1. Review new expensing rules for capital expenditures. The maximum deduction is $250,000 in 2009. The amount of the deduction is reduced dollar for dollar by the cost of qualified property placed in service during the tax year over the $800,000 investment limitation. The amount of the deduction cannot exceed taxable income.

2. Review tax accounting methods. The number of accounting methods a taxpayer may change without prior IRS approval ("automatic method changes") has been expanded. Taxpayers may have an opportunity to deduct previously capitalized costs for repairs and maintenance or supplies, among others. Taxpayers may accelerate deductions or defer income by optimizing tax accounting methods.

3. Review opportunities to claim the Credit for Increasing Research Activities. Effective for tax years ending after Dec. 31, 2006, the Alternative Simplified Credit calculation has eased some of the technical burdens of the "regular credit" and increased the benefit to many companies. The credit reduces your federal tax liability dollar for dollar, and many states provide a similar credit against your state tax liability.

4. Review net operating loss carryback opportunities. Small businesses with less than $15 million average annual gross receipts over a three year period may carryback net operating losses from the 2008 tax year five years. Business exceeding the $15 million gross receipts test generally may carryback net operating losses 2 years and forward 20 years. If a taxpayer expects to record a net operating loss for the current tax year and would like to accelerate a refund of previously paid taxes, you may file Form 1139, Corporation Application for Tentative Refund.

Ken Esch
Partner
PricewaterhouseCoopers Private Company Services
Chicago

But, unfortunately, to gain real value from the social channel, companies don't just need to listen, but also to act. Use social media measurement tools to find out exactly what people are saying about your products and services, who is sharing this information with whom, and what impact this word-of-mouth traffic is having on bottom-line sales. You need to measure your social media marketing program with the same precision as you do your paid media programs—finding out with certainty which social media content is driving sales. Then, you can nurture those conversations, create new content, and target key influencers to drive a continued boost in sales.

Ben Straley
CEO
Meteor Solutions
Seattle

1. Make it easy to participate. Consider a customer review contest, where you invite people to create written or video reviews of your products or services and post them to a YouTube channel you create. If you have an established Twitter account with a solid follower base, consider running the contest via Twitter and inviting retweets. Or invite them to create a new logo or jingle for your company and share them through a Facebook page.

2. Promote your contest. If you have a retail site, invite visitors to participate via signs, send an email to your customer list explaining the contest, promote the contest on your Web site, blog, Twitter account, and Facebook page. Clearly explain the rules and communicate the incentive. [Note: Some states have sweepstakes and give-away promotion rules which must be followed if something of value is being given away free.]

3. Measure the results. Identify the winner, and reward the prize, but also follow up with all participants to thank them for their participation and ideally provide them all with a special gift, discount, or public recognition.

Clay McDaniel
Co-Founder and principal
Spring Creek Group
Seattle

Reality, however, often tells a different story. While it's convenient to tack on the word "innovative" to our marketing materials, actually cultivating a culture and value system of innovation is easier said than done. Every company with even a semblance of success faces a harsh reality: the gravitational pull of success tends to make us change less and not more. Oddly, companies often need to be in serious trouble to start to think innovatively.

What can you do to cultivate and spawn innovation within your company? There are many approaches, but one is deceptively obvious: put in place and institutionalize real mechanisms for cultivating, measuring, and rewarding innovation. Innovation is an amorphous, easily-abused concept. By laying down real avenues for sharing, discussing, and recognizing ideas, your company can elevate innovation from catchphrase to a bona-fide company trait.

Rich Ziade
Partner
Arc90
New York

Internal threats most often come from people who, at one time or another, were on the payroll of the organization and have knowledge of how to navigate the system to gain access to critical data. According to the Ponemon Institute and ArcSight, the average cost to a company for an insider data breach is an astounding $3.4 million. That figure alone is enough for any business take notice.

The rising number of insider attacks may be the result of businesses focusing an increasing amount of their efforts on thwarting external threats while forgetting to protect from within. In today's world, if you haven't done so already, good business practice dictates that you begin shifting your focus inward.

There are many places to find information on how to move forward in this area. One guide that might be helpful is the third edition of "Common Sense Guide to Prevent and Detection of Insider Threats," published by the U.S. Secret Service and Carnegie Mellon University's Software Engineering Institute. The guide outlines 16 best practices to help organizations avoid insider threats. It serves as a perfect checklist for those businesses not sure of their preparedness for such an attack. Some points include:

• Implement strict password and account management policies and practices.

• Log, monitor, and audit employee online action.

• Use layered defense against remote attacks.

• Track and secure the physical environment.

• Use extra caution with system administrators and technical or privileged users.

• Deactivate computer access following termination.

David Ting
Founder and Chief Technology Officer
Imprivata
Lexington, Mass.

But do you miss out on something by not traveling and, therefore, not seeing people in person? Below I've listed a few common concerns about not being there for meetings:

Myth 1: You always need to be in front of your customer in order to take care of business.

In a recent study by Wainhouse and InterCall, 56% of respondents felt that if more in-person meetings were replaced by conference calls, both parties would be able to get more done. Conferencing allows you to stay in your comfort zone and conduct meetings with anyone, anywhere. Being there can simply mean dialing a couple of numbers and making a few clicks.

Myth 2: Bringing a new technology to the workplace will slow down employees. Conferencing is extremely easy to use, which is why it's such an invaluable tool. Conferencing tools can be as simple as a light switch. Most conferencing providers also offer free training so you can get up and running quickly.

Myth 3: It's going to require a lot of time and energy to enact companywide travel alternatives. You don't need to hire a private consultant to conduct a cost-benefits analysis. A great conferencing provider should have expert meeting consultants who can help you determine exactly what you need and exactly how you'd benefit.

