Basic Accounting

Tax codes change every year. It’s complicated for seasoned accounting professionals. The average small business owner is expected, however, to keep up with the tax code changes if they don’t have an accounting professional in their corner to help them plan their tax statements.

Misunderstanding Automobile Deductions

If you have a van dedicated to delivery of your products, it’s simple to deduct 100% of the costs of owning and operating the vehicle. But most small business owners use their cars interchangeably with business and personal needs. A professional can help you understand the difference between standard mileage deductions from business mile deductions.

Tracking Deductible Expenses

Every small business owner does not have the luxury to have a company credit card for business spending and a personal credit card for personal spending. A lot of small business owners, use their credit cards and cash interchangeably for business and personal use. Unfortunately, most fail to keep accurate receipts of spending that was for the purpose of the business versus personal spending.

Record Keeping

Record keeping has been a thorn in the side of small business owner’s probably since the advent of the tax income system. Inappropriate record keeping can lead to audits from the IRS or missing out on deductions that you could have included on your tax returns. Simply saving receipts in an organized $5 file cabinet could save you thousands.

Employees as Contractors

Small businesses do this so they don’t have to pay payroll taxes on them, cover them in their pension plans or provide them with medical insurance. If you’re filing your payroll tax returns and paying payroll taxes on time, you may never get a payroll tax audit. But if you do then you may have payroll taxes due for those people going back three y Read more

Nowadays, one can hardly find a business organization or any company that is making profits without the assistance of outsourcing services. As a matter of fact, in this highly combative society, it has become completely impossible for an organization to even survive in the market without taking help from outsourcing companies. This scenario has been developed, because the outsourcing services are one great resource of gaining quality work in due duration at reasonable price. And by now, the provision of outsourcing has been widely accepted by the entire industrial and development fraternity. Every company is seeking this assistance to give new dimensions to their work strategy and progress rate, which in turn has augmented the demand of outsourcing services, especially in the field of accounting. Accounting is undoubted a laborious and grueling job, where no compromises can be made with the efficiency and quality of the work. Therefore, this huge demand is greatly satiated by the facilities of accounting outsourcing in India.

Let us now focus on the issue that why only India has gained this supremacy of the most favored outsourcing services provider. As we know that every organizations works on the economic theory of optimum utilization of resources to ensure the highest rate of productivity. However this theory loses its value when the internal resources of a company are inefficient and less qualified. And this sort of incompetence has led the emergence of outsourcing, which is nowadays is mostly served by India. One can state that accounting outsourcing in India has series of reasons for its well establish position . First of all, the huge manpower is its biggest support. Many well qualified accounting experts are getting seriously involved in this profession. Secondly, the charges quoted by the Indian outsourcing firms are superbly affordabl Read more

Wondering whether you’ll be able to get a loan for your business? Getting a business loan is one of the toughest tasks to accomplish for a company owner. Although banks represent a very cost effective source of funds, they are very selective about the customers they take. This is especially true nowadays were commercial credit at banks is very tight. Most banks will only provide business loans to companies that have a solid track record and substantial assets. But, what if your company does not meet the banks criteria? What is you are a startup or if your company does not have traditional assets such as real estate? One business financing alternative that has been recently gaining traction could be the right solution for you. It’s called accounts receivable financing.

Accounts receivable financing, commonly called factoring, is a type of financing that helps companies that need to wait 30 to 60 days to get their invoices paid. It provides funds to pay employees and suppliers while you wait to get paid by your commercial clients. Accounts receivable factoring is different than a business loan because the factoring company does not lend you money. Rather, the factoring company advances you money based on your open invoices and gets paid once your customer pays.

A typical transaction would work as follows. Once you deliver your product and send the invoice to the client, you submit a copy of the invoice for financing. Within one to two business days, the factoring company advances you about 80% of the invoice. Once your client submits the payment in full for the invoice, you get the remaining 20% less a small fee charged for the service. Costs are usually determined based on the size of the financing line and can go from 2% to 5% for 30 days depending on the specific details of the transaction.

