Comprehensive Business Planning and Requirements Checklist

This checklist will help you assess your current legal situation. By dealing with all of these issues in a proactive, strategic manner you will be better able to protect yourself from legal complications, grow your business, and achieve your goals.

  1. Are corporate minutes up-to-date?

  2. Have you identified a successor; is there a buy-sell agreement (succession plan) in place (and when was it last reviewed)?

    1. If there is a current buy-sell agreement, is the valuation methodology utilized still viable under current circumstances?

    2. Has insurance coverage on owners been adjusted based on changes in valuation?

    3. Have you considered “key man insurance”; do you have disability insurance coverage?

  3. Employment Issues:

    1. Is there an employee manual?

    2. Has the employee manual been reviewed and updated in relevant areas such as discrimination policies/training, confidential record dissemination and employer “right-to-inspect” areas?

    3. Are there employment agreements in place with key personnel?

    4. Is there a need for non-competition agreements/confidentiality agreements with employees?

    5. Does the company have or is it properly utilizing officer/key employee compensation (bonus) programs?

  4. Have you reviewed employee pension/profit sharing plans and considered new formulas (e.g., new comparability plans) that allow you to skew benefits in favor of the owners?

  5. Have you reviewed insurance coverage on assets to update for current values and/or new assets?

  6. Has the company become aware of potential litigation where it may become a defendant or has it identified claims it may have against others and (i) in either case, thoroughly evaluated the impact of such, (ii) determined whether there is insurance coverage for potential claims against it, and (iii) determined whether the insurer has been timely notified?

  7. Have you reviewed your company’s organization structure lately?

  8. What process do you have in place for business planning; do you prepare 1, 3 and 5 year plans; do you compare actual results with budgeted results; what do you do to analyze the differences; what do you do to insure greater likelihood of achieving planned results?

  9. Have you considered growing through acquisition of competitors or synergistic businesses; have you explored financing with your bank to better evaluate what your bank will do for you in connection with an acquisition?

  10. Have you reviewed you existing financing package; have you considered refinancing with another lender who may be more knowledgeable about your business or industry and provide better terms?

  11. What can your accountants and lawyers do to help solve these issues; are you bringing them into planning sessions to obtain the benefit of their experience with other clients and industries?

If this checklist raises any issues you need help with, or simply a question or two you would like answered, please call or email us.