CLEVELAND - Skoda Minotti Technology Services Group has successfully fulfilled the requirements to become a 3CX Certified Partner. Earning this qualification validates the group's ability to offer the highest level of support for new and existing users of the 3CX phone system.

The 3CX phone system is an Internet Protocol (IP) Private branch exchange (PBX) system. An IP PBX is a business telephone system designed to deliver voice or video over a data network and interoperate with the normal Public...

In my 20+ years of assisting companies with marketing, I am continually surprised by the general misconception of what defines marketing.  I also don’t think managers truly see what marketing can do for their business. 

In the purest sense, marketing is the mix of activities required to get a product or service from conception to the end user.  These activities are typically described by marketers as the four P’s of marketing:  Product, Price, Physical distribution and Promotion.  Unfortunately...

July 5, 2011 – CLEVELAND – Skoda Minotti has acquired Cleveland marketing firm Hilty Moore & Associates, Inc. (HM&A) along with the company’s visual marketing division, BrandEyeD. The acquisition enhances the expertise and depth of marketing resources available to serve Skoda Minotti Marketing Services’ growing client base.

In addition to bringing enhanced marketing research expertise, the acquisition of HM&A will complement Skoda Minotti Marketing Services’ ability to provide marketing services,...

CLEVELAND – Skoda Minotti Strategic Marketing Group was recently recognized by the Association for Accounting Marketing for outstanding achievements in the areas of accounting marketing and communications. At the Association for Accounting Marketing – Marketing Achievement Awards (AAM-MAA) ceremony in Chicago, Ill., the Cleveland-based marketing services group was honored for its 2010 holiday greeting e-card entry.

Skoda Minotti’s holiday greeting e-card allowed the firm to significantly decrease...

Before I can explain to you how to get your site to the top of the rankings, I think it’s important for you to understand how any site gets to the top of the rankings. Knowing how search engines find websites is crucial to understanding how you can make your website more visible to search engines and, more importantly, to your potential clients.

Let’s say that you type into a search engine the search term, “Cleveland SEO Services”. Almost immediately, that search engine pulls up the web...

CLEVELAND – Skoda Minotti, a CPA, business and financial advisory firm, has once again been named a World Class Customer Service award winner, as presented by Smart Business Magazine. With this year’s award, Skoda Minotti became one of only four companies to have won this award in each of the five years since its inception.

“At Skoda Minotti, a key component of our firm’s vision is to create a culture of continually improving client service,” says Skoda Minotti partner, Mike Trabert, CPA. “This...

CLEVELAND – Skoda Minotti’s Professional Staffing Group is pleased to announce that it has expanded its professional staffing services. The group now provides services for contract, direct hire or term-to-hire positions, ranging from staff level to C-level executives, within the following areas of specialization:accounting and finance, C-level executives, engineering, human resources, information technology and sales and marketing.

Leading the newly expanding service offerings is Andrew Devore, a...

This month's Special Delivery e-newsletter includes the following articles:

• New Law Extends Favorable Capital Gain Rules
• How to Help Pay for College Education
• The Wrap-up for Wrap Fees
• Aurum Capital Markets Summary
• Repeal of Expanded 1099 Requirements
• Audio Book Club
• College Planning
• Advisor Insights Video Archive
• Delivering on the Promise

New Law Extends Favorable Capital Gain RulesThe tax rules for offsetting capital gains and losses can be confusing, even for experienced investors. Saving grace: The...

Essentially, SEO is the process of optimizing your website so that search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.) are able to find it more easily when internet users are searching for specific keywords and/or search terms. (Click here to read one of our recent posts on the basics of search engine optimization.)

When internet users are “surfing the web”, it’s really just common sense that you want them (potential customers) to find your business’s website when they are searching for your specific...