When looking to manage costs without sacrificing customer relations or profit margins, small businesses should strongly consider reducing travel with conferencing. You'll quickly start to realize that it's O.K. to not be there.

Kathleen Finato
Senior Vice-President for Marketing and Business Development
InterCall
Chicago

1. Streamline all FX information within your finance department, so you can best determine your next steps. By streamlining all FX information in the same location, finance executives will be able to leverage the best FX strategies for all currencies.

2. Carefully evaluate what currency is best when invoicing in a particular country, and recognize the benefits and how they will affect your sales and bottom line. Often companies will want to make purchasing the product as easy as possible in international markets and that means pricing in the local currency. Make sure you understand how the exchange rates will affect your profit and whether if you should implement a hedging strategy.

3. Don't do it alone. Partner with a FX expert to capture the best FX payment options, help you define risks and develop strategies that are optimized for your unique exposure and risk needs. Corporate foreign exchange is a niche skill within the corporate finance department. It is OK not to understand the finer points of FX and it is wise to ask for help in effectively managing it.

Now more than ever reaching out to global customers is within the small business owner's reach. However, the importance of balancing the cost and complexity with an appropriate FX strategy cannot be underestimated.

Ryan Gibbons
Managing Partner
GPS Capital Markets
Salt Lake City

Eventually, your organization may return to the same amount of power consumed pre-virtualization. By the time this happens, however, you should be realizing much higher workloads than previously possible, and thus increasing the overall efficiency of data center power usage.

As you look for additional avenues to reduce power consumption, also consider these quick tips:

1. Monitor the "lifecycle of usefulness" of your power and distribution systems. Inefficient equipment—often seven years old or older—can cause up to 50% of the energy you pay for to be dissipated as heat.

2. Look for ways to optimize your current cooling strategy, especially for modern, high-density equipment. Consider adopting "in-row" or "in-cabinet" cooling strategies that use less energy in heat removal.

3. Make sure your data center instrumentation includes sensors that enable you to monitor heat generation, power consumption, and overall cooling effectiveness.

Kris Domich
Principal Consultant
Dimension Data
New York

In this climate, business owners are forced to scrutinize pricing. Ask yourself these questions: Am I charging the fullest price possible for my products or services? Are some customers being undercharged? What will the market bear? Should I put pricing strategies in place to adjust for seasonal demand or excess capacity at certain times of the year?

Budgets and forecasts established for customers and business units will help you answer these questions. Ideally, you should know your fixed and variable costs and have an understanding or an estimate of each customer’s profitability and contribution to your bottom line. Pricing strategy based on these numbers will assist you to meet the market’s pressures more effectively. You may find that you are undercharging or that some clients may be willing to pay more, even in this climate, for value-adds such as exceptional service.

Chris Carey
President
Chris Carey Advisors
New York

You should develop a budget and profitability forecast for each business unit, office, or region of your company. Forecasts should incorporate fixed and variable costs and the projected profitability—not just sales or revenues—for each customer or account. The total of all projected customer activities in each business unit will give you a basis to build real budget estimates.

Once you begin forecasting on an ongoing basis, you’ll see that it is also a useful exercise that reveals weaknesses or inefficiencies in your business and helps you identify specific areas that need improvement. If you could predict what would happen tomorrow, what would you change today? No one can predict the future, but a forecasting regimen can show you what you need to fix now to compete more effectively next month, next quarter, and next year.

Chris Carey
President
Chris Carey Advisors
New York

You need to evaluate the profitability of each customer and account. Are they all profitable? Is your company losing money on some accounts? This type of assessment is even more critical in today’s environment, when money is tight and most companies face extreme pressure to cut prices in order to maintain customer relationships.

You can create a budget for each customer project, based on needed labor and materials. Then you can forecast profitability for the duration of the contract or relationship. Analyze the hours it takes to service each customer a month and the average labor cost per hour without overtime. This calculation yields your monthly labor costs by customer. Add the average cost per unit of materials and you can determine your estimated gross profit for each client. Assign a portion of your fixed costs to each client and you arrive at an estimated net contribution by client.

Once you understand each customer’s contribution to your bottom line, you’ll know who your good customers really are.

Chris Carey
President
Chris Carey Advisors
New York

To get started, you should ascertain your next-day activity from your customers. Then determine the number of man-hours required for the next day to meet client demand. In allocating labor, you should have just enough employees to get the job done for each customer without overtime. Add the daily cost of materials needed to complete the work.

At the end of each day, look at the number of tasks actually accomplished and compare it to the actual labor employed. If you see discrepancies in productivity, you can adjust as needed.

This daily forecast will give you a more concrete and accurate picture of your business. It will help you identify ways to save money, boost productivity, improve operations, and ultimately compete more effectively.

Chris Carey
President
Chris Carey Advisors
New York

Many entrepreneurs tend to operate by instinct, with no measurements in place. Establishing productivity standards, with performance metrics by product group and by customer, is a first step to track actual performance. To get started, you should evaluate every client account and define the minimal number of distinct tasks it takes to service the business. The key to being effective is not to get caught in creating too many tasks. Even with highly complex operations, the task count should be as small as possible.

Through observation and logs, you can determine over a two-week period the actual time and labor it takes to complete the total tasks. Your current average productivity measurements could be represented as units per man-hour.

The key is to keep it simple. But the creation of performance metrics will help establish predictability and give you better control. You’ll have a way to gauge how well your business is doing today and how you can improve it for the future.

Chris Carey
President
Chris Carey Advisors
New York

Therefore it will be important to encourage your employees to look at the feasibility of their profit proposal to make sure it will have a reasonably short pay-back time—and an adequate return on investment.

Larry Myler
CEO
More or Less
Salt Lake City