This month, we’re joined by Erin Como, journalist, reporter, lifestyle host, and seasoned media pro, to discuss how restaurant owners and operators can turn press coverage into profit. Erin shares how to make the most of not only big nominations but any media mentions, what to expect from your publicist if you have one, and — most importantly — how small businesses without PR support can take media wins into their own hands.

Maryland is introducing a whole slew of new taxes starting this year. We’ll break them down in this month’s Commonsense CPA, and maybe complain a bit too.

This month we explore the interconnected challenges of employee satisfaction, employee retention, and the growing trend of unionization in the restaurant industry. We’re featuring an insightful conversation Adam Aljoburi, who is a labor and employment attorney who works directly with a unionized workforce.

This month we explore the interconnected challenges of employee satisfaction, employee retention, and the growing trend of unionization in the restaurant industry. We’re featuring an insightful conversation Adam Aljoburi, who is a labor and employment attorney who works directly with a unionized workforce.

For this month's LFTL we had a great conversation with Nycci Nellis, respected DC food, wine, and hospitality journalist, about the importance of controlling your narrative and protecting your brand’s voice both online and offline.

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.

“If you’re a tax CPA, for example, your first tax season is the first time you’ve seen how different forms work, how these conceptual ideas actually play out for a client,” Hetrick said. “You simply can’t teach that in a book, you have to learn how to do it.”

Harmony President Matt Hetrick returned to NPR’s Marketplace to chat with Justin Ho this week about rising productivity in the American workforce, the expert Harmony team, and why staff retention and career development are so important in a field where you can’t automate away expertise.

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.

“You have inflation, you have worker shortages, you have access to capital shortages,” Hetrick said. “It doesn’t seem to be ending, and getting back to a place where it’s a reasonable set of challenges...”

Harmony President Matt Hetrick returned to NPR’s Marketplace to chat with Justin Ho this week about economic recovery and the restaurant industry.

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!