​When done wrong? Yes. But when done right, it doesn’t have to negatively affect them.
In recent years most of the workforce has gotten used to working from home. However, that doesn’t mean that their employers have gotten wise about how to best manage these remote employees. Too often companies are leaving the management of remote skilled employees up to the employees themselves by failing to invest in their ongoing development and facilitate the kind of true collaboration that lifts them up.

When your business is growing and requires additional capital to keep it moving in the right direction, it will need to decide how to come by that funding. This is a complicated decision that can benefit substantially from the expertise that an experienced financial leader like a CFO or Controller can provide to the business’s owner or CEO. But, regardless of which avenue a business takes, it will need to be prepared to open itself up to scrutiny by funders.

Companies looking for funding need to have the right essentials in place to land the money they are hoping to secure. Whether the funding will come from a bank loan, grant, angel investor, VC or private equity firm, corporate investor, or other type of financier, applying requires the right kind of financial planning and preparation. Simply put, you will need to not only have your financial house in order but be able to prove it! This is where your accounting team is instrumental in the process. 

​As recruiters, we often talk with clients that have an extensive list of everything they would like in their next hire. Sometimes this includes items that cause employers to voluntarily get in their own way of filling their open roles. We hear things like, “We want an up-and-comer that can grow with the company” or “This person needs to be 100% on-site” or “They need to have an accounting degree.” While it’s good to know what you want, more often than not these kinds of limitations lead employers to pass on candidates who are actually well qualified for their roles. For this reason, it may be worth stretching your hiring parameters to get an open role filled.

We all know that unemployment continues to be at near record lows (and it’s even lower in the accounting and finance field!), which means you need to be prepared to be flexible. Removing the assumptions of what you need from your mind may be the first step in the right direction of getting your role filled. Even if it feels a little bit uncomfortable at first, stretching is good for your hiring efforts!

Previously, we put together a business record retention resource to answer the question, “How long do you need to keep business records?” It gave clear record retention recommendations based on standard business practices for tax filings, audits, property ownership, insurance, employment records, and permits/licenses. And yet, only five years later we’re revisiting the topic because there is growing confusion around how long companies and nonprofits should retain their records now that so many of them are digital.
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The question we’re being asked today is, “How long do I need to keep digital business records – are the rules different?”