ESCONDIDO -- Gina Castellón longs for the days when she was running a successful tortillería on West 2nd Avenue.

The Mexico native is holding on to her small business of ten years -- but just barely.

Sales are down. She's had to lay off employees and owes thousands of dollars to the IRS. Until recently she was thinking of selling Mi Rancho Tortillería.

But walking away from a family business that once grossed $500,000 annually is not easy.

"I went all the way down. Now I am trying to lift myself up," said Castellón, who is in her fifties.

She blames her struggles on the shaky economy, higher corn prices and increased competition from other tortillerías in the area.

She is just as quick to blame her lack of financial planning for her troubles, however.

"I did it according to whatever came to mind instead of getting oriented on what I should do," she said.

Her office is in the rear of the kitchen where a few employees and family members make thousands of tortillas daily beginning before dawn.

Castellón hopes it's not too late to save her business and took a step in the right direction recently by attending a business management workshop for Spanish-speakers. Organized by Listo Tax Solutions in Escondido, the focus of the workshop was managing your business more efficiently to save money. Things like reporting all income and payroll information came up. So did filing all paperwork on time to avoid penalties.

Paula Cathcart, manager of Listo Tax Solutions, says many Latinos have difficulties following the rules and regulations that govern small businesses because they don't speak English well and/or lack financial education. This puts their businesses in jeopardy when they take on more debt than they can handle or fail to make timely and accurate reports and payments to the IRS, she said.

Financial literacy emerged as a key issue in a survey of 138 small to mid-sized Latino-owned businesses in the nation last year by Sage North America, a business management software company.

One-fifth of those surveyed could not identify the most important cost that their business needed to get under control. Seventy-five percent said they needed to know more about tax payments. Seventy-one percent said they needed to learn more about financial planning.

One-third said they didn't like dealing with tax compliance. Eight in ten said they preferred focusing on their customers.

Sage North America officials noted that the number of Latino-owned businesses was growing at a rate two to three times faster than those owned by the general population but the survey showed they could benefit from increasing their financial literacy.

Castellón hopes that's the case. Listo Tax Solutions is now doing her accounting and will check to see if she can reduce what she owes to the IRS or work out a payment schedule she can meet.

Castellón is also getting help from her oldest daughter, Karina Castellón, 23. She is helping her look for new clients.

She believes the business is worth fighting for.

"Just because we're struggling doesn't mean we have to throw it all away," Karina said.

Leonel.sanchez@sandiegored.com