5 Important responsibilities to have a Successful Annual Meeting

In order to have a successful annual meeting at your company, you will need to be aware of the 5 important responsibilities that are needed. You started your company in the hopes to provide a service, product, or both and receive a profit. When you started your company you were looking forward to seeing money in your checking account, a good customer list, and easy to work with vendors. At times it didn’t seem like that was happening. Other times, it was smooth sailing. You were able to get the answers you wanted just by asking the bookkeeper, the service manager, or installation manager, or salesman. If you are the sole owner of the business, you can do it that way. If you have other shareholders, or creditors to answer to, it is not that easy.

You need to be able to answer questions about your business and how it is operating. You will need to know where you spent the money, and how much of it was spent on Cost of Goods, and Overhead. You will need to explain why the % profit is where it is. Whether it is within industry standards, or not, and why not. You will need to review all of your departments and breakdown their budgets versus actual sales and spending.

In a corporate annual meeting, there is a board of directors who were voted in by the Shareholders to oversee the running of the company. If you are a Director, then you will be presenting it to the Shareholders. If you are a Shareholder also, then you will be approving the company’s revenue and expenses for the prior fiscal or calendar year.

A Shareholders position with the company is to receive study and approve the company’s balance sheet and other financial statements submitted by the directors. Some firms provide an auditor’s report showing that they have been checked for accuracy. If you are a Director, then it is your fiduciary duty to make sure that the financial statements being presented are accurate and reflect the actual business of the company. No forward looking statements are to be included in this segment. Shareholders need to know where they stand in regards to receiving a premium on their investment. This is not the time to create fluff in accounting to provide a better looking statement. It is what it is.

As a Shareholder it is your duty to be sure you understand how the company is making its money, and if it is just on paper or do they have cash. As a Shareholder, the company may want you to invest more money in order to continue doing business. You want to be sure you understand just what is behind the numbers.

Unfortunately, for the publicly traded companies, Shareholders in them do not get to ask the tough questions and find out what how the accounting is being done to produce the financial statements they receive in their annual report. Although it may have an auditor’s report with it, there have been companies that have failed doing the very same thing.

Be sure to take this responsibility serious if you want to be a Shareholder.