2009
Has the recent turndown in the economy had an effect on your business?
What steps have you taken to tighten the belt?
Did you reduce the workforce?
Did you reduce or drop employee benefits?
In difficult times you may find you have to think outside the box. Reducing the workforce and employee benefits are obvious choices.
There are diamonds in the rough out there!
Where you ask? If you only knew!
Most companies budget for expenses and never really drill down to see if there are opportunities for savings.
Deregulated Energy: Natural Gas and Electric
Is your company paying more than $5000 a month on natural gas or electric for your building!
The deregulated Gas and electric market is the lowest it has been in the last 3 to 4 years.
Our clients are saving from 15% to 30% on natural gas.
Just in the last week, we saved a client over $45,000 by locking in their Natural gas for the next 12 months.
Our electric clients are saving from 6% to 15%
Just last week, a client saved over $94,000 by locking in their electric for the next 12 months.
How much do you think your company may qualify to save?
The local provider buys gas and electric in the wholesale marker and sells it to you retail.
We put our clients in the wholesale position.
The savings is yours and falls to the bottom line!
Voice and Data:
Here is the real sleeper. Many companies feel they wear a safety blanket for they have Verizon or ATT as their provider.
You are paying a premium for that blanket!
Deregulation allows third party providers to use the Verizon / ATT platform and deliver voice to their clients at a discount.
Our clients are saving from 15% to 40% on their monthly Voice and Data Billing.
What is 25% of your bill?
Come to think of it, we haven’t looked at these costs recently?
Call Hutchinson Business Solutions 856-857-1230. There is no fee for our services!
Or you can email george@hbsadvantage.com
Let the savings begin!!!!!
Natural Gas Market
May 30, 2009
Apr 30, 2009 –
As was the case with other industries that have been deregulated, natural gas deregulation has resulted in competition which helps lower the cost of natural gas and increase customer choices.
Deregulation is the process of lessening the amount of government restrictions an oversight applied to private companies. The natural gas industry has been gradually deregulated over the past ten years.
Before deregulation, utilities charged their customers for all the necessary steps to get the natural gas from the gas well to the customer’s home or business. This included purchasing the natural gas, delivering it to the customer, measuring the customer’s use,providing emergency service, and billing the customer.
One effect of deregulation has been that customers may now choose to purchase only part of the full line of services that are offered by the utility. This ability to choose is called
unbundling. The complete package of services has been unbundled so that a customer can choose to separate the gas purchasing transaction from the delivery — or transport — transaction.
Our Perspective:
Natural Gas prices are the lowest they have been in 3 to 4 years. For companies spending more than $3000 a month we are finding 20% to 30% saving over what they have paid over the past year.
One of our new clients signed up today and will see more that $42,000 savings over the next year.
Like to know more? Feel free to contact us. There are no additional fees, your savings fall to the bottom line.
Email george@hbsadvantage.com or call 856-857-1230
EPA: Recession Won’t Stop Clean Energy Revolution
May 30, 2009
ANGELA CHARLTON | May 28, 2009 05:01 PM EST | 
PARIS — The top U.S. environment official says it’s time for the United States to shed its energy-wasting image and lead the world race for cleaner power sources instead.
After several years with a relatively low profile under President George W. Bush, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency “is back on the job,” EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson told The Associated Press on Thursday during a trip to Paris.
What the EPA does domestically this year will be watched closely overseas. Nations worldwide are working toward a major meeting in Copenhagen in December aimed at producing a new global climate pact. The U.S. position on curbing its own pollution and helping poor countries adapt to global warming is seen as key to any new pact.
Jackson was in Paris for international talks on how rich governments can include global climate concerns in overall development aid.
She dismissed worries that economic downturn was cutting into aid commitments or investment in new energy resources. She said the United States should take the lead on clean energy technology, recession or no.
“We have to get in the race now _ and win it,” she said. “I don’t expect a moving backwards because of recession.”
At climate talks in Paris earlier this week, European environment ministers welcomed greater U.S. commitment to environmental issues under the Obama administration _ but said it still wasn’t aiming high enough in its targets for cutting U.S. emissions.
