Other than planning, poor general accounting and bookkeeping practices were found to be the major cause of financial problems for the small business cases studied. Personnel A. Employees know what is expected of them. Surprisingly, many employees do not know what is expected of them. This appears to be true even when the employees are family members. In the SBI cases that dealt with personnel problems, this was also the case.
Poor communications can result in arguments, hurt feelings and poor performance.
Despite all that has been written on the importance of good communications in business, it is still a major problem. Each employee has only one supervisor. In most of the SBI cases that dealt with personnel issues, the major problems occurred when employees did not know who their boss was. The owners also were very confused about who reported to whom. A simple organizational chart can quickly solve this problem.