In partnership with the Small Business Development Center (SBDC), Business Lexington’s Weekly Wire launches "Biz Brain Teasers.”
Each weekly installment of this new series features a puzzle, a problematic scenario or an issue common to most businesses.
This brain teaser will remain open for your responses for one week. Then, our experts will weigh-in to provide the best possible answer and you can see if you got it right! The experts’ response will be published in the following Weekly Wire.
The problem:
Aunt Ida is 55 and the third generation of owners in her family's liquor store, Cook’s Spirits & Beers. Cook’s generates about $1 million to $1.2 million in revenue every year with their biggest sales season during the holidays from October to early January. Before the season starts, Ida hires two new seasonal staff and increases her inventory to cover the additional business. She usually doesn’t have the cash flow to cover her increased costs, so she borrows from her sales tax account and then pays it back with sales revenue. Her family has done it this way as long as she can remember and sales are always so good during the holidays that she has always replenished her sales tax account by late December before her quarterly payment is due.
What are some of the potential problems here?
Are you an expert in a particular field of business? Let us know and we will add you to our panel of reviewers. Just email rmorgan@smileypete.com.