Basic Accounting

By now, you could well be aware of low cost accountants offering accountancy and taxation services via the internet. These professionals could well be situated in a large office building with years of reputation behind them. However, the converse could also be true, they could be a sole trader working from a bedroom at home, or even from a garage in the back garden.

However, what exactly is all the fuss about. More and more professionals are working from home, so why should stigma be attached to an accountant who works from home. In my opinion, it makes no difference at all. Accountants have set continual professional development to perform each and every year to make sure that their skills are kept up to date, so this would suggest that as long as you find yourself an accountant who is a member of a professional body, then you should have more chance of success.

With this in mind, I am now going to suggest the type of people that should be using the online low cost accountants.

The people I suggest that should use low cost online accountants are either sole traders or sole directors of limited companies who work from home. The concept behind the tax and accountancy affairs of such individuals or businesses is, although not exactly straight forward, the type of thing that most accountants should come across on a daily basis and so should be well within their remit and should cause them very little trouble.

For example, the following services will be required:

Abbreviated Accounts for Companies House

Full Accounts for Shareholders

CT600 Corporation Tax Return

SA100 Self Assessment Income Tax Return

Annual Return

Payroll for 1 Director

Apart from some fairly rudimentary bookkeeping, all of the above can be produced fairly quickly, cheaply and effectively, i.e. at low cost. You’ll require fairly low maintenance throughout the year, just the odd bit of advice over the telephone or via email.

On the other hand, for a larger limited company in the manufacturing sector with say fifty employees, large volumes of debtors and creditors that require constant management, work in progress, raw materials, consignment stock, foreign exchange differences, then you should forget about low cost accountants found online. Your accounts will need to be produced in a controlled, orderly manner, otherwise you could experience severe difficulties. In my opinion, low cost accountants found online are not for you, well, that is unless you just use the low cost accountants to produce the final accounts. If you take care of literally everything else yourself, and just use the cheap accountants to format your figures and produce a neat and tidy set of year end accounts, then there could be savings to be made. For instance, I’ve know such businesses pay £3000 per annum for a neat and tidy set of accounts. In my opinion, the cost of this could easily be reduced by a couple of thousand pounds per annum, under the right circumstances.

However, as always, before you enter into any business relationship, do your homework first and find out as much as you can about your potential advisor. A bad decision could be costly.

Quick Tax Advice on PAYE System

At one point or another, we’re all bound to question the taxation system and seek tax advice appropriate for whatever situation we’re in. The Pay As You Earn (PAYE) system is one income tax payment program that almost every employee in the UK has to follow.

If you have concerns or problems with PAYE, don’t hesitate to ask your employer or HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC). But what actually is PAYE? For all those not in the know, particularly those living in Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and England, read on.

Why Does PAYE Matter? Tax Advice for Employees

The Pay As You Earn system is a scheme for paying taxes and national insurance. According to the system, your employer takes off a certain amount from your salary or pension to pay off both national insurance contributions and income tax.

What tax advice workers usually look for is how PAYE works when you’re new at a job. If you’ve just started with a job or have just begun receiving your pension, your company or pension provider has to know what your tax code is. If you filed the P45 form with a previous employer, your new company can use information on that to make the right deductions, provided that you filled out the P45 within the same taxation year.

On the other hand, if you just got out of being unemployed and received contributory Employment and Support Allowance or Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA), present the P45U provided by Jobcentre Plus to your new employer.

Tax Advice for People Who Don’t Have the P45U or P45

There are several possible reasons for not having the P45 or the P45U. You may have:

· Been unemployed but didn’t receive JSA or the contributory ESA

· Not been given the P45 by the previous employer

· Lost the form

However, don’t worry if you have none of these documents. If this is the case, your current employer will let you fill out a P46 form or ask information needed for the said form. The P46 is a form for temporarily deducting tax using an emergency code until HMRC works out the correct code.

