The end of the year represents the perfect time for small businesses to review their legal situation to identify changes they can make for the new year. Here are some items that should be on your small business’s year-end legal checklist.
Review the Business Structure and Legal Compliance
You can consult a business attorney to determine whether your company’s current legal structure (e.g., sole proprietorship, partnership, LLC, corporation) best serves its needs and goals. If not, your attorney can help you restructure your business to a more favorable legal form. You should also check whether you’ve kept your business’s legal filings (e.g., annual reports, local licenses, etc.) up to date.
Update Contracts
Take the time at the end of the year to review and update your small business’s contractual agreements, including independent contractor agreements, master services agreements, vendor agreements, and client contracts. Your business may need to update its contracts to ensure continued compliance with local, state, or federal laws or to take advantage of changes in the law over the past year. You also may need to update your company’s contracts to reflect changes in your business’s circumstances, needs, and goals.
Assess Intellectual Property Protections
Your business should review the status of its intellectual property, including copyrights, trademarks, or patents. Check whether your company must file renewals or other paperwork in the coming year to preserve its intellectual property rights. Other intellectual property you should check includes trade secrets and confidential materials like customer and vendor lists, pricing guides, marketing plans, and business strategies.
Furthermore, your company should review intellectual property agreements with employees, contractors, vendors, and customers, including non-disclosure, confidentiality, intellectual property assignment, or non-compete agreements.
Review Employment Policies
At the end of the year, your business can review its employment contracts and policies. Revise your employee handbook to bring critical employment policies up to date, such as those concerning remote work, paid leave, medical leave, anti-harassment, promotion, and disciplinary actions. Furthermore, your business should review its pay policies to ensure compliance with state and federal wage and hour laws, including minimum wage and overtime pay policies. Update your company’s employment policies as necessary to reflect changes in state and federal labor and employment laws.
Audit Financials and Evaluate Tax Liabilities
Companies should review or audit their financial documents at the end of the year to understand the business’s performance over the past year. Correct financials will help your small business with its tax filings at the end of the year and beginning of the following year, including filing income tax returns and generating reports, such as W-2s for employees or 1099s for contractors. Working with tax professionals can help your business develop optimized tax strategies for the coming year to help reduce your company’s tax liabilities, such as changing the business’s tax structure or taking advantage of tax credits or carried-forward losses.
Determine Insurance Needs
Your company should also review its insurance policies, including property, commercial liability, and workers’ compensation policies, to ensure they provide the coverage your business will need in the new year. Your business may need to add coverages to reflect changes in your company’s operations or new risks the business faces, such as additional employees, new business locations, or increased product sales.
Review Local Legal Obligations
Finally, check for any new local regulations in Fairfax relevant to your business’s operations, such as zoning ordinances, building codes, health and safety regulations, or licensing requirements. A business attorney can help you develop a legal strategy to address the effect of those new regulations on your business.
Contact a Business Attorney Today
Before undertaking a year-end review of your business’s legal checklist, talk to an experienced business attorney who can walk you through your review. Contact Surovell, Isaacs & Levy PLC today for an initial consultation with a business lawyer to discuss your company’s legal options.
Posted in: Business Law