Dealing with a death in the business

It sucks to think about, but bad things do happen in small businesses. I had been a managing partner of a two-person LLC for four years before my partner got terminally ill. While we tried to anticipate the contingencies that would come up with his passing, we missed out on some key issues. Hopefully, you won't have to deal with a partner's death, but maybe you can learn something from what I've found out. Fortunately for us, I have had the role of business manager from the get-go. So I know all our banking passwords, our quarterly tax needs, when to pay which bills, and that sort of thing. If you're in a partnership business, make sure you have a central list (hand-written, of course) of your passwords to various websites. If my partner had been responsible for paying taxes, managing our money and doing invoicing, I wouldn't have had a clue where to start to look for all those sites, deadlines and passwords that I keep in my head. Enter tax filing deadlines on a shared calendar. Make sure you call your accountant as soon as you are ready; she will have a number of suggestions for you as you transition ownership structure of the business. In my case, it makes since to stick around as an LLC. But my tax implications have shot WAY up, since my income will nearly double (since it’s no longer a two-way-split). We had a credit card through our business. However, we were not set up as joint administrators. So I had to close the account (and lose all the miles accumulated!) and re-open a new one. That is never quick. So for a month now, I have had to rely on cash reserves for reimbursable client expenses. If we had set our credit card up as a joint-administration account, I could have kept the card open, and gotten around to using the accumulated miles! When my partner went into the hospital, I set myself up to receive a copy of all of his incoming email. When I did that, I found out that he'd never used anything but his primary work email address to sign up on every list from every place he'd ever been. My inbox has been overloaded with restaurant specials, vacation deals, and a million other non-work related issues. I can't stress enough how much easier it would have been had we established a "work" and "personal" email system. One of the ongoing headaches is regarding our health insurance. Not in terms of claims, but in terms of getting him off of the bill! I have filled out forms, talked to my plan’s auditor, and emailed copies of the death certificate, but they still haven’t figured it out. I can’t imagine what a nightmare it would be if I hadn’t been the plan administrator. Surprisingly, the easiest thing to shut off was the cell phone. I have heard hellish stories about people trying to get out of their plan early, but I got to give my shout outs to T-Mobile, for being very understanding, reasonable and prompt. Those are some things that I have learned from this experience. Of course, dealing with a death in terms of your relationship with your clients is going to be a personal issue, and fortunately, my clients have been very understanding. As my interactions with my clients return to more normal business rather than exchanges of sympathy, I’ll see how understanding they really are. P.S. – I value all of the support that I have gotten from fellow Bizniks, and I will be continuing with all of my endeavors, and moving forward after finishing up with all the books under contract. 2008-05-19T21:16:04Z

2008-05-20T19:54:17Z

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dealing-with-a-death-in-the-business

2008-05-20T19:53:46Z

What happens when one of your partners isn't there any more? Some tips that I have learned from dealing with my business partner's death.

Dealing with a death in the business

2009-02-24T09:44:27Z