Tax Advice for People Who are Resigning from Their Jobs

There’s tax advice for that, too. Whether you quit your job voluntarily, due to dismissal, or because of retirement, your employer is obliged to hand you a P45 form. Among the information included in the P45 are:

· Total amount deducted from your pay throughout the tax year

· Your tax code

· Employer’s tax reference number

· Employer’s tax office

If an emergency code has been used to take off the amount from your wages, the P46 will show an X mark on the box designated for month 1 or week 1. There will also be no details about your tax.

Lastly, if your employer doesn’t give you a P45 form, get in touch with the nearest tax office as they can encourage the employer to provide the form. If your attempts at persuading the employer are unsuccessful, another tax advice is to use the P46 from your new employer.

Having worked for the Internal Revenue Service for 10 years as an Instructor, there are a few acid tests Revenue Officers/Agents will use when working a taxpayers’ case in their inventory. I also want to mention that when I was an instructor at the IRS, this was the first bit of instruction I would give to Revenue Officers coming on board. “Assume the taxpayers are lying.” While this is a bit of an over statement on my part, you should know that as an IRS Agent, “taxpayers on a regular basis never tells the whole truth”. While some taxpayers are as honest as the day is long, most are deceiving – and in that case you must dig further for the truth.

Therefore going into each case, these three acid tests are the fastest and quickest ways to spot liars and deceivers.

Three main tips:

1. Make sure the bank statements, tax return, financial statements all have a common thread of income. While there are many exceptions to this rule because of changing circumstances i.e. loss of jobs, life events, generally the money you deposit in your bank needs to tie into your current wages and your income information on your tax return. If this doesn’t match up, you can bet your last dollar, IRS will investigate further to see if there may be hidden income. Also your cost of living should be in line with your wages. Exceptions exist such as you are borrowing money or living on savings.

2. IRS can and will pull credit reports to verify monthly payments you are making on other debt or assets. Many people who try to hide and/or deceive the government, will buy money order or cashiers checks. A smart IRS Agent will pull credit reports to verify your IRS financial statement with items found on your credit report.

3. IRS will check through credit reports for loan applications submitted to banks, car dealerships or other financial institutions to verify income and assets. IRS will compare the financial statement you gave the financial institution with the financial statement you submitted to IRS. It should match up; however this is rarely the case.

While this is not a comprehensive list, however, IRS knows where to look for lies and deception and they will find it.

Always turn in a truthful financial statement to the IRS.

Anytime you deal with the IRS, it is always wise to seek reputable professional counsel.

Internal Revenue Services, or commonly known as IRS, is a tax collection agency that implements harsh actions and penalties on the people who turn out to be tax evaders. If you are in a condition that you have to deal with IRS, then you should consider some professional help. The help can be sought at Internet as there are many online tax help firms that help you solve your tax related problems. These agencies have highly qualified professionals that can solve your IRS tax problems. These individuals, apart from filling your income tax return, will also help by speaking on your behalf and negotiate with federal officials to increase your tax rebate.

If you are planning to deal with IRS on your own, then it can be very disturbing and difficult.

When you get to know that you have taxes that are overdue and you will not be able to repay them on time, then you might start accumulating late charges and other funds as penalties. It is very important to take control of unpaid taxes as these can get out of control very quickly.

If you are determined to work on your tax issues on your own, then you have to deal with IRS and work out on payment arrangements. It should be noted that IRS is an agency that is very strict with its policies and is very rigid to any change.

The most important thing that is required while dealing with IRS is honesty. You have to trustful and should not lie in any case. Any lie spoken, will be caught and you will put to adverse penalties. Honesty is the only policy that can help you go further and can help you plan an action through which you can pay back the money that you owe to IRS.

You should keep in mind that it is very difficult to reduce your tax debt on your own. You should use a tax debt relief specialist, as he will help you all along the process.

There are many complicated issues, which you may encounter while dealing with IRS and there are many paper filling that needs proper assistance.

