Thinking Ahead: Four Quick Tips to Running a Smarter Business.

A few simple preemptive tricks can ensure that your business runs smoothly even in today’s tough economy: 1) Writing up a corporate governance agreement, such as by-laws, shareholder agreements or operating agreements to clarify responsibilities and reduce the likelihood of litigation between owners; 2) Drafting customer agreements to include reasonable limits on liability for direct damages and limits or waiver of consequential damages; 3) Requiring a signed confidentiality agreement before disclosing confidential information to employees, vendors or potential business partners; and 4) Auditing employees’ job responsibilities and descriptions each year to verify exempt/non-exempt classification and implementing consistent and reliable time-keeping mechanisms to avoid overtime claims.