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Even in the reality-distorted vortex of Silicon Valley, a company’s financial statements are a critical tool in any merger or acquisition. If you are a venture-backed company, or have substantial bank loans requiring annual audits, your company’s financial statements may already be in relatively good shape. If you are an owner-operator, or have otherwise been relying on a tax-oriented approach to your financials, you’ll need to convert your financial statements to the standards commonly used by accountants.

Generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP, is the method used by the accounting profession to create financial statements. If you are trying to sell your company, you will need to have GAAP financial statements to be able to attract the best buyers, and to be sure you are getting the best value. Because GAAP is so widely used and, in many cases, mandatory, failing to provide a buyer with GAAP financials will increase the perceived risk with respect to buying your company, thereby lowering the price.

An acquirer will likely require that you submit GAAP financials. As part of your agreement with the acquirer, you will represent that your company’s financials are compliant with GAAP. If you are wrong and the buyer is damaged as a result, the agreement will provide that you will have to compensate the buyer, usually through a reduction of the purchase price.

Because converting to GAAP financials is not an easy process, you need to get started as early as possible. In some businesses, such as those technology start-up companies, the conversion to GAAP could take years rather than months. Complications may arise, particularly in the revenue recognition area, and prior year financials may need to be restated. This could be disastrous if, in the middle of negotiations, adherence to GAAP eliminates the year-over-year profit increases you hoped to show.

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Your company, like many companies in Silicon Valley, may suddenly find itself faced with a market window to sell and provide a liquid return for its owners. If you are an entrepreneur or other business owner, you are always on the lookout to reap the value of your business. Before you start planning the next phase of your life, however, you need to plan carefully how you will sell your company.

A company sale is typically a multi-year process, and the sooner you begin the better off you will be when a deal finally arrives. Although exceptions exist, particularly in the roulette world of high technology start-ups, a good rule of thumb is that it will take you between two to four years to sell an operating company. You should plan to begin the process no later than three years before you plan to close. Preferably you should start when you form the company.

Why so early? If you are an owner-operator, you will need to change your focus from maximizing the amount of cash and other compensation you generate from your company, to improving business valuation. A simple mathematical example drives home the point. Many companies are sold on a multiple based on earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (often referred to as “EBITDA”). If your business can be sold for five times EBITDA, that extra dollar in compensation will cost you five dollars in sale price.

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Recently, I have been doing a lot of work with a small business owner in San Jose. The more his business grew, the more stressed out he became. His fear of adding payroll to his company’s expenses was hampering the growth of his start-up company.

When you first start your own business, you will probably handle all of the daily tasks yourself. For a start-up company, staff of any kind is a luxury you probably cannot afford. As the business grows, however, and in order for it to grow, you cannot keep trying to do everything. Eventually, you will have too much on your plate and your service will suffer. So, before you harm the reputation of this new business you have been working so hard for, you need to divide the tasks into those that you have mastered and can systematize and train someone else to do, and those that should be done by professionals.

Tasks for Staff: Examine your financial situation and figure out how much staff you can afford, then invest in hiring good people. Teach those people how to do the tasks your way and let them run with it and report back to you when appropriate. Stay in touch with them so that you always have your finger on the pulse of your business and never become too dependent on any one employee. Growing your business in this way will provide greater independence for you, greater value for your company, and larger profits. When my San Jose start-up client hired his first salesman and saw that the company could progress without being completely dependent on his efforts, he became a much happier person.

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In Part 1 of this entry, I discussed problems that some of my Silicon Valley clients have had with improper choice of entity – either because the tax consequences weren’t considered, or because restrictions in the California Corporations Code or Business and Professions Code were not taken into account. Here are two more expensive mistakes that business owners make when they try to form their own corporation or LLC online.

1. Not doing the required securities filings.

Online sites may not tell you that if you fail to file California and/or Federal securities filings you could be in violation of securities laws resulting in tremendous personal liability to return funds to your investors, despite the liability shield the entity is supposed to provide. Sometimes by the time I get involved it is too late to fix this, but sometimes we can do a late filing and get some, if not all, of the protection it provides. Corporations, as well as some LLCs and partnerships, are securities and must be treated accordingly.

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I was in Los Gatos getting my hair cut this weekend and my hairdresser said something very interesting – he said that his best clients are the ones who try to do their hair themselves (especially their color) and then come to him to fix the mess they made. He said they are so grateful when he fixes the problem they created that they become clients for life. I am not the type of person to try to do my hair myself – too much risk for me. However, it struck a chord with me because it seems more and more I spend my time working with clients who have formed their own corporation or limited liability company through forms found on the internet, and then come to me to fix some problem they caused.

What is wrong with forming your own corporation or LLC online? Nothing, if you know what you are doing. However, most people who are starting a new business and need an entity do not specialize in forming companies. Here are two of the four most common (and costly) mistakes I have helped my Silicon Valley clients fix:

1. Picking the wrong type of entity — with disastrous tax consequences.

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