So if you are looking for a professional attorney to work on your IRS related Tax debt relief, then these are some factors that should be kept in mind:

- The attorney that you are hiring should have years on experience and should be a specialist in the related field.

- If needed, you can take references from other lawyers to find the best-suited lawyer.

IRS tax debt relief is something that can be handled in many different ways. If you are dealing with your debt on your own, then it is very necessary to make proper preparations. But a professional help is always suggested. In case if you are in the middle of the discussion with IRS, then also you can hire an attorney as in such cases the IRS stops and reschedules the discussion.

Owe IRS – IRS Financial Statements 433A, 433F, Seen through the eyes of IRS Agents -

IRS Insider

As a former IRS Agent and Instructor at the Regional Training Facility, please be aware that IRS Agents are trained to find errors and misstated facts on the financial statements turned over to IRS to settle collection cases.

These financial statements are Forms 433A- which is used primarily by Revenue Officers out in the field, and Form 433F used exclusively by the ASC Unit at the different IRS call centers.

IRS Agents are trained to look for inconsistencies on the financial statement itself. The first question the Agent asks, does this financial statement make sense? Does the income and expenses tie into the tax return and bank statements? This is usually the first step completed by the reviewing Agent. If the tax return and bank deposits do not match, the Agent will then want to resolve that situation immediately.

In many cases, when the Agent finds there are too many expenses and not enough income, it leads to the possibility of the Agent looking for unreported income, and the likelihood of a referral for the taxpayer to be audited.

IRS is not concerned about any debt other than what is allowed by the National Standard Expenses. IRS has little or no concerns about any other expenses you may have. If you are paying credit cards, tithing, loans to third parties or college tuition, IRS will generally never allow for these payments if it is not allowed by and on the National Standard. Therefore, you should familiarize yourself with the IRS National Standards before submitting your financial statement to IRS. So basically, IRS is mostly interested in income and assets. Their eyes are fixed on what they can recover out of those available assets.

IRS will do everything in their power to take whatever they can out of income and assets, that caution should be used when turning over financial statements to the IRS. Therefore, I would never recommend anyone turning over a financial statement to the IRS without a trained tax professional first reviewing the form.

Also please keep this in mind, IRS will and can review all bank statements for the last 6 months to make sure your financial statement ties in directly to the bank statements. They can and will pull credit reports to find out what monthly payments you may be making on credit cards, car payments, etc. IRS will in some cases use the internet to search and find out other sources of income and assets.

It is always a good idea, to hire a trained tax professional to deal with the IRS; it is highly recommended to use former IRS Collection Agents trained in tax resolution.

Keeping staff updated on issues concerning VAT is among the most pressing challenges faced by today’s businesses, particularly those operating throughout Europe, and perhaps the best way to face this challenge is to enroll key personnel in applicable VAT training courses. In an ideal business setting, accounting and finance staff are naturally knowledgeable, proactive, and confident in dealing with subjects such as cross-border VAT. The problem is that it can be quite difficult even for a very determined individual to access the necessary information that can help keep them updated on VAT issues. Fortunately, there are now several client-specific online training available for this purpose, and these courses are specifically designed to empower key business personnel. Businesses will definitely gain enormous benefits from any of these training. Among other things, staff can become more efficient at handling VAT, compliance and cash flow are likely to improve, risks for fines and penalties can be greatly reduced, there will be significant morale boost, and costs are likely to be lowered.

The Essence of VAT Training Courses

VAT training courses essentially help individuals who are regularly involved in the preparation and maintenance of business records for VAT purposes. It allows them to gain a deeper understanding of the common VAT implications and why it’s important to keep accurate records that allow them to complete VAT returns properly. Basic online courses of this kind typically define the rules and regulations covering VAT and demonstrate the basic controls and procedures commonly applied to ensure timely and accurate submission of VAT returns. These training course also often discuss the powers of the Revenue and Customs and the penalties they are empowered to apply for any incomplete, inaccurate, or late submission of VAT returns.