Jackson said a shift in the American mindset is only beginning.
Talking about energy efficiency and saying companies should pay to pollute _ “that’s a revolutionary message for our country,” she said.
For a long time, she said, “People didn’t even expect the EPA to show up” at events, much less set policies that could be seen as examples for the rest of the world.
“Now it seems like every day we’re rolling back or reconsidering a Bush era policy on clean air,” she said.
She said it was time for the United States to take a more active role in limiting chemical pollutants, after falling behind Europe in that domain.
The U.S. also has lessons to learn from countries such as the Netherlands, she said, after visiting its low-lying, flood-prone lands to study ways cities like her native New Orleans can better manage water.
Our Perspective:
It is good to hear the administration making positive comments about our energy’s future. Alternative energy is a growth business and the correct path for insuring our future energy indepenence.
Let us know your thoughts? You may leave a comment or email george@hbsadvantage.com
Would you like to know more about the financial opportunities that drive this investment. Feel free to contct us.
Out of Work and Challenged on Benefits, Too
March 28, 2009
In Record Numbers, Employers Move to Block Unemployment Payouts
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 12, 2009; Page A01
It’s hard enough to lose a job. But for a growing proportion of U.S. workers, the troubles really set in when they apply for unemployment benefits.
More than a quarter of people applying for such claims have their rights to the benefit challenged as employers increasingly act to block payouts to former workers.
The proportion of claims disputed by former employers and state agencies has reached record levels in recent years, according to the Labor Department numbers tallied by the Urban Institute.
Under state and federal laws, employees who are fired for misbehavior or quit voluntarily are ineligible for unemployment compensation. When jobless claims are blocked, employers save money because their unemployment insurance rates are based on the amount of the benefits their workers collect.
As unemployment rolls swell in the recession, many workers seem surprised to find their benefits challenged, their former bosses providing testimony against them. On one recent morning in what amounts to one of Maryland’s unemployment courts, employees and employers squared off at conference tables to rehash reports of bad customer service, anger management and absenteeism.
“I couldn’t believe it,” said Kenneth M. Brown, who lost his job as a hotel electrician in October.
He began collecting benefits of $380 a week but then discovered that his former employer, the owners of the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center, were appealing to block his unemployment benefits. The hotel alleged that he had been fired for being deceptive with a supervisor.
“A big corporation like that. . . . It was hard enough to be terminated,” he said. “But for them to try to take away the unemployment benefits — I just thought that was heartless.”
After a Post reporter turned up at the hearing, the hotel’s representative withdrew the appeal and declined to comment. A hotel spokesperson later said the company does not comment on legal matters. Brown will continue to collect benefits, which he, his wife and three young children rely on to make monthly mortgage payments on their Upper Marlboro home.
Unemployment compensation programs are administered by the states and funded by payroll taxes that employers pay. In 2007, employers put up about $31.5 billion in such taxes, and those taxes typically rise during and after recessions, as states seek to replenish the funds.
With each successful claim raising a company’s costs, many firms resist letting employees collect the benefit if they consider it undeserved.
“In some of these cases, employers feel like there’s some matter of principle involved,” said Coleman Walsh, chief administrative law judge in Virginia, who has handled many such disputes. But, he said, “nowadays it appears their motivation has more to do with the impact on their unemployment insurance tax rate. Employers by and large are more aware of unemployment as a cost of business.”
The cost of unemployment insurance has created an industry of “third-party agents” — companies that specialize in helping employers deal with the unemployment insurance administration. These firms represent employers in disputes with former employees over jobless benefits.
One of the largest is …., a St. Louis company active in the Washington area, which claims more than 8,000 clients.
The company’s Web site says that it removes “over $6 billion in unemployment claims liability annually.”
Joyce Dear, chief operations officer for tax management services at …., said firms such as hers help bring to light the issues surrounding an employee’s departure.
“You are limited to what is permissible,” she said. “What an employer can do is provide the facts around a separation. The awarding of the benefits is in the hands of the state.”
