On March 11, 2021, President Biden signed into law H.R. 1319 – the American Rescue Plan Act (the "Act"), which provides approximately $1.9 trillion in further support and stimulus to individuals, businesses and other organizations, as well as state and local governments affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Here are selected highlights that may be relevant for employers. The Act contains many different funding and support programs beyond what is described below.

Victims of Hurricane Ida in parts of New York and New Jersey now have until early January to file various federal individual and business returns and make tax payments. The relief, comparable to that provided last week to Ida victims in Louisiana, is for any area designated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency as qualifying for individual or public assistance.

To get started investing, pick a strategy based on the amount you'll invest, the timelines for your investment goals, and the amount of risk that makes sense for you. Rent, utility bills, debt payments and groceries might seem like all you can afford when you're just starting out. But once you've mastered budgeting for those monthly expenses (and set aside at least a little cash in an emergency fund), it's time to start investing. The tricky part is figuring out what to invest in — and how much.

After a strenuous year and a half, many small businesses have been eager to restart their businesses in the wake of the pandemic. In a recent poll, 58% of small business owners said they were looking to increase the frequency of their marketing message in Q2 of 2021, while nearly half said things were already better for them now compared to a year ago.

Many small business owners and start up entrepreneurs refuse professional bookkeeping services because they want to do it themselves and/or save money.  This is certainly admirable and understandable.

In more than 20 years of working with small and medium business owners, I’ve noticed one common thread. Unless the owner is an accountant themselves, none of them went into business because they had a burning desire to do all the bookkeeping and other accounting work themselves. In fact, I’d say that most small business owners would rather avoid it like the plague, including myself.

Payroll can be a challenging task for any small business but with the right tools, it can become easy and routine. There are a number of best practices for payroll management you can follow to keep you and your employees happy. We asked experts to share employee payroll tips for a healthy, sustainable small business. Here are 7 expert employee payroll tips for small business owners:

Bookkeeping is a vital part of any business, but it can be easy to push aside for more immediate priorities. Customer orders to fill. Clients to meet. Inventory to order. These are things that must be done to keep your business running. Bookkeeping is easy to push to the side. However, delays in managing your books can end up costing you. For example, if you do your own accounting on top of managing your business, you’ll find yourself behind and wasting time when it’s time to file your taxes. You’ll end up paying a premium to have an accountant clean everything up at tax time.

Dads. They’re full of advice. Some of it invaluable and some of it, well, frankly out of date. To celebrate Father’s Day, we rounded up a few of Dad’s pearls of wisdom that are more like wooden nickels in this day and age. Dad says: “Find a solid company and work there until you retire.” Our parents’ generation often stayed with one employer for their entire career. Changing jobs every few years would look bad on a resume. Today, that type of loyalty to one company may be not only difficult to achieve, but a really bad idea.

TOPLINE  The Internal Revenue Service said Monday it has begun sending letters to more than 36 million families likely eligible to receive payments starting in July under the newly expanded Child Tax Credit—one of the major antipoverty initiatives in President Biden’s stimulus plan—and announced the dates those payments are expected to hit bank accounts.