The Nowsta Blog

Last week, the Nowsta team was lucky enough to attend our third Catersource conference together as a company. In addition to being the premier conference for caterers and industry-adjacent businesses, Catersource has been a crucial part of Nowsta’s growth thus far -- we launched our product to the catering world two years ago at Catersource 2017, and then grew our customer base substantially after announcing several new features at last year’s Catersource.

An expert bartender can set the tone for a great night. Combine a passion for mixology, a fascination with cocktail history, and an awareness for today’s drink trends, and a bartender transforms one-time customers into enthusiastic regulars. No matter the spot, every bartender should know today’s top cocktails to ensure every guest leaves happy.

Middle skill jobs are most often defined as ones that require education or technical training beyond a high school diploma, but less than a four-year college degree. They exist across all industries, but most prominently in construction, manufacturing, and clerical work. Given the extra knowledge and skill they require, middle skill jobs typically pay more than the run-of-the-mill hourly job, and as such have long been a vehicle of upward social mobility. But several labor economists have noted a “hollowing out” of the middle skill job market in the United States over the past thirty years, pointing to declines in wages and employment in the middle of the labor market as evidence.

But that’s not the whole story.

Running a small business is no easy endeavor — especially during tax season. In addition to dealing with complicated forms and financial calculations, many small businesses end up paying too much in taxes because they take all of the deductions available to them.

We want to help you keep your tax bill as low as possible in 2019. Below, we’re going to give you the rundown on 25 of the most common small business tax deductions you could be eligible for as a sole proprietor, LLC, or partnership business. Please note that this post is for educational purposes. You should speak to a professional tax advisor to confirm which deductions you’re eligible to claim and learn how.  

Building a work schedule for your team requires a full understanding of your state’s labor laws, which aren’t always intuitive. New York’s Spread of Hours law is a prime example. While most labor laws focus only on the hours an employee is clocked in for, the Spread of Hours law takes the whole day into account. The law applies only to businesses in the service industry, and says that if the beginning and end of an employee’s workday are more than ten hours apart — including breaks or off-duty hours — you’re required to pay that employee one extra hour’s worth of pay at minimum wage, on top of their total wages for the day.

There’s lots of data to keep track of for all your employees. But virtually none is more important than up-to-date payroll information.

You track this information for each member of your team in an employee earnings record. This article will explain to you what an employee earnings record is, what information it needs to contain, and how you’ll use it.

Employee retention is one of the most important measures of success for any business owner or manager, but also one of the most difficult to achieve. Why is it such a big deal? Research shows that it costs nearly 20% of an hourly employee’s total yearly salary to replace them when they leave, which works out to roughly $4,000 for someone making $10 an hour. Those costs can add up quickly, and get even higher in a tight labor market.

When you’re running your own company, a workable business model, great product, and strong vision are all key to success. But you won’t be able to get off the ground without business funding. The fact is, every small business needs access to money before it can get off the ground: Starting up is expensive, and operating costs can require you to invest a significant amount of money before your company can even open up shop.

Every employee needs something a little different to do their best work. That was our thesis when we broke part-time employees down into five categories and provided management tips for each, based on Federal Reserve survey data on why people say they work part-time as opposed to full-time. Over a series of posts, we’re going to take a deeper dive into each category and explore how managers can better manage, motivate, and accommodate each type of part-time employee.

In this post, we’re going to cover staff who work part-time due to medical issues.

Managers have to strike a difficult balance when building the work schedule. You need to make sure you have enough staff on duty to meet customer demand, but not so many that you overshoot your labor budget or eat into margins. But generally speaking, most would assume that the more employees you have scheduled for a shift, the better the team will perform, since the workload can be spread out across a larger group.

But the research suggests that isn’t always true.