International Trade and VAT Training Courses

It’s a good idea for any business in Europe to enroll their staff in an online VAT course that focuses on helping them gain a better understanding of the effects of the European Union and International Trade on VAT administration. Such a course usually illustrates the controls and procedures for complying with VAT requirements in this case. It will also show staff how to properly account for VAT on goods acquisition and dispatch as well as for related services between EU member states. Furthermore, it demonstrates how to correctly account for VAT on goods imported and exported to and from non-EU countries.

International Services and VAT Training Courses

There are also a lot of UK businesses that supply services to people and receive services from business outside the UK. The rules that apply as regards VAT in these cases are quite complex, which is why staff may also need to undergo VAT training courses that explain these rules logically and methodically. Such courses properly address such issues as VAT liability, place of supply, and reverse charges, which are commonly associated with international services. They also demonstrate how enrollees can correctly complete VAT returns in this case and include an overview of VAT rates and registration thresholds. Finally, these courses illustrate applicable rules and regulations with the use of practical examples that enrollees can surely relate with.

These are just some examples of online courses a UK-based business can choose to enroll their staff in. Whatever investment in time and money you make in these VAT training course will surely be worth your while.

In order to make sure you find a really good bookkeeping course you will need to do some homework. This will take time. Set aside a dedicated few days to do this. If you are careful it is certainly possible to source a good quality course where you can learn the basics of keeping your accounts without spending any cash at all.

When researching bookkeeping courses you may also come across classes held by your local government offices or small business advisory services. These can be very good and certainly there are some free courses available. If you decide to learn through a course you find on the internet (and there are some excellent free or inexpensive classes out there) then check out the qualifications of the provider. Also see what help is available as you complete your studies and if there are any ‘hidden’ costs.

Once you have chosen your course then the next thing to bear in mind is that if you do need to buy any equipment or supplies you get the best deal you can. Make sure you only get what you truly need. Bookkeeping can often actually all be done on paper. There are even some quite extensive businesses that run perfectly well recording everything manually on paper or simply using spreadsheets on a computer. Naturally it takes longer to record all the incomings and outgoings of a business on paper using a pencil but if you really want to save on your costs then this is probably the best method.

If you are thinking of using an accounting software package to manage a business’s accounts then there are some excellent programs available but naturally these tend to involve costs and we are interested in starting small and on saving your money. So you will have to decide what you need now, and what can wait. Once you have learned the basics of bookkeeping for free (or at a minimal cost) and you know how to do it all on paper then you can look around at how to attract your customers. Once you have a customer or two and have started to establish an income then you can think about carefully planning what you could buy to improve the speed of your bookkeeping. This might involve accounting software.

Bookkeeping can be done from home and many people make a great living from it. Every small business needs its bookkeeping organised and so there will always be a demand for someone like you. Even if you never actually become someone else’s bookkeeper you might start your own business (doing something other than bookkeeping) and then do your own books. You will lose nothing but a little time by learning this valuable skill, and you will probably gain confidence through taking a class on accounting as well as saving money. By doing your own books you will also be fully in control of your business as you will be keeping an eagle eye on what’s really going on with your finances. That makes great business sense whichever way you look at it.

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Author’s Description:

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Howto

As a promotional merchandise and branding business, my company has helped many marketing professionals over the years find the perfect promotional pens to build their brand.

I have personally watched young small businesses increase their market share significantly though the use of logo printed personalised pens. The successful businesses always ensure their important customers have a good selection of plastic and/or metal pens promoting their brand and contact details.

I have also seen companies do it the wrong way, asking for the cheapest pens their money could buy – choosing quantity over quality. This strategy is okay for some but disastrous for others.

It must be said that there are many factors that determine the success or failure of a marketing campaign but the quality of the promotional products you give to you clients is a key factor.

