Whether tariffs are here to stay or not, in our role managing our client’s accounts payable we’ve seen that suppliers are already passing along price increases. Imported products like mussels, lobsters, and certain produce items are about to cost you more. Treat this challenge as an opportunity to increase your financial acumen and weatherproof your restaurant’s operations.

In this issue of Lessons from the Line, we explore why maintaining distinct financial lines for your business and yourself is absolutely crucial, outlining the legal and financial benefits of “separating church and state” if you will. It's not just good practice—it's essential.

One of the most common questions we get around here is "How long do I have to keep [insert tax document type] for?" That makes it worth revisiting our Record Retention Guidelines on a yearly basis. With Tax Season in full swing (friendly reminder to be sure you've scanned and uploaded all your tax documents to Harmony's client portals), there's no better time of year to brush up on this topic.

As we step into 2025, there’s no better time to set your financial house in order. Harmony is offering up five of our top practical resolutions to guide you to a prosperous year.

2025 is here, and with it another Tax Season! If you haven't been following Harmony's Lessons From the Line blog for long, you'll have missed our perennially relevant guides for restaurant owners this time of year - we think they're quite valuable (read: we never shut up about this stuff), so we're republishing the tips we put out last January. Even if you’re not new to our blog, these are a great refresher.

Like the rest of the country, Harmony has been following the tragic news out of LA this month. Our hearts go out to everyone affected by the wildfires, and we’ve been hard at work to update our LA clients on developing news as it applies to their businesses and personal returns. Here are current updates.

As we wrap up the year, we wanted to give you a quick reminder about some important reporting tasks for S Corporation owner fringe benefits. These need to be properly included on your W-2s to keep everything IRS-compliant and avoid any unnecessary headaches.

The end of the year is a great moment to get into the nitty gritty of tax accounting - here’s a brief guide to an underdiscussed but important tax question: properly reporting an S-Corp owner or employee using a company vehicle for personal use.

If the S-Corp owner or an employee uses a company vehicle for personal use, the value of this personal use is considered a fringe benefit (specifically, "noncash compensation"). This value must be included in the employee's W-2 as taxable wages.

When we engage with new tax clients at Harmony, the number one request is almost always the desire to have more active input from our team on helping to optimize tax outcomes for a year. That makes this the perfect time to remind clients that we’re here to work with you, on demand, to ensure your finances are aligned with your goals. Whether it’s changes in your personal life, investments, or career, scheduling a proactive year-end tax planning session now can help maximize deductions, avoid surprises come April, and set you up for financial success in 2025.

The SECURE 2.0 Act, signed into law in 2022, brings sweeping changes to retirement plan policies, with implications for both employers and employees. This guide will explore both the key provisions of SECURE 2.0 and the various retirement plan options available to businesses, including SIMPLE IRAs, SEP IRAs, and 401(k)s.

For this month’s Lessons From the Line we’re offering up the first in a new series of classes intended to demystify some accounting basics for Harmony’s hospitality clients. LFTL’s Payroll 101 series will tackle the ins and outs of hospitality payroll, from pre- and post-tax deductions to SUTA and FUTA, and lots more. This month, we’ll start with a crash course on the difference between W-2 Employees and 1099 Contractors.

This is just a friendly reminder that, like we wrote about last month (on a topic we have written about somewhat frequently), the Fed is widely expected to start cutting rates on Wednesday. That makes right now a great time to execute any planned moves with income items, like locking in CDs before rates drop.

To that end, we're re-distributing our August Commonsense CPA as both reminder and primer. Find it in its original incarnation published on our blog here, or just read on!

A Qualified Tuition Plan (QTP or 529 Plan) can be a tremendously beneficial tax savings tool. Let’s take a look at some of the basics as we round out 2024!

This is a quick reminder of DC Department of Employment Services' (DOES) compliance requirements around Paid Family Leave - though Harmony cannot provide HR or payroll guidance, we're invested in helping our clients stay up to date on communications and requirements from DC, especially as the city doesn't always communicate especially thoroughly.

With the pandemic firmly in the rearview mirror, our restaurant clients have seen a return to full seasonality in 2024. Many restaurateurs have been caught off guard by this "return to norm," as the last few years have accustomed them to operating on a week-to-week basis. However, the return to seasonal trends requires a mindset change.

With the Federal Reserve signaling the likelihood of rate cuts as soon as September, now is a great time to review the tax attributes of different income streams while considering strategies to lock in cash flows while rates remain high. Understanding the tax implications of various income sources can help you make informed decisions to optimize your tax liability. Here then is an overview of the tax attributes of several popular income streams.

Last year, Washington, D.C. updated its regulations with the Restaurant Revitalization and Dram Shop Clarification Amendment Act of 2024. The updated legislation went into effect last month, and includes a number of changes and updates to DC’s Dram Shop laws as well as a handful of gestures toward easing the pain of the chaos that is the protracted end of DC’s tipped minimum wage.

This is your friendly, regular reminder that as of January 1 this year, the US Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, has been accepting Beneficial Ownership Information Reports, or BOI Reports. These reports are part of the Corporate Transparency Act, or CTA, which went into effect in 2024.

LFTL covers some suggested reading this month spanning the FLSA Minimum Salary increases, Starbucks, Grimace, and more.

Uber is shutting down the alcohol delivery service it acquired for north of $1.1 billion to fold it into the main UberEats app. There were other issues with Drizly, and the company line is that Uber wanted to deliver everything under one brand, but to shutter a $1B acquisition dovetails with a larger market shift that can be constructive to small business owners.