Wayne Vroman, a researcher at the Urban Institute, has documented the rise of challenges to unemployment claims using the Labor Department data. He found that the proportion of claims challenged on the basis of misconduct has more than doubled, to 16 percent, since the late 1980s. Claims disputed on the grounds that the worker simply quit represent about 10 percent of the otherwise eligible applications.
Even as more employers have alleged employee misconduct, their success rate has stayed relatively stable — they lose on such issues about two-thirds of the time.
“What is clear is that employers have become more willing to contest claims from claimants,” Vroman said of the data.
Hearing officers and others in the industry said it isn’t clear why the number of challenges to unemployment claims has grown. The labor force has changed over the years, with less of it devoted to manufacturing and more of it from the service sector.
Some suggested the rise in disputed benefits stems from the fact that it is easier today for employers to track claims and try to block those they consider unwarranted.
“Automation has contributed to the ease with which protests from the employer can be filed,” said Doug Holmes, president of UWC Strategy, a group that claims large and small employers among its members and represents their interests in unemployment matters.
Others speculated that changes in the law have made it easier for employers to block unemployment claims.
Rick McHugh, a staff attorney for the National Employment Law Project who began handling such cases in the 1970s, said court rulings have slowly enlarged the definition of employee misconduct, making it easier for employers to say they rightfully fired a worker.
“The courts are just not showing as much sympathy for employees who get fired,” he said. “There’s a higher standard of behavior that is expected of employees.”
For example, back in 1941, the Wisconsin Supreme Court considered the case of a cab driver who’d had three accidents in two weeks and also shorted the company on a 40 cent fare, turning in only 25 cents.
The court ruled that the driver was entitled to unemployment benefits because unintentionally careless or shoddy work did not constitute misconduct. It’s unlikely, McHugh said, that the case would be determined the same way today.
In many states, hearings are held daily on unemployment claims. The outcome most often turns on whether the former employee was guilty of misconduct.
With employees and employers as adversaries, it’s often difficult to determine the facts of a case, and just as difficult at times to separate misconduct from incompetence, which is not a reason to withhold the benefits.
During a day of hearings this week in Wheaton, human resources personnel sat across tables from former employees, and the discussion often turned to written warnings, company handbooks and who-told-what-to-whom.
A former assistant manager at Ri Ra, an Irish Bar in Bethesda, fended off complaints that, among other things, he’d failed to greet guests at the door and one time poured a beer for himself after hours.
A Verizon technician was charged with, in company terms, “detour and frolic.”
And a former salesman at Ethan Allen complained that there was no way he could have made his $35,000 sales quota — and that’s why he quit.
“It’s almost like a daily soap opera — but it’s real life,” veteran hearing examiner Scott Karp said. “In this economic climate, the threshold for what employers consider minimum acceptable behavior has changed. They decide they’re not going to put up with it anymore, so they start documenting the employee’s behavior and often enough, the issue winds up here.”
Our Perspective:
Unemployment claims are a much overlooked business expense.
Did you know that Unemployment Tax is the 2nd largest Employer mandated tax?
Basically, the Unemployment Fund can be seen as being a checking account with the state.
The state determines what your rate is.
The rate determines how much money you put into this account to pay claims.
Then the state notifies you how much they have taken out of the account to pay claims.
How do you know these rates are correct?
How do you know your reserves are correct?
How do you know if you are paying the proper amount for each claim?
Many business never ask this question!
This is one of the only employer taxes that you can control!
You could be overpaying unemployment taxes into the fund.
You may be overpaying claims!
You may be paying for claims that are not your responsibility!
We have worked with clients to review their rates and have provided a long term solution to manage their claims. As a result, we have reduced their rates and reduced the contribution they have to annually pay into the unemployment fund.
Would you like to know more, email george@hbsadvantage.com or you may call
856-857-1230.
We have clients who have operations thruout the United States.
We are a boutique firm with success with many high profile clients.
Visit us on the web to learn more
Keep our eye on the ball
January 8, 2009
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