This month's Special Delivery E-Newsletter includes the following articles:

• Key Provisions in the New Tax Act
• What Business Entity is Best for You?
• Tax Breakdown of Interest Expenses
• Summary of Key Tax Changes for 2011
• New Tax Relief Act Creates Dramatic Gifting Opportunities
• Many Smaller Employers Will Have to Use EFTPS for Payroll Tax Deposits
• Aurum Capital Markets Summary
• Understanding the Energy Efficient Deduction
• College Planning
• Audio Book Club

Key Provisions in the New Tax Act

The recent tax...

This issue of the Real Estate Monitor includes the following articles:

• Understanding the Energy Efficient Tax Deduction
• New Requirements for Asbestos Surveys from the Ohio Department of Health
• Housing: Affordability of Home Ownership
• Deductions: Passive Losses
• Mortgage Loans: New Rules
• Housing: Residential Ground Leases
• Securities: No Liability Under Securities Exchange Act
• Cleveland Market Overview

Understanding the Energy Efficient Tax Deduction

Skoda Minotti, along with CLS Facility Services, invites...

December 20, 2011 – CLEVELAND – Skoda Minotti, a CPA, business and financial advisory firm, is pleased to announce that Michael Trabert, CPA, CVA, CMAP, a partner with Skoda Minotti’s Transaction Advisory Services Group has recently earned the Chartered Merger & Acquisition Professional (CMAP) credential, awarded by the Middle Market Investment Banking Association (MMIBA) and endorsed by the National Association of Certified Valuation Analysts (NACVA).

MMIBA is an organization established to...

This issue of the Real Estate Monitor includes the following articles:

• Survey of Northeast Ohio's Construction & Real Estate Industries
• Communicating the Value of Development Projects Through Economic Impact Analysis
• The Outlook for Construction and Real Estate
• Commercial Real Estate: How Will Refinancing Take Place?
• Proposed New Accounting Rules
• Due Diligence: Purchase With Care
• Leases Checking: Property Tax Invoices 
• Upholding a Letter of Intent
• Cleveland Market Overview

Survey of Northeast Ohio's...

Advisor Insights

For the past several months, our Real Estate and Construction Group has been authoring a monthly column in Builders Exchange Magazine that offers advice to real estate and construction professionals.

So far this year, the following topics have been covered:

• The Benefits of Subprime Bonding  
• Selecting and Implementing Financial Software  
• The Value of a Niche Marketing Plan
• Lessons Learned From the Construction Industry  
• Cancellation of Debt Income
• Preventing Financial Fraud 
   

Keep...

Accounting and Tax Ramifications of Issuing Stock Options

 Click here to view Part 1 of our series and learn more about the stock option landscape.

To give you more perspective, first let us review the accounting treatment for the issuance of stock options (rest easy - this will not be too painful). When stock options are issued, an expense must be recorded based on the value of the option. A stock option’s value is derived from a variety of factors, two of which are the value of the stock as of...

2010 Real Estate and Construction Survey

Skoda Minotti is conducting our 3rd annual survey of the Northeast Ohio real estate and construction industries. Every participant who completes the questionnaire will receive a free copy of the survey results and analysis and have a chance to win a $50 gift card to Dick's Sporting Goods.

The goal of the survey is to provide professionals in the real estate and construction industries in Northeast Ohio with the invaluable insight into their industries.

As...

Whether it is through acquisition or organic growth, more and more of today’s companies have the ability to offer numerous services and/or products to multiple target audiences across vastly different industries.

However, according to Jonathan Ebenstein, the managing director of Skoda Minotti’s  strategic marketing services group, all too often companies are using a shotgun approach to marketing, when a rifle-based solution is needed.

“In other words, you can’t use the same...

Advisor Insights

This month, our monthly Advisor Insights column in Smart Business Cleveland Magazine takes a look at lessons learned from the restaurant industry.

The restaurant industry is still feeling the sting of the recession, and the general consensus is that consumers are very pessimistic about 2010.Therefore, restaurants have had to adapt to survive as their longtime patrons trim their dining-out budgets.

What can other industries learn from the restaurant industries struggles? Click here...