Wednesday, November 19th, 6:30 PM - 8:00 PM

Parkway Central Library, Room 108

1901 Vine Street, 19103

Join us to discuss tax planning techniques for your business. 

This workshop will cover: 

• How to plan and prepare for taxes
• How record keeping minimizes your tax liability and preparation expenses
• Important deduction/credits to note (also difference between deduction and credit)
• And much more!

Click here to register or call 215-686-5394 for more information. 

Attention Inventors!

We are pleased to announce that we are compiling a list for future free Patent/Trademark/Copyright consultations with Mr. John S. Child, Jr., attorney with the law firm Paul and Paul of Philadelphia. Mr. Child specializes in Patent, Trademark and Copyright Law.

We plan to offer these free one-on-one consultations on a quarterly basis at the Parkway Central branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia at 1901 Vine Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103.  We hope to offer the next session at the beginning of 2015.

If you would like to be on the waiting list, please respond to erefbsi@freelibrary.org with your name, email, and a phone number.

Small Business, NAICS, SIC & You

Are you thinking of opening a small business? Find out what you need to know about NAICS and SIC codes before you open. 

NAICS

NAICS stands for the North American Industry Classification System. It is the current standard used by the federal government for classifying businesses. It groups establishments into industries based on the similarity of their products, services, and production.  The system was adopted in 1997 and updated in 2007 and again in 2012. More specific industries have more numbers. For an example of the tiered arrangement, visit this page explaining the NAICS definition of "Accommodation and Food Services" (72) via the U.S. Census, the official NAICS site.

SIC

SIC, or the Standard Industrial Classification, is a classification system similar to NAICS in that they both classify establishments by their primary type of activity. SIC was replaced by NAICS in 1997, but several data sets are still available with SIC-based data. One major difference between SIC and NAICS classification is that SIC tends to be broader where the NAICS is more specific, especially when it comes to new and emerging industries. 

If given a choice to use the NAICS or SIC when conducting business research choose the NAICS code because it is newer and will have the most up to date industry information, statistics, and news. 

These codes are used in the Economic Census and in different databases including Business Insights: Global, Reference USA, and others.

To look up a code for a particular industry, visit the official NAICS website via Census.gov and do a keyword search for your industry.

Conversion tables for NAICS and SIC are available here and here.

Why do you need to know your NAICS and SIC codes?

• Writing your business plan: Competitors Report, Market Analysis
• Industry Research: Many business databases and other research tools use industry codes to classify and organize industries.

Librarians in the Business, Science & Industry Department are available to assist you in finding you industry codes using print and online resources, including databases. Remember, we're always open online! 

215-686-5394

erefbsi@freelibrary.org