One of the major benefits of receivables Read more

So, you’ve started your own online or offline small business and everything is good! Wait a minute! Have you given any thought as to how you are going to keep track of the money you make? If you have a degree in accounting, you’ll do fine but how many of us are CGA’s? You’ll need the proper resources and possibly the right software to download onto your computer and then of course, learn the basic accounting procedures. This isn’t really that difficult but it is essential to the success of your business.

Step 1. Decide how you want want to keep your accounting records. Some people still prefer to use a pen and paper and that’s okay, but using a computerized system can be more helpful if you want to read reports on income, profit/loss etc. If you know nothing about accounting, it might be a good idea to take a simple course to familiarize yourself with the accounting terms. Some business owners would rather have someone else do their accounting for them, and if this is the case with you, it still does not hurt to take a crash course in accounting so you have a good hands on idea how your business is being handled and where your hard-earned money is going. The software you purchase should be based on the size of your company. For instance, if you have employees, you’ll need a payroll program included in the software or if you wish to generate invoices or payable checks, you must have a program that enables you to do that. Before purchasing a software program, make a list of all of your business’ accounting needs and cross-reference these needs to a suitable software accounting program.

Step 2. There are many accounting software programs out there but the stickler is to find the one that’s right for your particular business. Some programs require alot of knowledge of the debit and credit system and accounting terms, while others are Read more

The services of accountants are becoming more expensive and scarce. Many medium to large accounting firms around the globe have collapsed due to disciplinary procedures and blatant corruption. Innocent businesses lost their accounting firms due to investigations from authorities into malfeasance related to other corporations.

The admission to the industry is becoming tighter, with rigid exams, and even harsher requirements for practicing accountants and auditors. The pool of available practicing accountants is becoming smaller as a consequence of regulation.

It is nevertheless, not impossible to find the ideal firm. I emphasize, firm, not an individual accountant. Respective bodies stringently control an accountants advertising, but most of them are not precluded from advertising in the Yellow Pages or newspapers. A website for an accountant is the most viable form of advertising. So if you search through your Yellow Pages, newspapers or a search engine on the web, you will find a number of firms offering their services to the public.

Follow this guideline when selecting your firm.

If you a small to medium business, identify a small to medium firm.

Opt for a firm or company that is registered. The number of partners is immaterial.

Professional Practice/office. Offices with proper infrastructure, such as modern computer equipment, software, fax machines, telephones, and Internet and e-mail facilities.

Library. Does not have to be a huge library, even a bookcase with relevant reading material on tax, GAAP, labor, will suffice. This indicates that the firm keeps up to date with legal developments.

Archiving. Proper storage facilities for your documents and files.

Working, permanent and operational files, is a good yardstick to gauge professionalism.

Skills. Are the partners indeed skill Read more

Outsourcing bookkeeping services has been the trend among business almost anywhere around the globe. And so there are a lot of companies and individuals offering their hand in bookkeeping. Companies have often taken many of these offers because they have seen the benefits it does bring to a company. Many companies have realized greater company profits and company growth by employing the strategy of outsourcing their bookkeeping.

Normally, bookkeeping service for businesses in Miami would just be based in Miami but the scope of the work they do is not. They can serve other parts of the country and even other parts of the world. That is the advantage of the technology we have today. A company anywhere in the world can have their bookkeeping service be handled by another company. They would be able to trim down their employee count and they would be able to trim down their operating costs. Capital investment would also cut down.

Outsourcing bookkeeping service from Miami to elsewhere would be a good solution to starting companies or to those who are faced with a sudden lack of personnel in this area. Instead of investing in building a team of bookkeepers in their own company they can simply hire bookkeeping service Miami and continue doing what they do best. They will have better chances of building their business if they concentrate on their core activities and on the production of their products instead of putting so much effort and concentrating in the procurement of a solid bookkeeping team.

Companies would need the expertise of and experienced bookkeeper to have an accurate and well organized financial records. That is what they will get if they outsource bookkeeping. What’s even better is that these companies and their employees usually are updated to new technology and new tools of today. Providing bookkeeping services is their Read more