We know that many of you work in smaller companies, where your responsibilities often spread far beyond the traditional areas of management and financial accounting. You've told us that your employers turn to you for advice on subjects as diverse as incentive plans, raising capital, setting credit policy and choosing insurance. A surprising number of you are not only accountants, controllers or CFOs of small firms, you're also in charge of human resources or information technology-sometimes even both! You have to deal with the company owners and minority shareholders, outside accountants, bankers, brokers, insurance agents and more. Yet being in a small company can be more professionally isolating than in a large firm. There are fewer colleagues in your profession to bounce ideas off and sometimes no one to turn to for knowledgeable, impartial advice. Many of you told us you would like a way to reach out to other IMA members in similar positions at other companies. And you wanted practical, how-to information that could help you handle your day-to-day responsibilities and decision-making. The result was the Small Business Council.

The Small-Business Council focuses on the special needs of IMA members working in small firms. It also deals with the unique issues that arise in closely held companies, since many small companies are owned by one person, a family or a small group.

Membership in the Small-Business Council provides several options for acquiring current information and networking with peers, such as:

• Reading Small-Business Update, the monthly newsletter that keeps you up-to-date on what your counterparts in other companies are thinking and doing. Each month's issue covers different topics of interest to you. We welcome your responses to articles that appear in the newsletter, and are open to your suggestions for future articles. We want you to think of Small-Business Update as your newsletter.
• Utilizing our interactive online service known as the Small-Business Council E-Mail Exchange. If you're connected to the Internet, you're connected to other Small-Business Council members. Obtaining helpful answers to your tough question or problem is as simple as sending one e-mail message to a central address, which is then distributed to all participating members. The responses you receive back from your colleagues will allow their experience to work for you.

If you are already an IMA member and would like to join a Member Interest Group, please call 1-800-638-4427, or by e-mail at ima@imanet.org. If you're not an IMA member please go to the IMA Membership Application. You can join a MIG at the same time.