Services Rendered Taxes, payroll, whatever--Century Small Business Solutions has the resources to do it.

The job's not finished until the paperwork's done--justask any beleaguered business owner who toils away at the hugenumber of reports, returns, addenda and whatever else regulatoryauthorities have decided is required.

I spend at least 15 percent of my productive hours dealing withaccounting, payroll, taxes, benefits, insurance, billing and checkwriting. I've often considered outsourcing these functions so Icould spend my time earning a living.

Meeting this need is the specific intention of Century SmallBusiness Solutions, the No. 1 accounting and tax services franchisein Entrepreneur's 1999 Franchise 500®. Thisfranchisor is part of a much larger organization, Century BusinessServices Inc., that has merged, mutated and coalesced to nowinclude more than 160 different companies, which, combined, offer amarket basket of business services.

The most noteable additions were three separate franchisesystems--namely Comprehensive Accounting Corp., General BusinessServices Inc. and Edwin K. Williams and Co. These acquisitions,finalized last summer, put more than 700 additional franchiseesunder the Century Business Services umbrella. Although existingfranchisees from the acquired systems retain their names, all newfranchises will be called Century Small Business Solutions.

The addition of these resources allows franchisees to utilizethe best components of each former franchise system, making itpossible for them to provide complicated services to customers thatwould have otherwise been turned away.

Todd Maddocks is a franchise attorney and small-businessconsultant. You canreach him at TMaddocks@aol.com

At Your Service

Because franchisees in this system must deal with the finerpoints of paperwork, they're required to be accountants or havecommensurate business experience. The franchisor doesn't teachaccounting--instead, training at the company's facility inMission Viejo, California, covers processing clients, practicemanagement, product knowledge, human resources and marketing.

Franchisees are required to open an office during the first sixmonths of their initial 10-year contract. Item 7 of the UniformFranchise Offering Circular estimates that your initial investment,including $35,000 in initial fees, will range as high as $62,925,but that assumes only $1,000 per month for office space. If youhave an existing accounting, bookkeeping, tax or consulting firm,the cost will be about $15,000 less, and you won't have to payroyalties on business from your existing clients.

The royalty structure is quite innovative--it fluctuatesdepending on your sales volume and tenure with the organization.For example, every five years that a franchisee remains in thesystem, the royalty drops one percentage point. The percentage(from a minimum monthly dollar amount to as high as 8 percent ofgross sales) also decreases as sales volume increases.

Although it may seem to burden the franchisees who can leastafford to pay the higher royalties, the scheme actually makessense, as under-performing franchisees usually require moreassistance. This royalty structure also motivates franchisees tomeet the various volume benchmarks offered in the franchiseagreement.

Being able to offer a bundle of services from a 600-square-footoffice makes sense. A final bonus: Providing business services togrowing companies can open the door to a lot of other businessopportunities. For more information, contact Bob Whissler,president, at (800)323-9000.