I love it when new customers contact me for advice about which promotional pens are the best. It means that they are open to suggestions and it gives me a chance to help ensure their marketing campaign is a success.

Which pens are best really depends on what you are trying to accomplish. A bank or stop smoking charity can get away with offering their target audience really cheap low quality pens.

The bank could be offering their customers a simple writing instrument to jot down a few details in their cheque book. A stop smoking organisation may just want to get their website details out to thousands of people at a football match. These cheap promotional pens offer a service and a way to build their brands or spread their message inexpensively.

A small business such as a family restaurant, accounting firm or PR agency will want to think very carefully before going down the cheap pen route! These types of companies will get much better value for their money by promoting themselves with better quality promotional pens.

Look at the selections offered by Senator Pens, Lecce Pens, Prodir and Bic and you will find good quality pens that have long writing lives and look fantastic. These good quality plastic promotional pens will help make your business look successful rather than looking cheap by offering pens that dry up they day after they are received.

It is a good idea to keep your top customers stocked up with a nice selection of quality plastic pens. These promotional items will be used regularly and each time they are they will be reinforcing your brand in a positive way.

Your top clients and customers will also appreciate a nicer, brand name gift pen. The obvious choices would be the pens manufactured by Parker, Cross and Waterman though the little know brand, Lamy, is becoming the must have pen this year. Lamy pens are innovative, stylish and simply must be seen if you are considering handing out gift pens to your customers.

It should be noted that where plastic pens can easily be sent through the post or placed on the reception desk for people to help themselves to, promotional gift pens are best handed out in person.

A gift pen in an attractive gift box will be kept and used for years offering you an amazing way to show you appreciation while building your brand at the same time.

You may still hold the traditional view that accountancy is all about juggling numbers. That’s still true, but there’s more to accountancy than that: if you’re a good communicator, have good English skills and can solve problems there could still be a great future for you in accountancy. It’s a professional that can take you around the world, because accountants are needed anywhere there’s a business, and the best place to start is right here at home – with an accountancy apprenticeship.

AN ACCOUNTANCY APPRENTICESHIP? WHAT DOES THAT INVOLVE?

There are two main ingredients to an accountancy apprenticeship: a company, and a course. The company should be willing to support you through your studies, and the course should be one run by the AAT (Association of Accounting Technicians). Companies and courses like that aren’t difficult to find: many organizations are more than happy to support you on your way to an AAT qualification, and courses are available at local colleges or from BPP, Kaplan and other professional tuition providers.

The courses are structured programmes to give you theoretical knowledge and practical training and experience, and throughout those courses you’ll be assessed on an ongoing basis… and getting paid, too.

AND AFTER THE APPRENTICESHIP?

You’ve got a huge selection of accountancy roles to choose from once you’ve qualified, and in pretty well any kind of company you want – in any business sector. Here are just a few to start with:

Public practice would be working for a firm of accountants. You could be dealing with clients’ requirements in fields such as tax, audit, forensic accounting, business recovery, insolvency, and corporate finance.

Working in the public / not-for-profit sector, you could find yourself employed by charities or government departments like the NHS or the NAO (National Audit Office), and your role could include any of the following: bookkeeping, invoicing, financial reporting, budgeting, payroll, invoicing and credit control… or even fundraising.

In the private sector, you could choose to work for companies of any size, from a single person operation to a high-street business, to a bank, an insurance broker or even a multinational corporation in one of these roles: payroll, management information, report production, budgeting, invoicing and credit control or risk analysis.

AND IN THE FUTURE?

That initial qualification you’ve gained during your accountancy apprenticeship could well be your stepping stone to a high-paying career in chartered accountancy via that AAT-ACA Fast Track. And that really would be your fast track to a prestigious career: for example, over 67% of all the qualified accountants working as CEOs or Finance Directors in the FTSE 100 are ACA qualified.